NSMutableURLRequest loses session information - iphone

Question

I have an iphone app that I'm trying to get to talk to a rails back end. I'm using NSMutableURLRequest to pull data back and forth. All the calls work fine on GET requests but when I need to post data, my rails app can't seem to find the session. I've posted the code below for both a get and a POST request.
This is the POST request:
//Set up the URL
NSString *url_string = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"https://testserver.example.com/players.xml"];
NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:url_string];
NSMutableURLRequest *request = [NSMutableURLRequest requestWithURL:url
cachePolicy:NSURLRequestReloadIgnoringCacheData
timeoutInterval:30];
//To create an object in rails
//We have to use a post request
////This is the format when using xml
NSString *requestString = [[NSString alloc] initWithFormat:#"<player><team_game_id>%#</team_game_id><person_id>%#</person_id></player>", game, person];
NSData *requestData = [NSData dataWithBytes:[requestString UTF8String] length:[requestString length]];
[request setHTTPMethod:#"POST"];
[request setHTTPBody:requestData];
NSString *postLength = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"%d", [requestData length]];
[request setValue:postLength forHTTPHeaderField:#"Content-Length"];
//For some reason rails will not take application/xml
[request setValue:#"application/xml" forHTTPHeaderField:#"content-type"];
The get request is:
NSString *url_string = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"https://testserver.example.com/people/find_by_passport?passport=%i", passport];
passportString = [[NSMutableString alloc] initWithFormat:#"%i", passport];
NSLog(#"The passport string is %#", passportString);
NSLog(url_string, nil);
NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:url_string];
NSMutableURLRequest *request = [NSMutableURLRequest requestWithURL:url
cachePolicy:NSURLRequestReloadIgnoringCacheData
timeoutInterval:30];
I am at my wits end here trying to find out whats going on so any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

Answer 1

Faced the same issue. Parse the response headers for the Set-Cookie header, extract the cookies by hand, pass them back as Cookie: header on subsequent requests.
If this is just about sessions in their simplest, you don't have to worry about persistence, HTTPS, domains/paths and such.
EDIT: I found class NSHTTPCookieStorage. See if it can be of help...