Modify URL Before Loading Request in UIWebView - ios

Question

I created a native app from my web app using UIWebView.
My webapp is a basic CMS with some static pages, some category pages and and some detail pages.
Now I need to check if the request comes from the web app or the native app.
To do this I have two possibilities:
First solution: Modify URL and check URL on server side:
#IBOutlet var WebView: UIWebView!
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
loadWebPage()
}
func loadWebPage() {
let url = NSURL(string: "http://localhost:8888?apptype=native")
let request = NSURLRequest(URL: url!)
WebView.loadRequest(request)
}
When I check on server side if the the parameter exists on the first page it works, but when I switch to other pages (categories etc.) the condition fails.
Second solution: I tried to set cookies:
#IBOutlet var WebView: UIWebView!
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
loadWebPage()
}
func loadWebPage() {
let url = NSURL(string: "http://localhost:8888")
let request = NSURLRequest(URL: url!)
var cookies = NSHTTPCookieStorage.sharedHTTPCookieStorage().cookies as! [NSHTTPCookie]
var reqCookies:[AnyObject] = []
for aCookie in cookies {
reqCookies += [aCookie]
}
var headers = NSHTTPCookie.requestHeaderFieldsWithCookies(reqCookies)
WebView.loadRequest(request)
}
But how do I add cookies in this example in the response so I can retrieve them on server side?
Are there any other solutions or how can I modify my existing ones?

Answer 1

Implement the UIWebViewDelegate method webView:shouldStartLoadWithRequest:navigationType:.
When the user taps a link in the webview, this delegate method is called. Take the request.url of NSURLRequest passed into the delegate method and create a new NSURLRequest with ?apptype=native appended to the request.url property.