I am trying to build a parser/objectMapper that will build Objective C objects for the JSON I consume from a REST service.
I took some inspiration from RestKit by having
Consider using RestKit: http://restkit.org
This framework has all you need — REST and JSON abstractions, object mapping, even Core Data support and a lot of really useful stuff, all implemented in a customizable and elegant manner.
UPDATE: Ok, while writing yet another mapping method, I decided I can't do it anymore and done a small framework. It introspects object's properties, and with a little tuning gives you free pretty description, isEqual/hashCode, free NSCoding support, and allows generating to/from JSON mappers (ok, actually, NSDictionary, but who would use it for something else). All NSNull-checks, missing fields in JSON, new unexpected fields in JSON are handled gracefully and reported properly.
If anybody wants this shared to the public, you could give me some upvotes or comments. I'd do that eventually, but I might consider sharing it faster.