Keeping KEYS in correct ORDER in NSDictionary/NSArray from JSON

Question

I have a JSON array returning from a request.
Data is as such (it comes from external source and cannot be changed from server):

[{\"clients\":
{\"name\":\"         


        

Answer 1

Not only is NSDictionary in principle unordered, but so are JSON objects. These JSON objects are identical:

[{"clients":
{"name":"Client name here","telephone":"00000","email":"clientemail@hotmail.com","website":"www.clientname.com"}
}]

[{"clients":
{"website":"www.clientname.com","name":"Client name here","telephone":"00000","email":"clientemail@hotmail.com"}
}]

If the server wants to have ordered keys, it needs to send an array. Of course you can just use the keysSortedByValueUsingComparator: method to get the keys in a sorted order.