Swift 4 using URLSession with non-secure URL - swift

Question

I'm trying to send data to a WebAPI service that uses HTTP and not HTTPS, however I get the following error:
"Thread 1: Fatal error: Unexpectedly found nil while unwrapping an Optional value"
Here is my code:
func logSample(emailSKU:String) -> String {
//let myAPI = "https://itunes.apple.com/us/rss/topmovies/limit=25/json"
let myAPI = "http://<myURlHere>/api/xxx"
let url = URL(string: myAPI)
let session = URLSession.shared.dataTask(with: (url)!) { (data, response, error) in <====== Breaks on this line
print("Response was:")
print(response)
}
session.resume()
return "return something here"
}
The API service works just fine from other applications.
If I use the iTunes url above, then everything works fine, so the only difference is the HTTP ver HTTPS.
I have added 'Allow Arbitrary Loads' declaration to the plist, any ideas?

Answer 1

I checked the RFC 3986 and it is the "|" character that isn't allowed and that you need to encode.

Answer 2

To supplement #Joakims answer:
The URL given is invalid because of the use of the | character and needs to be encoded. You can do this in the following way:
let urlString = "http://example.com/api/Scans?emailSKU=fred#example.com|123456"
if let encodedURLString = urlString.addingPercentEncoding(withAllowedCharacters: .urlQueryAllowed) {
let url = URL(string: encodedURLString)
print(url)
}
Which outputs:
Optional(http://example.com/api/Scans?emailSKU=fred#example.com%7C123456)
So | needs to be encoded, which replaces it with %7C