What am I doing wrong in my nested if let statement?

Question

let movieDictionary = ["Spectre": ["cast": ["Daniel Craig", "Christoph Waltz", "Léa Seydoux", "Ralph Fiennes", "Monica Bellucci", "Naomie Harris"]]]
var leadActor: String = ""
// Enter code below
if let movie = movieDictionary["Spectre"], let cast = movie["cast"] {
  let leadActor =  cast[0]
}
```optionals.swift
let movieDictionary = ["Spectre": ["cast": ["Daniel Craig", "Christoph Waltz", "Léa Seydoux", "Ralph Fiennes", "Monica Bellucci", "Naomie Harris"]]]
var leadActor: String = ""
// Enter code below
if let movie = movieDictionary["Spectre"], let cast = movie["cast"] {
  let leadActor =  cast[0]
}
```

Dan Lindsay · Accepted Answer

Hello Edward,
We definitely need to do an if let nested in another if let for this one. First, we need to see if the movie exists, so we do this:
```swift 
if let movie = movieDictionary[“Spectre”] {
}
```
If that exists, our movie constant now holds the data for “Spectre”.  Now we need to see if the cast exists, so we do this:
```swift
if let movie = movieDictionary[“Spectre”] {
    if let cast = movie[“cast”] {
}
}
```
and if it’s there, it will be assigned to our constant cast. Now we just need to grab the first index of cast, and assign it to our leadActor, like so:
swift
if let movie = movieDictionary[“Spectre”] {
    if let cast = movie[“cast”] {
        leadActor = cast[0]
    }
}

This should pass the challenge.  I do find working with dictionaries(and Optionals, for that matter) can be quite challenging, especially when it’s a dictionary within a dictionary within a dictionary(and so on).  Once you start to work with parsing JSON data(if you are not already) from the web(working with different API’s), you’ll find that a lot of the data seems to be stored in dictionaries, so this is important stuff to learn. 
Hope this helps you out!
Dan

Dan Lindsay · Answer

You are welcome Edward!
Treehouse has this one:
https://teamtreehouse.com/library/network-programming-with-swift-2
It is Swift 2, so some of the code will be different with Swift 3, but it still will give you a chance to get into parsing some data!  Even doing the JSON specific courses on here is a good idea, even if they are not Swift related.  
All the best!

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Edward Sapp

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What am I doing wrong in my nested if let statement?

2 Answers

Dan Lindsay

Dan Lindsay

Edward Sapp

Edward Sapp

jenko

jenko

Dan Lindsay

Dan Lindsay