Sending data to PHP server - ios

Question

I'm trying to set up sending data to a PHP server but I'm having no luck at all.
Here is my PHP code.
<?php
require_once "../config/config.php";
var_dump($_POST);
var_dump($_REQUEST);
// Read request parameters
if(isset($_REQUEST)){
$username = $db->escape($_REQUEST["username"]);
$email = $db->escape($_REQUEST["email"]);
$password = $db->escape($_REQUEST["password"]);
$id = MD5($email);
echo $username;
//$db->query("INSERT INTO user ('id','username','email','password') VALUES ('$id','$username','$email',PASSWORD('$password'))");
$returnValue = $id;
}else{
$returnValue = "No data received";
}
// Send back request in JSON format
echo json_encode($returnValue);
?>
Here is my Swift Code
let request = NSMutableURLRequest(URL: NSURL(string: "http://***************/register.php")!)
let session = NSURLSession.sharedSession()
request.HTTPMethod = "POST"
let data = "username=JoeBloggs&email=joe#bloggs.com&password=12345"
request.HTTPBody = (data as NSString).dataUsingEncoding(NSUTF8StringEncoding)
request.addValue("application/json", forHTTPHeaderField: "Content-Type")
request.addValue("application/json", forHTTPHeaderField: "Accept")
let task = session.dataTaskWithRequest(request) { (data, response, error) -> Void in
print(response)
let strData = NSString(data: data!, encoding: NSUTF8StringEncoding)
print(strData)
print(error)
}
task.resume()
I'm not concerned about getting a result back yet (I have that working fine). I just can't get any data to the server.
Here is the result from the above script.
Optional(<NSHTTPURLResponse: 0x7ff9b3d6ea90> { URL: http://iep.almartin.co.uk/register.php } { status code: 200, headers {
"Cache-Control" = "no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0";
Connection = close;
"Content-Type" = "text/html; charset=UTF-8";
Date = "Tue, 01 Sep 2015 09:02:46 GMT";
Expires = "Thu, 19 Nov 1981 08:52:00 GMT";
Pragma = "no-cache";
Server = nginx;
"Set-Cookie" = "PHPSESSID=8j2d7oobg9plvdik1dcbqtoq70; path=/";
"Transfer-Encoding" = Identity;
} })
Optional(array(0) {
}
array(0) {
}
<br />
<b>Notice</b>: Undefined index: username in <b>/home/linweb34/i/iep.almartin.co.uk/user/htdocs/register.php</b> on line <b>7</b><br />
<br />
<b>Notice</b>: Undefined index: email in <b>/home/linweb34/i/iep.almartin.co.uk/user/htdocs/register.php</b> on line <b>8</b><br />
<br />
<b>Notice</b>: Undefined index: password in <b>/home/linweb34/i/iep.almartin.co.uk/user/htdocs/register.php</b> on line <b>9</b><br />
"d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e")
nil
As you can see both $_REQUEST and $_POST are returning empty arrays.
What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

The error clearly says that there is problem with your MySQL usage.
Following are the working code template. It uses PDO for DB connection.
function __construct() {
$this->conn = new PDO('mysql:host=<your hostnam>;dbname=<dbname>', '<user>', '<pass>');
// Generate stack trace on failure.
$this->conn->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE, PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION);
}
/*
* Write a function and pass your variables
*/
function get_data_from_db($id,$username,$password,$email) {
$stmt = $this->conn->prepare("INSERT INTO `user`(`id`,`username`,`email`,`password`) VALUES (:id,:username,:email,PASSWORD(:password))");
$stmt->execute(array(':id' => $id, ':username' => $username, ':email' => $email, ':password' => $password));
$data = $stmt->fetchAll(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);
$stmt->closeCursor();
return $data;
}
Now in your code, just add a function call and you are done:
if(isset($_REQUEST)){
$username = $db->escape($_REQUEST["username"]);
$email = $db->escape($_REQUEST["email"]);
$password = $db->escape($_REQUEST["password"]);
$id = MD5($email);
$result = get_result_from_db($id,$username,$password,$email);
echo json_encode($result);
}
Note : Not tested, but it should work.

Answer 2

Found the problem.
It seems these lines are the culprit in my app.
request.addValue("application/json", forHTTPHeaderField: "Content-Type")
request.addValue("application/json", forHTTPHeaderField: "Accept")
It worked fine when I removed them.
Which brings up another question, how do I set up PHP to accept header type "application/json" ?

Answer 3

To send JSON to a server with POST you have to put the data to be sent into a dictionary and serialize the dictionary with NSJSONSerialization
let request = NSMutableURLRequest(URL: NSURL(string: "http://***************/register.php")!)
let session = NSURLSession.sharedSession()
let postData = ["username" : "JoeBloggs", "email" : "joe#bloggs.com", "password" : "12345"]
do {
let jsonData = try NSJSONSerialization.dataWithJSONObject(postData, options: NSJSONWritingOptions())
request.HTTPMethod = "POST"
request.setValue("\(jsonData.length)", forHTTPHeaderField:"Content-Length")
request.setValue("application/json", forHTTPHeaderField:"Accept")
request.setValue("application/json", forHTTPHeaderField:"Content-Type")
request.HTTPBody = jsonData
let task = session.dataTaskWithRequest(request) { (data, response, error) -> Void in
print(response)
let strData = NSString(data: data!, encoding: NSUTF8StringEncoding)
print(strData)
print(error)
}
task.resume()
} catch let error as NSError {
print(error)
}

Answer 4

So I followed #vadian answer which didn't work initially. I did some research into why PHP wasn't accepting application/json.
I got it to work by using $HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA instead of $_POST or $_REQUEST in the php file.
However! $HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA is now depreciated but the following code works
$json = file_get_contents('php://input');
$obj = json_decode($json);
Seems like a PHP hack to me but at least it works.