I need to check status of web server, specifically, the information if the web server returns proper status code 200. Is there any way to get the HTTP response code from web server in iOS?
This is well documented in the official docs, with no need to implement a 3rd party library (although if you're new to iOS coding, a Networking API can simplify the underlying function calls). Your class must be an NSURLConnection delegate, and after making the NSURLConnection you implement the delegate method something like this:
-(void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didReceiveResponse:(NSHTTPURLResponse*)response
{
if ([response statusCode] == 200) {
// Handle valid response (You can probably just let the connection continue)
}
else {
// Other status code logic here (perhaps cancel the NSURLConnection and show error)
}
}
You should find the URL Loading Guide very useful reading for this and other networking functions on iOS.
Related
I'm working on an iOS application using Xamarin.Forms. This application is using UIWebView controller that shows a web application that is hosting on my server. Each time that I make a request I have to send a custom header in order to identify that this request comes to the mobile application and not from a browser, to do this I'm using an NSUrlProtocol object that overrides the method Request that inserts the custom header on each request.This is my code:
public override NSUrlRequest Request {
get {
NSMutableDictionary headers = null;
if (null == base.Request.Headers) {
headers = new NSMutableDictionary ();
} else {
headers = new NSMutableDictionary (base.Request.Headers);
}
headers.Add(NSObject.FromObject(AppVariables.headerVariable), NSObject.FromObject (AppVariables.appVersion));
NSMutableUrlRequest newRequest = (NSMutableUrlRequest)base.Request.MutableCopy ();
newRequest.Headers = headers;
return newRequest;
}
}
The problem that I have right now is that I noticed since I started using the NSUrlProtocol the loading time of the pages is increasing a lot. Right now the loading is taking 10 seconds, before this implementation the page took 3 seconds approximately.
Can anyone please point out some helpful direction to overcome this??
I don't see any reasons for the delay in response time when you're using custom headers. Like Andreas mentioned in the comments, I believe it has to do with your server code. I would recommend profiling your server code.
Do you see similar results when you send the requests (with custom headers) from Fiddler or cURL?
Just like #AndreasPaulsson and #prashant had mentioned, server might be the culprit. I would recommend testing the API with tools like Postman and check the response speed. I would also recommend you to check ModernHttpClient by Paul C Betts. In iOS the library uses NSUrlSession.
Suppose, the webservice provider's server exposing the webservice in the form http://example.com:8000/api
What is best framework or library to access the webservice in ios 7 project
There are a few marshaling frameworks that support generating an object-graph from XML, however I would simply go for the following:
Invoke the service endpoint. My favorite library is BBHTTP, however you could use AFNetworking, NSURLConnection with gcd or whatever you prefer for asynch network calls.
Extract the relevant contents of the XML payload onto your use-case specific payload object using RaptureXML
I recommend having use-case specific payload objects because they model exactly what is needed for a given service invocation - supporting the notion of contract-first development. This allows you to change you internal model without effecting the integration to external systems. Similarly the external API can change without effecting your model.
You can create a category method on RXMLElement to return the element mapped to a use-case-specific object. A typical mapping usually takes just a handful of lines of code to marshal from wire-format to your payload object for the service invocation.
Here's an example (the code that I took it from wanted the payload wrapped in a SOAP envelope - just ignore that bit).
- (void)request:(MyUseCaseRequstPayload*)request onComplete:(void (^)(MyResponsePayload*))onSuccess
onError:(void (^)(NSError*))onError;
{
//Even more XML! You can stick your payload inside an envelope if you want
SoapEnvelope* envelope = [SoapEnvelope envelopeWithContent:[request xmlString]];
[[BBHTTPRequest postToURL:_serviceUrl data:[envelope data] contentType:#"text/xml"] execute:^(BBHTTPResponse* response)
{
RXMLElement* element = [RXMLElement elementFromXMLData:[response content]];
MyResponsePayload* response = [[element child:#"elementToBeMapped"] asMyObjectType];
if (onSuccess)
{
onSuccess(response);
}
} error:^(NSError* error)
{
LogDebug(#"Got error: %#", error);
if (onError)
{
onError(error);
}
}];
}
I'm working on an app which primarily works with an API that will be installed in an internal system. The API is also accessible via the public internet. The client wants to allow users to enter both an internal and external (public internet) URL that the app will then connect to depending on availability of the internal and external URLs.
The app is basically done with the exception that it currently connects to the internal URL only for all it's API calls. I'm using AFNetworking with block-based completion/failure invocations for each API call.
Based on the logic that we have designed, the app will always check for the API's availability by querying for the server's current time. This is done by calling http://internal_url/api/time. If this API fails to return an appropriate respond, we'll switch to the external URL http://external_url/api/time and call the same API on that URL. If both fails, the app will inform the user accordingly and not perform any other queries to the API.
Without revealing too much, here's some code on how I the API calls are currently setup:
- (void)someAPIMethodCall:(NSDictionary *)parameters completionBlock:block failure:block {
// query /api/time and return the URL (internal/external) that is currently up
AFHTTPClient *client = [AFHTTPClient clientWithBaseURL:<url returned from above query>];
[client operationWithSuccess:block failure:block];
}
So my question would be: what is the best way to get the query /api/time method above to work? Obviously, this method needs to complete and return either the internal/external URL so that the subsequent actual API query could use. AFAIK, AFNetworking calls are block-based so it will return before the above /api/time returns. I've also thought of a separate class that uses NSURLConnection synchronously which will block the main-thread while it waits for the /api/time to return.
I'd like to tell you to simply use the same URL internally and externally (via DNS) but that's not what you want.
I think you're asking how to conditionally call the other url.
You want someAPIMethodCall to be asynchronous... so you don't want to block on the call to checking for the correct api to call.
Aside from caching the results so you don't have to do this every time, you simply want to call another block based method of your own that has a completion block which passes IN a parameter of the URL to call for your real query.
- (void)someAPIMethodCall:(NSDictionary *)parameters completionBlock:(void (^)(void))succesBlock failure((^)(void)):failureBlock {
[self callBlockWithMyApiUrl:^(NSString *apiUrl){
AFHTTPClient *client = [AFHTTPClient clientWithBaseURL:apiUrl];
[client operationWithSuccess:successBlock failure:failureBlock];
} onFailure:^{
failureBlock
}
}
- (NSString *)callBlockWithMyApiUrl:(NSString * (^)(void))success (void (^)(void))failure
{
// Your code to test for the working URI
// If you're doing it this way, I'd suggest caching the result.
// Subscribe to networking interface changes to dump the cache.
}
I want to check if a web ressource is available without download any data. For exemple, if I do a NSURLConnection on a webPage, I can get the status code:
- (void) connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didReceiveResponse:(NSURLResponse *)response{
NSHTTPURLResponse* httpResponse = (NSHTTPURLResponse*)response;
int code = [httpResponse statusCode];//200 is ok
}
But all page datas are downloaded.
How can I get this code (or equivalent) without download this page ?
The status code comes along with the server answer, once you get the status code you will have the body as well.
Another option is maybe to check if the resource is reachable using the Reachability classes.
Check this example, it may help.
Update: borrrden pointed in the right direction here (use HEAD method instead of GET) check the comment on your anwser
What does a web service need to do to cause NSURLConnection's delegate to receive the connection:didFailWithError: message?
For example:
iOS app passes a token to the web service, web service looks up the token, and then the web service needs to respond with an error saying "invalid token" or something of the like.
Currently, the data is received, and in "connectionDidFinishLoading:" is parsed for error messages. This means I'm error checking in two places, which I am trying to avoid.
I have both the iOS app and web service completely under my control.
In my experience (the three most dangerous words in programming), -connection:didFailWithError: is only called if the HTTP exchange failed. This is usually a network error or maybe an authentication error (I don't use authentication). If the HTTP message succeeds, no matter the response code, -connectionDidFinishLoading: is called.
My solution: call -connection:didFailWithError: when I detected an error. That way all my error handling code is in one place.
At the top of my -connectionDidFinishLoading:, I have:
NSError *error;
NSDictionary *result = [self parseResultWithData:self.connectionData error:&error];
if (!result) {
[self connection:connection didFailWithError:error];
return;
}
There are many conditions on which the delegate connection:didFailWithError: of NSUrlConnection may invoke.Here's a list of those errors or constants.I think an alertview would be better to show http errors in connection:didFailWithError:.
-(void) connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didFailWithError: (NSError *)error
{
UIAlertView *errorAlert= [[UIAlertView alloc] initWithTitle: [error localizedDescription] message: [error localizedFailureReason] delegate:nil cancelButtonTitle:#"Done" otherButtonTitles:nil];
[errorAlert show];
[errorAlert release];
NSLog (#"Connection Failed");
}
While not directly related to your question, I would encourage you to move to a more high level library. I can heartily recommend AFNetworking, it is production ready and I have used it in many projects. This will allow you to inspect the response code of each request in the failure block. This project also abstracts away a lot of the low level handling that you would otherwise be required to write for network communication; I'm speaking here about parsing and creating XML / JSON strings to communicate with a service.
To give you a more focused answer to your question, I would call the cancel method of your NSURLConnection once you have noticed an error in connectionDidFinishLoading:. This will automatically cancel the request and call the failure method of the delegate object.
The documentation for NSURLConnection is pretty dry, and the failure method of the delegate does not specifically document the failure cases. You may be able to find more information in the URL Loading System Programming Guide.
I couldn't see the forrest for the trees.
I needed to step back from connection:didFailWithError: and look at a different delegate method connection:didReceiveResponse:!!
With the web service fully under my control, the endpoint could respond with a 500 status code, which gets picked up in connection:didReceiveResponse, and pass along some JSON further explaining the situation, which gets picked up and processed in connection:didReceiveData:.
The NSURLConnection delegate hangs onto a couple more bits of state throughout the process, but it has the best code smell I've found so far.
Jeffery's answer was by far most correct: the connection:didFailWithError: callback is only in relation to the network failing, any response from the web service means the connection didn't fail!