Apple WebObjects 3.5 - Manual (Page 202)

Chapter 11 WebScript Programmer’s Quick Reference to Foundation Classes
202
Creating Dictionaries
The methods in this section are class methods, as denoted by the plus sign (+).
You use class methods to send messages to a class—in this case, NSDictionary
and NSMutableDictionary. For more information on class methods, see
“Sending a Message to a Class” (page 172).
+ dictionary
Returns an empty dictionary. Usually used to create
NSMutableDictionaries. NSDictionaries created with this method are
permanently empty.
// Most common use
id mutableDictionary = [NSMutableDictionary dictionary];
// May not be what you want
id dictionary = [NSDictionary dictionary];
+ dictionaryWithObjects:forKeys:
Returns a dictionary containing entries constructed from the contents
of a specified array of objects and a specified array of keys. The two
arrays must have the same number of elements.
id preferences = [NSMutableDictionary
dictionaryWithObjects:@("window", "non-smoking", "747")
forKeys:@("seatAssignment", "smoking", "aircraft")];
+ dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:
Returns a dictionary containing entries constructed from a specified set
of objects and keys. This method takes a variable number of
arguments: a list of alternating objects and keys ending with
nil .
id customerPreferences = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:
seatingPreference, @"seatAssignment",
smokingPreference, @"smoking",
aircraftPreference, @"aircraft", nil];
+ dictionaryWithDictionary:
Returns a dictionary containing the contents of a specified dictionary.
Usually used to create an NSMutableDictionary from an immutable
NSDictionary.
+ dictionaryWithContentsOfFile:
Returns a dictionary initialized from the contents of a specified file.
The specified file can be a full or relative pathname; the file that it
names must contain a string representation of a dictionary, such as that
produced by the
writeToFile:atomically: method.
See also description (page 205) .