parse a NSURL mailto - iphone

Question

How can I parse a mailto request ?
'mailto:someone#example.com?cc=someone_else#example.com&subject=This%20is%20the%20subject&body=This%20is%20the%20body'
From this NSURL, I want to extract the recipient, the subject and the body. How should I do ?
Thanks

Answer 1

Here is some code that will parse any URL and return a dictionary with the parameters and the associated objects in a dictionary. It works for mailto URLs, too.
Please note: This code assumes you're using ARC!
#interface NSString (URLDecoding)
- (NSString *) URLDecodedString;
#end
#implementation NSString (URLDecoding)
- (NSString *) URLDecodedString {
NSString *result = (__bridge_transfer NSString *)CFURLCreateStringByReplacingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding(kCFAllocatorDefault, (__bridge CFStringRef)self, CFSTR(""), kCFStringEncodingUTF8);
return result;
}
#end
- (NSDictionary *) parameterDictionaryFromURL:(NSURL *)url {
NSMutableDictionary *parameterDictionary = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] init];
if ([[url scheme] isEqualToString:#"mailto"]) {
NSString *mailtoParameterString = [[url absoluteString] substringFromIndex:[#"mailto:" length]];
NSUInteger questionMarkLocation = [mailtoParameterString rangeOfString:#"?"].location;
[parameterDictionary setObject:[mailtoParameterString substringToIndex:questionMarkLocation] forKey:#"recipient"];
if (questionMarkLocation != NSNotFound) {
NSString *parameterString = [mailtoParameterString substringFromIndex:questionMarkLocation + 1];
NSArray *keyValuePairs = [parameterString componentsSeparatedByString:#"&"];
for (NSString *queryString in keyValuePairs) {
NSArray *keyValuePair = [queryString componentsSeparatedByString:#"="];
if (keyValuePair.count == 2)
[parameterDictionary setObject:[[keyValuePair objectAtIndex:1] URLDecodedString] forKey:[[keyValuePair objectAtIndex:0] URLDecodedString]];
}
}
}
else {
NSString *parameterString = [url parameterString];
NSArray *keyValuePairs = [parameterString componentsSeparatedByString:#"&"];
for (NSString *queryString in keyValuePairs) {
NSArray *keyValuePair = [queryString componentsSeparatedByString:#"="];
if (keyValuePair.count == 2)
[parameterDictionary setObject:[[keyValuePair objectAtIndex:1] URLDecodedString] forKey:[[keyValuePair objectAtIndex:0] URLDecodedString]];
}
}
return [parameterDictionary copy];
}
And here is how you use it:
NSURL *mailtoURL = [NSURL URLWithString:#"mailto:foo#example.com?cc=bar#example.com&subject=Greetings%20from%20Cupertino!&body=Wish%20you%20were%20here!"];
NSDictionary *parameterDictionary = [self parameterDictionaryFromURL:mailtoURL];
NSString *recipient = [parameterDictionary objectForKey:#"recipient"];
NSString *subject = [parameterDictionary objectForKey:#"subject"];
NSString *body = [parameterDictionary objectForKey:#"body"];
EDIT:
I updated the code to work with any URL and recipients are now in the dictionary for mailto URLs.

Answer 2

I would pull the email from that like this:
NSString * mailToString = #"'mailto:someone#example.com?cc=someone_else#example.com&subject=This%20is%20the%20subject&body=This%20is%20the%20body'";
NSArray *tempArray = [mailToString componentsSeparatedByString:#"?"];
//get email address from array
NSString * emailString = [[tempArray objectAtIndex:0]description];
//clean up string
emailString = [emailString stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:#"'mailto:" withString:#""];
//and here is your email string
NSLog(#"%#",emailString);

Answer 3

Since iOS 7 this is easily doable with NSURLComponents. You can create that object with:
if let components = NSURLComponents(URL: url, resolvingAgainstBaseURL:false) { ...
Then you can get the recipient accessing the path property of NSURLComponents; and the parameters with the queryItems property. For instance, if we wanted to get the subject, something like this would do our job
let queryItems = components.queryItems as? [NSURLQueryItem]
let subject = queryItems?.filter({$0.name == "subject"}).first?.value

Answer 4

NSURL category for just mailto: This method also has a fix for a crash bug in Fabian's answer above when mailto: url doesn't contain a ?. It also doesn't require the URLDecodedString category method.
#implementation NSURL (Additions)
- (NSDictionary *) parameterDictionaryForMailTo {
NSMutableDictionary *parameterDictionary = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] init];
NSString *mailtoParameterString = [[self absoluteString] substringFromIndex:[#"mailto:" length]];
NSUInteger questionMarkLocation = [mailtoParameterString rangeOfString:#"?"].location;
if (questionMarkLocation != NSNotFound) {
[parameterDictionary setObject:[mailtoParameterString substringToIndex:questionMarkLocation] forKey:#"recipient"];
NSString *parameterString = [mailtoParameterString substringFromIndex:questionMarkLocation + 1];
NSArray *keyValuePairs = [parameterString componentsSeparatedByString:#"&"];
for (NSString *queryString in keyValuePairs) {
NSArray *keyValuePair = [queryString componentsSeparatedByString:#"="];
if (keyValuePair.count == 2)
[parameterDictionary setObject:[[keyValuePair objectAtIndex:1] stringByRemovingPercentEncoding] forKey:[[keyValuePair objectAtIndex:0] stringByRemovingPercentEncoding]];
}
}
else {
[parameterDictionary setObject:mailtoParameterString forKey:#"recipient"];
}
return [parameterDictionary copy];
}

Answer 5

- (NSDictionary *) parameterDictionaryFromURL:(NSURL *)url {
NSMutableDictionary *parameterDictionary = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] init];
NSURLComponents * urlComponents = [NSURLComponents componentsWithString:url.absoluteString];
for (NSURLQueryItem *item in urlComponents.queryItems) {
parameterDictionary[item.name] = item.value;
}
if ([url.scheme isEqualToString:#"mailto"]) {
NSUInteger questionMarkLocation = [url.resourceSpecifier rangeOfString:#"?"].location;
if (questionMarkLocation == NSNotFound) {
parameterDictionary[#"recipient"] = url.resourceSpecifier;
} else {
parameterDictionary[#"recipient"] = [url.resourceSpecifier substringToIndex:questionMarkLocation];
}
}
return [parameterDictionary copy];
}