How to URL encode a NSString - encoding

I am trying to url encode a string, but the NSURLConnection is failing because of a 'bad url'. Here is my URL:
NSString *address = mp.streetAddress;
NSString *encodedAddress = [address stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
NSString *cityState= mp.cityState;
NSString *encodedCityState = [cityState stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
NSString *fullAddressURL = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"http://www.zillow.com/webservice/GetDeepSearchResults.htm?zws-id=<X1-ZWz1bivd5de5mz_8xo7s>&address=%#&citystatezip=%#", encodedAddress, encodedCityState];
NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:fullAddressURL];
Here is the API's example of calling the URL:
Below is an example of calling the API for the address for the exact address match "2114 Bigelow Ave", "Seattle, WA":
http://www.zillow.com/webservice/GetDeepSearchResults.htm?zws-id=<ZWSID>&address=2114+Bigelow+Ave&citystatezip=Seattle%2C+WA
For some reason this URL is failing to connect. Can someone help me out?

You have to encode your fullAddressURL before sending that to NSURL instead of encoding address & cityState individually.
NSString *address = #"2114 Bigelow Ave";
//NSString *encodedAddress = [address stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
NSString *cityState= #"Seattle, WA";
// NSString *encodedCityState = [cityState stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
NSString *fullAddressURL = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"http://www.zillow.com/webservice/GetDeepSearchResults.htm?zws-id=<X1-ZWz1bivd5de5mz_8xo7s>&address=%#&citystatezip=%#", address, cityState];
fullAddressURL = [fullAddressURL stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
NSLog(#"fullAddressURL: %#",fullAddressURL);
NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:fullAddressURL];
I have tested above code and it is giving me same output as given link http://www.zillow.com/webservice/GetDeepSearchResults.htm?zws-id=<ZWSID>&address=2114+Bigelow+Ave&citystatezip=Seattle%2C+WA

Related

NSURL and NSString converting issue

When trying to load a request I do like this:
NSString *urlStrings = [NSLocalizedStringFromTable(#"kPicturesURL", #"urls", nil) stringByAppendingPathComponent:#"Articles/a.pdf"];
NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:urlStrings];
Inside of "urls" I have this key:
/* Service pictures directory */
"kPicturesURL" = "http://192.168.2.104/myApp/Pictures";
And I get this result: (The first line is "urlStrings" and the second is the "url")
(NSString *) $6 = 0x092a8f60 http:/192.168.2.104/myApp/Pictures/Articles/a.pdf
2012-11-22 09:18:20.093 NPE[7680:c07] Couldn't issue file extension for path: /192.168.2.104/myApp/Pictures/Articles/a.pdf
I've tried those questions:
NSString and NSUrl not converting properly
NSURL not getting allocatd with NSString
Pass NSString into NSURL URLWithString ?
NSString to NSURL ?
NSString to NSURL
Non of those worked, what seems to be the problem?
Thanks!
Maybe instead of:
http:/192.168.2.104/myApp/Pictures/Articles/a.pdf
This:
http://192.168.2.104/myApp/Pictures/Articles/a.pdf
So, using one of the following did worked eventually.
This one:
NSString *stringURL = [url absoluteString];

How to resolve ftp url with special characters like #,$?

Can someone suggest how to resolve the ftp url with special characters.
Take the string, use the stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding method to escape it, then you can use it normally:
NSString *fuzzyUrl = #"ftp://jailbreak.apple.com/?foo=###&bar=$$$&baz=¥¥¥";
NSString *urlString = [fuzzyUrl stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
NSURL *url = [[NSURL alloc] initWithString:urlString];
// ...
// your code here
// ...
[url release];

NSURL is null while NSString is correct in Objective-C

I have an NSString containing a url and when I allocate NSURL with the NSString, NSURL outputs (null). It's because there are some illegal characters in the url, which NSURL can't read without encoding the NSString containing the url.
NSString *u = [incomingUrlString stringByReplacingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:u];
NSLog(#"INCOMINGURLSTRING: %#" , u);
NSLog(#"URL: %#" , url);
Output is:
INCOMINGURLSTRING: /url/path/fileName_blå.pdf
URL: (null)
incomingUrlString contains the Norwegian letter "å", which I think is the reason for the NSURL being (null)
I also tried this:
NSString *trimmedString = [file stringByTrimmingCharactersInSet:[NSCharacterSet whitespaceAndNewlineCharacterSet]];
NSString *encodedString = (NSString *)CFURLCreateStringByAddingPercentEscapes(NULL, (CFStringRef)trimmedString, NULL, (CFStringRef)#"!*'\"();:#&=+$,/?%#[]% ", kCFStringEncodingUTF8);
NSLog(#"TRIMMEDSTRING: %#" , trimmedString);
NSLog(#"ENCODEDSTRING: %#" , [encodedString stringByReplacingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]);
NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:encodedString];
NSLog(#"URL: %#" , url);
Here the output is:
TRIMMEDSTRING: /url/path/fileName_blå.pdf
ENCODEDSTRING: /url/path/fileName_blå.pdf
URL: %2Furl%2FPath%2FfileName_bl%C3%A5.pdf
My goal is to load the URL into a UIWebView. It works for all the other incoming urls except for this one, they all look the same except for the filename. This is the only one containg an illegal character. But I have to find a way to encode this, because there will be more files containg either "æ", "ø" or "å" in the future.
I know the output does not look correct according to url standards, which I did on purpose. I can't show the correct url with http://blah blah because of security reasons.
Can anyone help?
The method you're using for percent-encoding the characters in the string also escapes legal URL characters. This would be appropriate if you were encoding a URL parameter, in this case though it would be better to simply use stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding: because it leaves the characters that are part of the URL's structure (':', '/', etc.) intact:
NSString *u = #"http://example/path/fileName_blå.pdf";
u = [u stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:u];
NSLog(#"%#", url); // http://example.com/path/fileName_bl%C3%A5.pdf
If you have an URL that is a file path you must use + (id)fileURLWithPath:(NSString *)path. For the URLWithString: method the String must contain a scheme like file:// or http://.
stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding is deprecated.
The new way (iOS 7+) to do it is:
NSString *encoded = [raw stringByAddingPercentEncodingWithAllowedCharacters:NSCharacterSet.URLPathAllowedCharacterSet];
File path is defined by https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8089.
The key part is to allow characters . and / and disallow %. CharacterSet.urlPathAllowed fits the requirements.
Output with your example:
incomingString: /url/path/fileName_blå.pdf
encodedString: /url/path/fileName_bl%C3%A5.pdf
URL: /url/path/fileName_bl%C3%A5.pdf
I found also that for some North European characters, NSISOLatin1StringEncoding fits better.
- (void) testEncoding {
NSString * urlString = #"http://example/path/fileName_blå.pdf";
urlString = [urlString stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:NSISOLatin1StringEncoding];
NSURL * url = [NSURL URLWithString:urlString];
NSLog(#"URL: %#", url);
}

How to integrate bitly api to shorten my link in iphone sdk

I created an app which get the url of my youtube videos in the text field using GData Client Library. Now i want to shorten that url using bitly api.. But i don't have an idea about that.
if anybody done it before me, please tell me how you did it.
Thanks,
Chakradhar.
This is a quick and easy way of doing it.
You will need to register with bit.ly and obtain a login name and API key.
NSString *username = #"user";
NSString *apiKey = #"R_11111111111111";
NSString *url = #"yoururl.com";
NSString *shortURL = [NSString stringWithContentsOfURL:[NSURL URLWithString:[NSString stringWithFormat:#"http://api.bit.ly/v3/shorten?login=%#&apikey=%#&longUrl=%#&format=txt", username, apiKey, url]] encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding error:nil];
Here is an iOS wrapper for bit.ly api https://github.com/st3fan/iphone-bitly
This has worked well for me, and since it is a synchroeous request there is a slight delay to fetch the link so you may want to display a Progress HUD:
NSString *accessToken = YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN;
NSString *url = YOUR_URL;
NSString *bitlyRequest = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"https://api-ssl.bitly.com/v3/shorten?access_token=%#&longUrl=%#",accessToken, url];
NSString *bitlyResponse = [NSString stringWithContentsOfURL:[NSURL URLWithString:bitlyRequest] encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding error:nil];
NSData *data = [bitlyResponse dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
NSDictionary *bitlyDictionary = [NSJSONSerialization JSONObjectWithData:data options:0 error:nil];
NSString *bitlyUrl = bitlyDictionary[#"data"][#"url"];
I suggest you start with theri API documentation.

How to concatenate an nsstring url

How can I concatenate an NSString URL? For example:
http://isomewebsite.com/username=[someuservariable]&password=[somevariable]
Try with below code.
NSString* myURLString = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"somewebsite.com/username=%#&password=%#", myUserName,myPassword];
NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:myURLString];
Here is the blog tutorial will help you know more about Handling url authentication challenges accessing password protected servers
You can use the method stringWithFormat of NSString:
NSString *url = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"somewebsite.com/username=%#&password=%#", someuservariable, some variable];
Try this excellent post - URL encoding an NSString on iOS