One would think that parsing and generating xml files using the iPhone SDK would be a simple task.  However, Apple decided to leave out the NSXML and related classes from the SDK.  So- out of the box, that leaves us with NSXMLParser.  No thanks.

My first question was: How can I deal with xml the way I’m used to- the way C#, ActionScript, and to a lesser extent JavaScript handle it.  The answer is the wonderful KissXML package.

Now we can do things like this:

NSString * fileContents = [NSString stringWithContentsOfFile: filePath encoding: NSUTF8StringEncoding error:nil];
DDXMLDocument * doc = [[DDXMLDocument alloc] initWithXMLString: fileContents options:0 error:nil];
DDXMLElement * root = [doc rootElement];
NSDictionary * mapAttribs = [root attributesAsDictionary];

mapSize.width = [[mapAttribs valueForKey:@"width"] intValue];
mapSize.height = [[mapAttribs valueForKey:@"height"] intValue];

DDXMLElement * tilemap = [[root elementsForName:@"tilemap"] objectAtIndex:0];
NSString * source = [[tilemap attributeForName:@"source"] stringValue];

Not as good as C#, but much better than NSXMLParser. Happy XMLing.