Sending POST and GET requests in iOS is quite easy; and there's no need for an additional framework.
POST Request:
We begin by creating our POST's body (ergo. what we'd like to send) as an NSString, and converting it to NSData.
objective-c
NSString *post = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"test=Message&this=isNotReal"];
NSData *postData = [post dataUsingEncoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding allowLossyConversion:YES];
Next up, we read the postData's length, so we can pass it along in the request.
NSString *postLength = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%d", [postData length]];
Now that we have what we'd like to post, we can create an NSMutableURLRequest, and include our postData.
NSMutableURLRequest *request = [[NSMutableURLRequest alloc] init];
[request setURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@"http://YourURL.com/FakeURL"]];
[request setHTTPMethod:@"POST"];
[request setValue:postLength forHTTPHeaderField:@"Content-Length"];
[request setHTTPBody:postData];
swift
let post = "test=Message&this=isNotReal"
let postData = post.data(using: String.Encoding.ascii, allowLossyConversion: true)
let postLength = String(postData!.count)
var request = URLRequest(url: URL(string: "http://YourURL.com/FakeURL/PARAMETERS")!)
request.httpMethod = "POST"
request.addValue(postLength, forHTTPHeaderField: "Content-Length")
request.httpBody = postData;
And finally, we can send our request, and read the reply by creating a new NSURLSession:
objective-c
NSURLSession *session = [NSURLSession sessionWithConfiguration:[NSURLSessionConfiguration defaultSessionConfiguration]];
[[session dataTaskWithRequest:request completionHandler:^(NSData *data, NSURLResponse *response, NSError *error) {
NSString *requestReply = [[NSString alloc] initWithData:data encoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding];
NSLog(@"Request reply: %@", requestReply);
}] resume];
swift
let session = URLSession(configuration: .default)
session.dataTask(with: request) {data, response, error in
let requestReply = NSString(data: data!, encoding: String.Encoding.ascii.rawValue)
print("Request reply: \(requestReply!)")
}.resume()
GET Request:
With the GET request it's basically the same thing, only without the HTTPBody and Content-Length.
objective-c
NSMutableURLRequest *request = [[NSMutableURLRequest alloc] init];
[request setURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@"http://YourURL.com/FakeURL/PARAMETERS"]];
[request setHTTPMethod:@"GET"];
NSURLSession *session = [NSURLSession sessionWithConfiguration:[NSURLSessionConfiguration defaultSessionConfiguration]];
[[session dataTaskWithRequest:request completionHandler:^(NSData *data, NSURLResponse *response, NSError *error) {
NSString *requestReply = [[NSString alloc] initWithData:data encoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding];
NSLog(@"Request reply: %@", requestReply);
}] resume];
swift
var request = URLRequest(url: URL(string: "http://YourURL.com/FakeURL/PARAMETERS")!)
request.httpMethod = "GET"
let session = URLSession(configuration: .default)
session.dataTask(with: request) {data, response, error in
let requestReply = NSString(data: data!, encoding: String.Encoding.ascii.rawValue)
print("Request reply: \(requestReply!)")
}.resume()
On a side note, you can add Content-Type (and other data) by adding the following to our NSMutableURLRequest. This might be required by the server when requesting, e.g, a json.
objective-c
[request setValue:@"application/json" forHTTPHeaderField:@"Content-Type"];
[request setValue:@"application/json" forHTTPHeaderField:@"Accept"];
Response code can also be read using [(NSHTTPURLResponse*)response statusCode].
swift
request.addValue("application/json", forHTTPHeaderField: "Content-Type")
request.addValue("application/json", forHTTPHeaderField: "Accept")
Update: sendSynchronousRequest is deprecated from ios9 and osx-elcapitan (10.11) and out.
NSURLResponse *requestResponse; NSData *requestHandler = [NSURLConnection sendSynchronousRequest:request returningResponse:&requestResponse error:nil]; NSString *requestReply = [[NSString alloc] initWithBytes:[requestHandler bytes] length:[requestHandler length] encoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding]; NSLog(@"requestReply: %@", requestReply);