infecting a C project with an NSDictionary

[Travis Griggs]

I'm maintaining/evolving a relatively complex/legacy C app. Like many 
apps, it grew over its life cycle, and did so in an interesting way. One 
way is that amongst various querying/setting commands, it has generic 2D 
arrays of "parameters" and "counters". Different "modes" in the 
application have different interpretations for which cells mean what in 
these tables. Pretty classic hacked up legacy C code design. :)

So I'm having to add yet another mode to this system. And I've just had 
it with this blob of 2D cells. The veteran Smalltalker in me knows 
there's a better way, and its name is Dictionary. So I'd like to infect 
my new mode, and eventually the rest of the system, slowly replacing the 
2D array with dictionaries of named entries.

These arrays have traditionally been just int32's. To store these in the 
Dictionary, I have to wrap them huh? Also, I want to use Strings as the 
keys. Can I just use char*'s for these, or do I have to cast them into 
NSStrings--I was hoping maybe the conversion was automatic :). And what 
about memory management. Any other hints/suggestions on how to architect 
this, which APIs to use? What do I need to do keep memory safe?

TIA

--
Travis Griggs
Objologist
Key Technology
Achille's Heel?!?! What about "Goliath's Forehead"

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