Is there a way to view the key/value pairs of a NSDictionary variable through the Xcode debugger? Here's the extent of information when it is fully expanded in the variable window:
Variable Value Summary
jsonDict 0x45c540 4 key/value pairs
NSObject {...}
isa 0xa06e0720
I was expecting it to show me each element of the dictionary (similar to an array variable).
In the gdb window you can use po to inspect the object.
given:
NSMutableDictionary* dict = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] init];
[dict setObject:@"foo" forKey:@"bar"];
[dict setObject:@"fiz" forKey:@"buz"];
setting a breakpoint after the objects are added you can inspect what is in the dictionary
(gdb) po dict
{
bar = foo;
buz = fiz;
}
Of course these are NSString objects that print nicely. YMMV with other complex objects.
You can right-click any object (ObjC or Core Foundation) variable and select “Print Description to Console” (also in Run->Variables View). This prints the result the obejct’s -debugDescription method, which by default calls -description. Unfortunately, NSDictionary overrides this to produce a bunch of internal data the you generally don’t care about, so in this specific case craigb’s solution is better.
The displayed keys and values also use -description, so if you want useful information about your objects in collections and elsewhere, overriding -description is a must. I generally implement it along these lines, to match the format of the default NSObject implementation:
-(NSString *) description
{
return [NSString stringWithFormat:@"<%@ %p>{foo: %@}", [self class], self, [self foo]];
}
If you would like to print these in a breakpoint action in modern XCode (yes, I am 10 years after the original post!) use the following breakpoint expression in a "Log Message" action:
@myDictionary.description@
Below is a screenshot of my breakpoint action where the variable event is an NSString and the variable contextData is the NSDictionary that I am logging the contents of:
:
