How to build a URL by using Dictionary in Swift - ios

Question

So I am messing around with the iMessages Framework, and in order to send data to another user the data must be sent as a URLComponents URL. However I can't figure out how to send a dictionary to use as the messages.url value.
func createMessage(data: dictionary) {
/*
The Dictionary has 3 values, 1 string and two arrays.
let dictionary = ["title" : "Title Of Dictionary", "Array1" : [String](), "Array2" : [String]() ] as [String : Any]
*/
let components = URLComponents()
let layout = MSMessageTemplateLayout()
layout.image = UIImage(named: "messages-layout.png")!
layout.imageTitle = "\(dictionary["title"])"
let message = MSMessage()
message.url = components.url!
message.layout = layout
self.activeConversation?.insert(message, completionHandler: { (error: Error?) in
print("Insert Message")
})
}
Does anybody know how I can send the dictionary values as URLQueryItems in the URLComponents to save as the message.url ?
PS: I was wondering wether it would be possible to create an extension for the URL to store the dictionary in, that is what I am unsuccessfully trying atm.

Answer 1

Here is a code snippet to convert dictionary to URLQueryItems:
let dictionary = [
"name": "Alice",
"age": "13"
]
func queryItems(dictionary: [String:String]) -> [URLQueryItem] {
return dictionary.map {
// Swift 3
// URLQueryItem(name: $0, value: $1)
// Swift 4
URLQueryItem(name: $0.0, value: $0.1)
}
}
var components = URLComponents()
components.queryItems = queryItems(dictionary: dictionary)
print(components.url!)

Answer 2

You can use the following URLComponents extension:
extension URLComponents{
var queryItemsDictionary : [String:Any]{
set (queryItemsDictionary){
self.queryItems = queryItemsDictionary.map {
URLQueryItem(name: $0, value: "\($1)")
}
}
get{
var params = [String: Any]()
return queryItems?.reduce([:], { (_, item) -> [String: Any] in
params[item.name] = item.value
return params
}) ?? [:]
}
}
}
And set the url components:
var url = URLComponents()
url.queryItemsDictionary = ["firstName" : "John",
"lastName" : "Appleseed"]

Answer 3

You can use iMessageDataKit library. It's a tiny, useful MSMessage extension for setting/getting Int, Bool, Float, Double, String and Array values for keys.
It makes setting and getting data really easy like:
let message: MSMessage = MSMessage()
message.md.set(value: 7, forKey: "user_id")
message.md.set(value: "john", forKey: "username")
message.md.set(values: ["joy", "smile"], forKey: "tags")
print(message.md.integer(forKey: "user_id")!)
print(message.md.string(forKey: "username")!)
print(message.md.values(forKey: "tags")!)
(Disclaimer: I'm the author of iMessageDataKit)