merging two dictionaries

I am looking to merge dictionaries in response to the use开发者_StackOverflow社区r requesting more data from a server call.

I see this method is one available to me:

- (void)addEntriesFromDictionary:(NSDictionary *)otherDictionary

Which states this:

If both dictionaries contain the same key, the receiving dictionary’s previous value object for that key is sent a release message, and the new value object takes its place.

However for example on the first call my dictionary will have the keys 0, 1, 2, 3 as strings. Dont ask why this is the data I have to work with!

Then on another call for say the next 4 entries rather than getting string keys 4, 5, 6, 7 I get....0, 1, 2, 3!

So if I use the method above the original entries will always be overwritten.

Is there a way to merge such data so I get 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 etc?

Am I looking at some ugly form of enumeration?

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If all of your keys are sequential integers, you should be using arrays instead (or convert to them if you can't change the source format). arrayByAddingObjectsFromArray: will join them together after conversion, or addObjectsFromArray: if mutable.