How To Clear A UIWebView - ios

Question

I am very new to the whole programming business, and was wondering if there is any way to clear the contents of a UIWebView in iphone programming, so that the loading symbol for the next view is not showing up in front of the last view.
Many Thanks,
Thomas

Answer 1

Try setting the URL to about:blank and reload the page.

Answer 2

Just load an empty html string into it
[self.webView loadHTMLString:#"" baseURL:nil];

Answer 3

Answer extension for documentation purposes to maybe help someone else:
I had the same desire (clear content before loading next url) but had a UIWebView delegate set to receive webviewDidFinishLoad:(UIWebView)webview message and update another part of UI in response.
Problem: the call to clear the content to also called delegate method, so getting false-hits (that is, getting call when clear is done, too, but delegate is coded to expect call only when real content is loaded).
Solution: use a known URL for clear, and have webviewDidFinishLoad: ignore calls made when that URL is finished:
- (void) startLoadOfNextURL:(NSURL*)url
{
// clear:
[self.webView loadHTMLString:#"" baseURL:nil];
// Load real next URL
NSURLRequest* request = [NSURLRequest requestWithURL:url];
[self.webView loadRequest:request];
}
- (void)webViewDidFinishLoad:(UIWebView *)webView
{
NSLog(#"WebView finished loading: %#", webView);
if ([self.webView.request.URL.absoluteString isEqualToString:#"about:blank"]) {
NSLog(#" This is Blank. Ignoring as false event.");
}
else {
NSLog(#" This is a real url");
[self updateUIInSomeWay];
}
}
Note: using this:
[self.webView loadHTMLString:#"about:blank" baseURL:nil];
actually causes the words "about:blank" to appear as text in the webview's content pane!
Final complication: In practice, with my two [webview load...] calls so close together, I was finding that instead of a "loaded" event for the clear, the webview was actually canceling it in favor of the second request and calling webView: didFailLoadWithError: for the first load request. Thus, I had to put similar code in that event:
- (void)webView:(UIWebView *)webView didFailLoadWithError:(NSError *)error
{
NSLog(#"WebView error on: %#", webView);
NSLog(#"Error is: %#", error);
NSURL* failingURL = [error.userInfo objectForKey:#"NSErrorFailingURLKey"];
if ([failingURL.absoluteString isEqualToString:#"about:blank"]) {
NSLog(#" This is Blank. Ignoring.");
}
else {
NSLog(#" This is a real URL.");
[self doSomethingAboutError];
}
}

Answer 4

Swift, Xcode 7 beta 5
webView.loadRequest(NSURLRequest(URL: NSURL(string: "about:blank")!))

Answer 5

Swift 4.0 , XCODE 9
webView.loadRequest(URLRequest.init(url: URL.init(string: "about:blank")!))

Answer 6

Same answer in Swift 4.2, xCode 10
if let clearURL = URL(string: "about:blank") {
myWebView.loadRequest(URLRequest(url: clearURL))
}