Restful API call using IOS with authentication - ios

Question

I am working on an application that uses restful API call using prestashop API. I am new at IOS I coded the same method in android as:
InputStream is = null;
try {
DefaultHttpClient client = new DefaultHttpClient();
/* adding credentials as it is RESTful call */
String username = "xyz";
String password = "";
client.getCredentialsProvider().setCredentials(new AuthScope(AuthScope.ANY_HOST, AuthScope.ANY_PORT),new UsernamePasswordCredentials(username, password));
// HTTP get request
HttpGet get = new HttpGet("http://www.example.com/api/");
HttpResponse responseGet;
responseGet = client.execute(get);
is = responseGet.getEntity().getContent();
} catch (ClientProtocolException e) {
Log.e("HTTP Request","Client Protocol exception" );
} catch (IOException e) {
Log.e("HTTP Request","IO exception" );
}
It is working perfectly for Android. For IOS I used this coding but I am not getting data from the server.
NSString *userName = #"XYZ";
NSString *password = #"";
//setting the string of the url taking from appliance IP.
NSString *urlString = #"http://www.example.com/api/";
NSMutableURLRequest *request= [[NSMutableURLRequest alloc] init];
[request setURL:[NSURL URLWithString:urlString]];
[request setHTTPMethod:#"GET"];
NSString *str1 = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"%#:%#",userName,password];
NSLog(#" str1 %#", str1);
[request addValue:[NSString stringWithFormat:#"Basic %#",str1] forHTTPHeaderField:#"Authorization"];
NSData *returnData = [NSURLConnection sendSynchronousRequest:request returningResponse:nil error:nil];
NSString *str = [[NSString alloc] initWithData:returnData encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
NSLog(#"str: %#", str);
please tell me what I am doing wrong and provide any solution.
Thanks!

Answer 1

You can build the URL string this way and it should work :-
NSString *str1 = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"http://%#:%##www.example.com/api",userName,password];
No need to use the HTTP header fields I believe

Answer 2

Username and password need to be encoded using Base64 encoding when using Basic HTTP authentication.
From Wikipedia's Article on that subject:
Client side
When the user agent wants to send the server authentication
credentials it may use the Authorization header.
The Authorization header is constructed as follows:[6] Username and
password are combined into a string "username:password"
The resulting string literal is then encoded using Base64
The authorization method and a space i.e. "Basic " is then put before
the encoded string. For example, if the user agent uses 'Aladin' as
the username and 'sesam open' as the password then the header is
formed as follows:
Authorization: Basic QWxhZGluOnNlc2FtIG9wZW4=
See this corrected code:
[...]
NSString *str1 = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"%#:%#",userName,password];
NSString *encodedString = [self stringByBase64EncodingWithString:str1];
[request addValue:[NSString stringWithFormat:#"Basic %#",encodedString] forHTTPHeaderField:#"Authorization"];
[...]
- (NSString *)stringByBase64EncodingWithString:(NSString *)inString
{
NSData *data = [NSData dataWithBytes:[inString UTF8String]
length:[inString lengthOfBytesUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];
NSUInteger length = [data length];
NSMutableData *mutableData = [NSMutableData dataWithLength:((length + 2) / 3) * 4];
uint8_t *input = (uint8_t *)[data bytes];
uint8_t *output = (uint8_t *)[mutableData mutableBytes];
for (NSUInteger i = 0; i < length; i += 3)
{
NSUInteger value = 0;
for (NSUInteger j = i; j < (i + 3); j++)
{
value <<= 8;
if (j < length)
{
value |= (0xFF & input[j]);
}
}
static uint8_t const base64EncodingTable[] = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789+/";
NSUInteger idx = (i / 3) * 4;
output[idx + 0] = base64EncodingTable[(value >> 18) & 0x3F];
output[idx + 1] = base64EncodingTable[(value >> 12) & 0x3F];
output[idx + 2] = (i + 1) < length ? base64EncodingTable[(value >> 6) & 0x3F] : '=';
output[idx + 3] = (i + 2) < length ? base64EncodingTable[(value >> 0) & 0x3F] : '=';
}
return [[NSString alloc] initWithData:mutableData encoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding];
}

Answer 3

-(void)getApiCall:(NSString *)urlString response:(NSMutableArray *)response{
NSString *url= urlString;
NSURL * serviceUrl = [NSURL URLWithString:url];
NSMutableURLRequest * serviceRequest = [NSMutableURLRequest requestWithURL:serviceUrl cachePolicy:nil timeoutInterval:10.0];
[serviceRequest setValue:#"Application/json" forHTTPHeaderField:#"Content-type"];
[serviceRequest setHTTPMethod:#"GET"];
NSURLResponse *serviceResponse;
NSError *serviceError;
NSData *responseData = [NSURLConnection sendSynchronousRequest:serviceRequest returningResponse:&serviceResponse error:&serviceError];
NSLog(#"REQUEST ==== >>>> %#",serviceUrl);
NSLog(#"RESPONSE ==== >>>> %#",responseData);
if (responseData != nil){
[self parseGetData:responseData responseArray:response];
}
else{
}
}
-(void)parseGetData:(NSData *)response responseArray:(NSMutableArray *)responseArray
{
id jsonObject = Nil;
NSString *charlieSendString = [[NSString alloc] initWithData:response encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
NSLog(#"ResponseString ==== >>>> %#",charlieSendString);
if (response==nil) {
NSLog(#"ERROR IN GET API....!!!!");
}else{
NSError *error = nil;
jsonObject =[NSJSONSerialization JSONObjectWithData:response options:kNilOptions error:&error];
if (error)
{
NSLog(#"%#",error);
}
else
{
NSError *error = Nil;
jsonObject =[NSJSONSerialization JSONObjectWithData:response options:kNilOptions error:&error];
if ([jsonObject isKindOfClass:[NSArray class]]) {
NSLog(#"Probably An Array");
}
else
{
NSLog(#"Probably A Dictionary");
NSDictionary *jsonDictionary=(NSDictionary *)jsonObject;
NSLog(#"jsonDictionary %#",[jsonDictionary description]);
if (jsonDictionary) {
[responseArray addObject:jsonDictionary];
}
}
}
}
}