StringByAddingPercentEscapes not working on ampersands, question marks etc - iphone

I'm sending a request from my iphone-application, where some of the arguments are text that the user can enter into textboxes. Therefore, I need to HTML-encode them.
Here's the problem I'm running into:
NSLog(#"%#", testText); // Test & ?
testText = [testText stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
NSLog(#"%#", testText); // Test%20&%20?
As you can see, only the spaces are encoded, making the server disregard everything past the ampersand for the argument.
Is this the advertised behaviour of stringByAddingPercentEscapes? Do I have to manually replace every special character with corresponding hex code?
Thankful for any contributions.

They are not encoded because they are valid URL characters.
The documentation for stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding: says
See CFURLCreateStringByAddingPercentEscapes for more complex transformations.
I encode my query string parameters using the following method (added to a NSString category)
- (NSString *)urlEncodedString {
CFStringRef buffer = CFURLCreateStringByAddingPercentEscapes(kCFAllocatorDefault,
(CFStringRef)self,
NULL,
CFSTR("!*'();:#&=+$,/?%#[]"),
kCFStringEncodingUTF8);
NSString *result = [NSString stringWithString:(NSString *)buffer];
CFRelease(buffer);
return result;
}

Related

remove specific characters from NSString

I wants to remove specific characters or group substring from NSString.
mean
NSString *str = #" hello I am #39;doing Parsing So $#39;I get many symbols in &my response";
I wants remove #39; and $#39; and & (Mostly these three strings comes in response)
output should be : hello I am doing Parsing So i get many symbols in my response
Side Question : I can't write & #39; without space here, because it converted in ' <-- this symbol. so i use $ in place of & in my question.
you should use [str stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:#"#39" withString:#""]
or you need replace strings of concrete format like "#number"?
try below code ,i think you got whatever you want simply change the charecterset,
NSString *string = #"hello I am #39;doing Parsing So $#39;I get many symbols in &my response";
NSCharacterSet *trim = [NSCharacterSet characterSetWithCharactersInString:#"#39;$&"];
NSString *result = [[string componentsSeparatedByCharactersInSet:trim] componentsJoinedByString:#""];
NSLog(#"%#", result);

proper NSURL request encoding

I need to encode the body of my POST request but I don´t know which one to use.
I´m having a trouble with changing ´(´ into %28.
I was using so far NSUTF8StringEncoding, NSISOLatin1StringEncoding, NSISOLatin2StringEncoding. Non of them works.
The name of the parameter I have to send is:
monitoring_report[monitoring_report_time(1i)]=
which sould be transformed to:
monitoring_report%5monitoring_report_time%281i%29%5D=
and what I get is:
monitoring_report%5Bmonitoring_report_time(1i)%5D=
Use the Core Foundation function CFURLCreateStringByAddingPercentEscapes which has a legalURLCharactersToBeEscaped parameter. Parenthesis in URLs are legal which is why they're not escaped by default.
Example:
NSString *input = #"monitoring_report[monitoring_report_time(1i)]=";
NSString *output = [(NSString *)CFURLCreateStringByAddingPercentEscapes(kCFAllocatorDefault, (CFStringRef)input, NULL, CFSTR("()"), kCFStringEncodingUTF8) autorelease];
NSLog(#"%#", output); // monitoring_report%5Bmonitoring_report_time%281i%29%5D=

int to NSString issue

I use the following statement for into to NSString conversion (with a find/replace)
curr_rep_date = [tmpRptDt stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:tmpYrVal withString:[NSString stringWithFormat:(tmpCurrYearInt-1)]];
I have declared
int tmpYrVal;
NSMutableString *tmp_dt,*curr_rep_date;
But the program seems to be crashing and the debugger is not giving any hint.
Could someone help me with the issue and what would be the correct usage.
There's a number of problems here.
Firstly, sringByReplacingOcurrancesOfString:withString: is expecting NSStrings as parameters, not ints. That's the reason why it crashes. The method Is attempting to send a message to a primitive type, not an object.
Secondly, you need to use a proper format string for the stringWithFormat: method. This is the same as how NSLog works.
A format string can look like #"some text %d". It would then be followed by a comma separated list of values to be used in place of the % placeholders.
Example:
[NSString stringWithFormat:#"%d", myIntValue];
Will effectively turn your int into a string, as it creates a new string with a format using your int.
You invoked the stringWithFormat - Method without a format string. [NSString stringWithFormat: #"%i", (tmpCurrYearInt-1)] should solve your problem.
You are missing the format
curr_rep_date = [tmpRptDt stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:tmpYrVal withString:[NSString stringWithFormat:#"%d", (tmpCurrYearInt-1)]];
Basic int to NSString conversion works like this:
NSString* s = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"%d", intNumber];

iPhone SDK - stringWithContentsOfUrl ASCII characters in HTML source

When I fetch the source of any web page, no matter the encoding I use, I always end up with &# - characters (such as © or ®) instead of the actual characters themselves. This goes for foreign characters as well (such as åäö in swedish), which I have to parse from "&Aring" and such).
I'm using
+stringWithContentsOfUrl: encoding: error;
to fetch the source and have tried several different encodings such as NSUTF8StringEncoding and NSASCIIStringEncoding, but nothing seems to affect the end result string.
Any ideas / tips / solution is greatly appreciated! I'd rather not have to implement the entire ASCII table and replace all occurrances of every character... Thanks in advance!
Regards
I'm using
+stringWithContentsOfUrl: encoding: error;
to fetch the source and have tried several different encodings such as NSUTF8StringEncoding and NSASCIIStringEncoding, but nothing seems to affect the end result string.
You're misunderstanding the purpose of that encoding: argument. The method needs to convert bytes into characters somehow; the encoding tells it what sequences of bytes describe which characters. You need to make sure the encoding matches that of the resource data.
The entity references are an SGML/XML thing. SGML and XML are not encodings; they are markup language syntaxes. stringWithContentsOfURL:encoding:error: and its cousins do not attempt to parse sequences of characters (syntax) in any way, which is what they would have to do to convert one sequence of characters (an entity reference) into a different one (the entity, in practice meaning single character, that is referenced).
You can convert the entity references to un-escaped characters using the CFXMLCreateStringByUnescapingEntities function. It takes a CFString, which an NSString is (toll-free bridging), and returns a CFString, which is an NSString.
Are you sure they originally are not in Å form? Try to view the source code in a browser first.
That really, really sucks. I wanted to convert it directly and the above solution isn't really a good one, so I just wrote my own ascii-table converter (static) class. Works as it should have worked natively (though I have to fill in the ascii table myself...)
Ideas for optimization? ("ASCII" is a static NSDictionary)
#implementation InternetHelper
+(NSString *)HTMLSourceFromUrlWithString:(NSString *)str convertASCII:(BOOL)state
{
NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:str];
NSString *source = [NSString stringWithContentsOfURL:url encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding error:nil];
if (state)
source = [InternetHelper ConvertASCIICharactersInString:source];
return source;
}
+(NSString *)ConvertASCIICharactersInString:(NSString *)str
{
NSString *ret = [NSString stringWithString:str];
if (!ASCII)
{
NSString *path = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:kASCIICharacterTableFilename ofType:kFileFormat];
ASCII = [[NSDictionary alloc] initWithContentsOfFile:path];
}
for (id key in ASCII)
{
ret = [ret stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:key withString:[ASCII objectForKey:key]];
}
return ret;
}
#end

How do I encode "&" in a URL in an HTML attribute value?

I'd like to make a URL click able in the email app. The problem is that a parameterized URL breaks this because of "&" in the URL. The body variable below is the problem line. Both versions of "body" are incorrect. Once the email app opens, text stops at "...link:". What is needed to encode the ampersand?
NSString *subject = #"This is a test";
NSString *encodedSubject =
[subject stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
//NSString *body = #"This is a link: <a href='http://somewhere.com/two.woa/wa?id=000&param=0'>click me</a>"; //original
NSString *body = #"This is a link: <a href='http://somewhere.com/two.woa/wa?id=000&param=0'>click me</a>"; //have also tried &
NSString *encodedBody =
[body stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
NSString *formattedURL = [NSString stringWithFormat: #"mailto:myname#somedomain.com?subject=%#&body=%#", encodedSubject, encodedBody];
NSURL *url = [[NSURL alloc] initWithString:formattedURL];
[[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:url];
the ampersand would be %26 for HEX in URL Encoding standards
I've been using -[NSString gtm_stringByEscapingForURLArgument], which is provided in Google Toolbox for Mac, specifically in GTMNSString+URLArguments.h and GTMNSString+URLArguments.m.
You can use a hex representation of the character, in this case %26.
you can simply use CFURLCreateStringByAddingPercentEscapes with CFBridgingRelease for ARC support
NSString *subject = #"This is a test";
// Encode all the reserved characters, per RFC 3986
// (<http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3986.txt>)
NSString *encodedSubject =
(NSString *) CFBridgingRelease(CFURLCreateStringByAddingPercentEscapes(kCFAllocatorDefault,
(CFStringRef)subject,
NULL,
(CFStringRef)#"!*'();:#&=+$,/?%#[]",
kCFStringEncodingUTF8));
You use stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding, exactly like you are doing.
The problem is that you aren't using it enough. The format into which you're inserting the encoded body also has an ampersand, which you have not encoded. Tack the unencoded string onto it instead, and encode them (using stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding) together.
<a href='http://somewhere.com/two.woa/wa?id=000&param=0'>click me</a>
Is correct, although ‘&’ is more commonly used than ‘&’ or ‘,’.
If the ‘stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding’ method does what it says on the tin, it should work(*), but the NSString documentation looks a bit unclear on which characters exactly are escaped. Check what you are ending up with, the URL should be something like:
mailto:bob#example.com?subject=test&body=Link%3A%3Ca%20href%3D%22http%3A//example.com/script%3Fp1%3Da%26amp%3Bp2%3Db%22%3Elink%3C/a%3E
(*: modulo the usual disclaimer that mailto: link parameters like ‘subject’ and ‘body’ are non-standard, will fail in many situations, and should generally be avoided.)
Once the email app opens, text stops at "...link:".
If ‘stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding’ is not escaping ‘<’ to ‘%3C’, that could be the problem. Otherwise, it might not be anything to do with escapes, but a deliberate mailer-level restriction to disallow ‘<’. As previously mentioned, ?body=... is not a reliable feature.
In any case, you shouldn't expect the mailer to recognise the HTML and try to send an HTML mail; very few will do that.
Example of use of %26 instead of & without this attributes arrived in PHP as an array!
var urlb='/tools/lister.php?type=101%26ID='+ID; // %26 instead of &
window.location.href=urlb;