Is it possible to use the:
[NSMutableArray writeToURL:(NSString *)path atomically:(BOOL)AuxSomething];
In order to send a file (NSMutableArray) XML file to a url, and update the url to contain that file?
for example:
I have an array and I want to upload it to a specific URL and the next time the app launches I want to download that array.
NSMutableArray *arrayToWrite = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithObjects:#"One",#"Two",nil];
[arrayToWrite writeToURL:
[NSURL urlWithString:#"mywebsite.atwebpages.com/myArray.plist"] atomically:YES];
And at runtime:
NSMutableArray *arrayToRead =
[[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithContentsOfURL:[NSURL urlWithString:#"mywebsite.atwebpages.com/myArray.plist"]];
Meaning, I want to write an NSMutableArray to a URL, which is on a web hosting service (e.g. batcave.net, the URL receives the information and updates server sided files accordingly.
A highscore like setup, user sends his scores, the server updates it's files, other users download the highscores at runtime.
As for part one of your question,
I'll assume you want to use the contents of a NSMutableArray to form some sort of a URL request (like POST) that you will send to your web service and expect back some information...
There is no prebuilt way of sending the contents of a NSMutableArray to an URL but there are simple ways of doing this yourself. For example, you can loop through the data of your array and make use of NSURLRequest to create a URL request that complies with the interface of your web service. Once you've constructed your request you can send it by passing it a NSURLConnection object.
Consider this very simple and incomplete example of what the client-side code might look like using an Obj-C array to provide data...
NSMutableData *dataReceived; // Assume exists and is initialized
NSURLConnection *myConnection;
- (void)startRequest{
NSLog(#"Start");
NSString *baseURLAddress = #"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/";
// This is the array we'll use to help make the URL request
NSArray *names = [NSArray arrayWithObjects: #"Jonny_Appleseed",nil];
NSString *completeURLAsString = [baseURLAddress stringByAppendingString: [names objectAtIndex:0]];
//NSURLRequest needs a NSURL Object
NSURL *completeURL = [NSURL URLWithString: completeURLAsString];
NSURLRequest *myURLRequest = [NSURLRequest requestWithURL: completeURL];
// self is the delegate, this means that this object will hanlde
// call-backs as the data transmission from the web server progresses
myConnection = [[NSURLConnection alloc] initWithRequest:myURLRequest delegate: self startImmediately:YES];
}
// This is called automatically when there is new data from the web server,
// we collect the server response and save it
- (void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didReceiveData:(NSData *)data
{
NSLog(#"Got some");
[dataReceived appendData: data];
}
// This is called automatically when transmission of data is complete
- (void)connectionDidFinishLoading:(NSURLConnection *)connection {
// You now have whatever the server sent...
}
To tackle part 2 of your question, the receiver of a web request will likely require some scripting or infrastructure to make a useful response.
Here, Answer in this question:
Creating a highscore like system, iPhone side
I couldn't edit my post because I posted from my iPhone as an anonymous user, sorry.
Related
I'm trying to modify a behavior of a webpage within my iOS app and make the in-page media player play a file from the local caches folder instead of fetching it from a web server.
Below is my code that replaces the http:// video path with a local file path. The code does not work, giving me "Resource Temporary not available. Please try again" error message popup. Is it possible to have a web-based media player play file from a local disk using file URL?
I tried substituting these for the instanceURL, but they don't seem to work.
[fileURL path]
[fileURL absolutePath]
I'm intercepting the request for the file and am parsing it to find out that the page is asking for a video file:
- (void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didReceiveData:(NSData *)data
// An NSURLConnection delegate callback. We pass this on to the client.
{
NSDictionary* decisionDictionary = [[RequestListener sharedInstance] shouldContinue:connection processRequestData:data];
BOOL shouldContinue = [decisionDictionary[#"shouldContinue"] boolValue];
if(shouldContinue == NO)
{
return;
}else
{
NSData* d = data;
//substitute fake data
if(decisionDictionary[#"data"])
{
d = decisionDictionary[#"data"];
}
[[self client] URLProtocol:self didLoadData:d];
}
}
Within my shouldContinue method, I check if the video is present locally and modify the response data to create a path to a local video.
NSString* path = [VideoDownloader localVideoPathForVideoID:videoID];
NSURL* fileURL = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:path];
DLog(#"url:%#",[fileURL absoluteString]);
NSString* replacement = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"\"instanceUrl\":\"%#\"",[[fileURL absoluteURL] absoluteString]];
DLog(#"replacement:%#",replacement);
NSString* forgedResponse = [parts componentsJoinedByString:#","];
NSData* forgedData = [forgedResponse dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
return #{#"shouldContinue":#(YES),#"data":forgedData};
Have a look at NSURLProtocol. You can intercept http requests before they are sent to a host to decide what to do about it: Continue to server, redirect to local cache.
There's a decent tutorial by our beloved Ray Wenderlich.
Apple has a programming guide as well.
So I have finally created a VERY simple application in which I invoke a web service and NSLog the JSON data. I have used about 3 web services so far, and all of them look different. For example, in the small little app I made I used two different URLS. My code is below:
- (void)viewDidLoad
{
[super viewDidLoad];
NSString *urlString = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"http://ielmo.xtreemhost.com/array.php"];
NSString *urlString2 = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"http://bookapi.bignerdranch.com/courses.json"];
NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:urlString2];
NSData *data = [NSData dataWithContentsOfURL:url];
NSError *error;
NSMutableDictionary *json = [NSJSONSerialization JSONObjectWithData:data options:kNilOptions error:&error];
NSLog(#"%#", json);
// Do any additional setup after loading the view, typically from a nib.
}
My question is how come I can NSLog BOTH of those link's json data fine even if one of them is a .php url. Sorry for such a nooby question but I want to go about looking for web services I can use, and I want to be able to know how to look, because when I look for my own web services, they don't end up working.
There's no way you can differentiate the content of a URL by the URL itself (unless it's an HTML)
The contents of a URL depend on what the server wants to serve. You can have an http://www..../something.php for example, and there's no way to know what you'll get, it could be an HTML page, it could be a PDF document, it could be a zip file, or it could be JSON content.
I am trying to fetch data from an api and I have this code:
// create the URL we'd like to query
NSString *urlString = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"https://www.googleapis.com/adsense/v1.1/reports"];
NSString *token = auth.accessToken;
NSMutableURLRequest *myURL = [NSURL URLWithString:urlString];
[myURL addValue:token forHTTPHeaderField:#"Authentication"];
// we'll receive raw data so we'll create an NSData Object with it
######
How would I complete this step? So far I have
NSData *myData =
######
// now we'll parse our data using NSJSONSerialization
id myJSON = [NSJSONSerialization JSONObjectWithData:myData options:NSJSONReadingMutableContainers error:nil];
// typecast an array and list its contents
NSArray *jsonArray = (NSArray *)myJSON;
NSLog(#"%#", jsonArray);
How would I connect on the 9th line?
It looks like you are putting all this code in one place (making a synchronous network request). This is typically a bad idea. You should put the first part (creating and starting the request) in one place, and put the parsing code in a separate method / block that gets called once the request is completed. (This is called an asynchronous network request.)
You should take a look at +[NSURLConnection sendAsynchronousRequest:queue:completionHandler:]. You can pass your NSURLRequest in here, and then specify the completion (parsing, etc.) in the completion handler. It will give you the NSData object you're looking for - see documentation here.
If you have more than a handful of network connections, this can get unwieldy. You may want to look at a third party library like AFNetworking, which can manage much of the tedious stuff for you, and let you focus on calling a URL, and parsing the response.
You need:
NSData *myData = [NSURLConnection sendSynchronousRequest:myURL returningResponse:nil error:nil];
This is a synchronous call. I'll suggest always using asynchronous webcalls is a good way.
I'm doing a parsing of a XML and my problem begins when i want to store a NSData of an url needed for my parser. This URL contains the user and the password to authenticate (returns a XML), and in my first UIview it's checked this values. Everything is alright and it's properly authenticated, but once is authenticated if I change the password, the url changes but the corresponding nsdata is stored like before, i.e.:
First time: correct user+correct pass = correct access.
Second time: correct user + incorrect pass = correct access
Also:
First time: correct user + incorrect pass = incorrect access
Second time: correct user + correct pass = incorrect access
It's like the first password was retained and the connection maybe is still alive…so i don't know if I would have to change the default headers of the HTTP...help please!
Here is the code:
-(id) loadXMLByURL: (NSString *)urlString {
NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString: urlString]; //The URL changes correctly
NSMutableData *data = [[NSMutableData alloc] initWithContentsOfURL:url]; //Here is the problem
parser = [[NSXMLParser alloc]initWithData:data];
parser.delegate = self;
[parser parse];
return self;
}
I have a NSURLConnection that receives data output from a url pointing to a php script on my server.
Most of the time everything works fine and the data is retrieved in its complete form.
However, sometimes I receive NULL or broken (i.e. the bottom half) of data at:
- (void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didReceiveData:(NSData *)data
When this happens, if I reload the connection it will always return the same null or broken block
of data for the request.
EDIT*:
I've realized that when I receive what I thought was nil data, I actually received data
but the NSString created from this data is nil. I still don't understand why though. My php encoding output is always UTF-8 so I don't think it is an issue of encoding and besides it works most of the time with this.
I have checked the php script with that same request to verify that it is not a problem on the server side or with the php script and confirmed that it is NOT.
My code is Below:
-(void)setUpConnectionAndMakeRequest {
NSString *URLpath = #"http://www.example.com/myphp.php";
NSURL *myURL = [[NSURL alloc] initWithString:URLpath];
NSMutableURLRequest *myURLRequest = [NSMutableURLRequest requestWithURL:myURL cachePolicy:NSURLRequestReloadIgnoringLocalCacheData timeoutInterval:60];
[myURL release];
[myURLRequest setHTTPMethod:#"POST"];
//I added this because I thought it may be a problem relating to cache but it isn't
NSURLCache *cache = [NSURLCache sharedURLCache];
[cache removeAllCachedResponses];
NSString *httpBodystr = [NSString stringWithString:#"command=runscript"];
[myURLRequest setHTTPBody:[httpBodystr dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];
[mailData setData:nil]; //mailData is a NSMutableData object which accumulates the data retrieved by the request
[NSURLConnection connectionWithRequest:myURLRequest delegate:self];
}
- (void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didReceiveData:(NSData *)data {
NSString *untrimmedDataSTR = [[NSString alloc] initWithData:data encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]; //Created so I can see the data (always text) in NSLog
NSLog(#"Live Data: %#", untrimmedDataSTR); //This is where I see that the data is broken or null when it shouldn't be
[mailData appendData:data]; //Append accumulated data to NSMutableData object used later in my app.
[untrimmedDataSTR release];
}
Any help would be much appreciated.
According to the NSString reference, -initWithData:encoding: returns nil if "the initialization fails for some reason (for example if data does not represent valid data for encoding)."
That almost certainly means that the response from the server is not, in fact, UTF-8 encoded data.
The way to check would be to NSLog the data before trying to convert to an NSString:
NSLog(#"Raw Data: %#", data);
(The -description method on NSData will return a hexadecimal representation of the contents; that's what will get logged).