More organized way to collect JSON-parsed variables. Similar to JAVA's BSON where you file it into an object.

PasringJsonIntoStructs.swift

//: Playground - noun: a place where people can play

/**
More organized way to collect JSON-parsed variables. 
Similar to JAVA's GSON where you file it into an object with known types and methods. 
Best to run it in a SwiftPlayground
*/

import Foundation
let originalJSONString = "{\"id\":234789,\"State\":\"California\",\"ArrayEx\":[\"element1\",\"element2\"]}"
/**
 {
 "id": "234789",
 "State": "California",
 "ArrayEx": ["element1", "element2"]
 }
 */

struct SampleJsonConstruct{
    let id: Int!
    let state: String!
    let missing: String?
    let elementStrings: [String]!
    
    init(fromDictionary dictionary: [String: AnyObject]){
        id = dictionary["id"] as! Int
        state = dictionary["State"] as? String!
        missing = dictionary["missing"] as! String? ?? "ThisSideIsNil"
        elementStrings = dictionary["ArrayEx"] as? [String]!
    }
    
}

let data = originalJSONString.dataUsingEncoding(NSUTF8StringEncoding)
let resultDict = try! NSJSONSerialization.JSONObjectWithData(data!, options: NSJSONReadingOptions.AllowFragments) as! [String: AnyObject]

let done = SampleJsonConstruct(fromDictionary: resultDict)

done.id
done.state
done.elementStrings
done.missing