NSString encoding returns nil on url content - ios

Question

I'm following an iOS Swift guide on Udemy and this is the first issue I cannot work around:
I am supposed to see html etc printed to the console but instead I get null.
This is the section:
let url = NSURL(string: "https://google.com")
let task = NSURLSession.sharedSession().dataTaskWithURL(url!) {
(data, response, error) in
if error == nil {
var urlContent = NSString(data: data!, encoding: NSUTF8StringEncoding)
print(urlContent)
}
}
task.resume()
If I print just the data then it gives me some content back but when its encoded its nil.
Any help? Cannot move onto the next part until this is resolved.

Answer 1

The problem there as already mentioned by rmaddy it is the encoding you are using. You need to use NSASCIIStringEncoding.
if let url = URL(string: "https://www.google.com") {
URLSession.shared.dataTask(with: url) {
data, response, error in
guard
let httpURLResponse = response as? HTTPURLResponse, httpURLResponse.statusCode == 200,
let data = data, error == nil,
let urlContent = String(data: data, encoding: .ascii)
else { return }
print(urlContent)
}.resume()
}
Or taking a clue from Martin R you can detect the string encoding from the response:
extension String {
var textEncodingToStringEncoding: Encoding {
return Encoding(rawValue: CFStringConvertEncodingToNSStringEncoding(CFStringConvertIANACharSetNameToEncoding(self as CFString)))
}
}
if let url = URL(string: "https://www.google.com") {
URLSession.shared.dataTask(with: url) {
data, response, error in
guard
let httpURLResponse = response as? HTTPURLResponse, httpURLResponse.statusCode == 200,
let data = data, error == nil,
let textEncoding = response?.textEncodingName,
let urlContent = String(data: data, encoding: textEncoding.textEncodingToStringEncoding)
else { return }
print(urlContent)
}.resume()
}