JSON format sometimes not same, how to extract the info from the different JSON format?

Question

I'm using this to get the auto suggestion from Youtube.

http://suggestqueries.google.com/complete/search?hl=en&ds=yt&client=youtube&hjson=t&cp=1&q=Like&format=5&alt=json

["Tire",[["tired",0],["tired lyrics",0],["tired alan walker remix",0],["tired remix",0],["tired alan walker cover",0],["tired of being sorry enrique iglesias",0],["tire",0],["tired cover",0],["tiren mati kemaren full movie",0],["tired of talking",0]],{"k":1,"q":"raN20uYZUrouYBB7VsB396HlA88"}]

As you can see from above to extract the information from above, I am using this code to extract the information such as tired, tired lyrics, tired alan walker from the JSON array.

NSString *json = nil;
    NSScanner *scanner = [NSScanner scannerWithString:str];
    [scanner scanUpToString:@"[[" intoString:NULL]; // Scan to where the JSON begins
    [scanner scanUpToString:@"]]" intoString:&json];

    NSLog(@"json before = %@", json);
            //The idea is to identify where the "real" JSON begins and ends.
    json = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@%@", json, @"]]"];

but sometimes the JSON array might be this format as shown below.

["Like",[["likey",0,[131]],["likey twice lyrics",0,[3]],["likey dance",0,[3]],["likey dance practice",0,[3]],["likey live",0,[3]],["like i\u0027m gonna lose you",0],["like ooh ahh",0],["like a boss",0],["like a g6",0],["like a stone",0]],{"k":1,"q":"9DuLDtNkAUfZ2X9AVZN90t0Zxlw"}]

How can i extract the information above example like likey, likey twice lyrics ?

Answer 1

NSScanner isn't the best API for turning raw JSON into useful data.

You would be best served by using the native JSON API NSJSONSerialization

id json = [NSJSONSerialization JSONObjectWithData:data options:0 error:nil];

The json object can be cast into NSArray in your case here.

where the data is the raw data from the response.

see also this answer