Replace all Special Characters in String with valid URL characters - swift

Question

I cannot figure out how to replace all special characters in a string and convert it to a string I can use in a URL.
What I am using it for:
I am uploading an image, converting it to base64, and then passing it to the Laravel framework, however the base64 string can contain +, /, \, etc. which changes the meaning of the URL.
I can replace the + sign with the following code:
let withoutPlus = image.stringByReplacingCharactersInRange("+", withString: "%2B")
however then I cannot use that as a NSString to try and change the other characters.
Surely there is a way to just target every single special character and convert it something usable in a URL?

Answer 1

You can use stringByAddingPercentEncodingWithAllowedCharacters to escape characters as needed. You pass it an NSCharacterSet containing the characters that are valid for that string (i.e. the ones you don't want replaced). There's a built-in NSCharacterSet for characters allowed in URL query strings that will get you most of the way there, but it includes + and / so you'll need to remove those from the set. You can do that by making a mutable copy of the set and then calling removeCharactersInString:
let allowedCharacters = NSCharacterSet.URLQueryAllowedCharacterSet().mutableCopy() as NSMutableCharacterSet
allowedCharacters.removeCharactersInString("+/=")
Then you can call stringByAddingPercentEncodingWithAllowedCharacters on your string, passing in allowedCharacters:
let encodedImage = image.stringByAddingPercentEncodingWithAllowedCharacters(allowedCharacters)
Note that it will return an optional String (String?) so you'll probably want to use optional binding:
if let encodedImage = image.stringByAddingPercentEncodingWithAllowedCharacters(allowedCharacters) {
/* use encodedImage here */
} else {
/* stringByAddingPercentEncodingWithAllowedCharacters failed for some reason */
}
Example:
let unencodedString = "abcdef/+\\/ghi"
let allowedCharacters = NSCharacterSet.URLQueryAllowedCharacterSet().mutableCopy() as NSMutableCharacterSet
allowedCharacters.removeCharactersInString("+/=")
if let encodedString = unencodedString.stringByAddingPercentEncodingWithAllowedCharacters(allowedCharacters) {
println(encodedString)
}
Prints:
abcdef%2F%2B%5C%2Fghi

Answer 2

Use
let withoutPlus = image.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("+", withString: "%2B")
rather than image.stringByReplacingCharactersInRange. Note that your call as posted doesn't work, as that method is declared as
func stringByReplacingCharactersInRange(range: Range<String.Index>, withString replacement: String) -> String
and you are not supplying the correct parameters.

Answer 3

You might do better to use POST to send a file, rather than encode it into your URL