objective c - deep mutable copy of a NSMutableDictionary

Question

I am trying to create a deep-copy of a NSMutableDictionary and assign it to another NSMutableDictionary. The dictionary contains a bunch of arrays, each array containing names, and the key is an alphabet (the first letter of those names). So one entry in the dictionary is 'A' -> 'Adam', 'Apple'. Here's what I saw in a book, but I'm not sure if it works:

- (NSMutableDictionary *) mutableDeepCopy
{
    NSMutableDictionary * ret = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] initWithCapacity: [self count]];
    NSArray *keys = [self allKeys];

    for (id key in keys)
    {
        id oneValue = [self valueForKey:key]; // should return the array
        id oneCopy = nil;

        if ([oneValue respondsToSelector: @selector(mutableDeepCopy)])
        {
            oneCopy = [oneValue mutableDeepCopy];
        }
        if ([oneValue respondsToSelector:@selector(mutableCopy)])
        {
            oneCopy = [oneValue mutableCopy];
        }

        if (oneCopy == nil) // not sure if this is needed
        {   
            oneCopy = [oneValue copy];
        }
        [ret setValue:oneCopy forKey:key];

        //[oneCopy release];
    }
    return ret;
}

• should the [onecopy release] be there or not?

• Here's how I'm going to call this method:

  self.namesForAlphabets = [self.allNames mutableDeepCopy];

Will that be ok? Or will it cause a leak? (assume that I declare self.namesForAlphabets as a property, and release it in dealloc).

Answer 1

Because of toll-free bridging, you can also use the CoreFoundation function CFPropertyListCreateDeepCopy:

NSMutableDictionary *mutableCopy = (NSMutableDictionary *)CFPropertyListCreateDeepCopy(kCFAllocatorDefault, (CFDictionaryRef)originalDictionary, kCFPropertyListMutableContainers);