Differences between sending POST with AFNetworking and curl - ios

Question

I
ve been using AFNetworking 2 with success for some time, but I stumbled upon case where I don't know where to turn my head to. I have to make POST request in order to log in, send credentials alongside and receive JSON back with operation status. For some weird reason sending it via AFNetworking like this:
NSDictionary *params = #{#"login": self.loginField.text, #"password" : self.passField.text};
NSDictionary *data = #{#"data": params};
AFHTTPRequestOperationManager *manager = [AFHTTPRequestOperationManager manager];
manager.requestSerializer = [AFJSONRequestSerializer serializer];
//manager.responseSerializer = [AFJSONResponseSerializer serializer];
[manager POST:server parameters:#{#"data" : params} success:^(AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation, id responseObject) {
NSLog(#"success: %#", responseObject);
} failure:^(AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation, NSError *error) {
NSLog(#"error: %#", error);
}];
I have to pack dictionary with parameters as a single "data" parameter. I do get back OK 200, but if I take a look in server logs I see that no data was transferred, which ended up as user not recognized.
But if send with curl this:
curl -d 'data={"login":"xx", "password":"yy"}' http://someurl/api/login/
I got perfectly fine response and in logs I see some actual data. Does anyone know how to deal with such a case?
If it helps, I'm doing it in iPhone simulator, not tested on actual device.

Answer 1

If you have a look at the AFNetworking source code, namely the class AFJSONRequestSerializer, you will see that the serialise function for that serialiser puts the parameters you hand over into the body - and not as an HTTP parameter as you expect.
You should use an AFHTTPRequestSerializer in your case - that will add the parameters as (URL-encoded) HTTP parameters to your URL.
Something like that should work in your case:
// build the JSON parameter string
NSDictionary *params = #{#"login": self.loginField.text, #"password" : self.passField.text};
NSError *error;
NSData *jsonData = [NSJSONSerialization dataWithJSONObject:params
options:0
error:&error];
NSString *jsonString = [[NSString alloc] initWithBytes:[jsonData bytes]
length:[jsonData length]
encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
// and now send the JSON parameter string as HTTP parameter
AFHTTPRequestOperationManager *manager = [AFHTTPRequestOperationManager manager];
manager.requestSerializer = [AFHTTPRequestSerializer serializer];
[manager POST:server
parameters:#{#"data" : jsonString}
success:^(AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation, id responseObject) {
NSLog(#"success: %#", responseObject);
}
failure:^(AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation, NSError *error) {
NSLog(#"error: %#", error);
}];