Don't get all cookies from NSHTTPURLResponse or NSHTTPCookieStorage - iphone

I'm trying to programmatically submit a form using a NSURLConnection.
To make sure I get the proper response when sending the form, I collect the form using an NSURLConnection, collect all the cookies from the corresponding NSHTTPURLResponse, scrape the form, fill it out and resubmit it to the web server with the cookies from the NSHTTPURLResponse.
However, I've noticed that neither NSHTTPCookieStorage nor the NSHTTPURLResponse have all the cookies that the web server is sending back.
I've compared the contents of the following two methods [[NSHTTPURLResponse allHeaderFields] valueForKey:#"Set-Cookie"] and [[NSHTTPCookieStorage sharedHTTPCookieStorage] cookies] to the response seen through a web proxy and simply telnet.
The response seen through the web proxy and telnet show all the same "Set-Cookie" fields.
The string from NSHTTPURLResponse and array from NSHTTPCookieStorage neither agree with one another nor the results from the web proxy/telnet. Can someone suggest why that might be?
Thanks,
Jason Mazzotta

Related

AFNetworking - does its HTTP request send with cookies by default?

I am trying to debug a http get request i sent via AFNetworking's AFJSONRequestOperation to see if the cookies are being sent correctly. However, i dont see any cookies in http header. Can some expert help me out here? thanks! :)
You can set the cookie to your AFHTTPClient or it's subclass with the following line
[_httpClient setDefaultHeader:#"Cookie" value:#"cookie=value"];
I've tried this with my server and it works. It can clearly catch the cookie named cookie and it's related value.

Sending information to server using URLs

I'm currently working with a PHP developer to set up some server-side code, however, I'm not sure how to send the server API information to be stored in a database. He has asked me to send it in a url like this: exampleserver.com/register?deviceToken=[deviceToken]&otherstuff[otherStuff]. I have no problem with creating the URL string, my issue is actually doing something with it. I know this is a pretty stupid question, but I'm pretty new to Objective-C let alone communicating with servers! I have pulled information from servers using NSURLRequest and AFJSONRequestOperation before. Is it the same idea or are we no longer doing Requests? I've seen the word Post around a couple of times, but I'm unsure if this is what I'm after. Any help clearing this up would be really appreciated. Also, whatever the solution, I need it to be asynchronous!
Thanks for the help,
Regards,
Mike
This works for me:
NSURL *aURL = [NSURL URLWithString:#"http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=hello%20world"];
NSURLRequest *aURLRequest = [NSURLRequest requestWithURL:aURL];
[NSURLConnection sendAsynchronousRequest:aURLRequest queue:[NSOperationQueue mainQueue] completionHandler:^(NSURLResponse *response, NSData *data, NSError *error){
NSLog(#"response=%#", response);
NSLog(#"data=%#", data);
NSLog(#"error=%#", error);
}];
The URL you show has data tacked onto the end of the URL, which is normally done with a http GET operation, the "normal" method. Just asking for the page at that URL is enough to send the data to the server. An http POST operation is typically used to send form data to a server, where the pairs like deviceToken=<deviceToken> are transferred in the body of the message rather than the URL. The advantage of that is typically that the body will be encrypted if the connection is https:, so the data stays secure. But for a simple insecure transaction, using a GET with the parameters in the URL is fine. There's a description of a POST transaction at iOS: how to perform a HTTP POST request?
NSURLRequest still works and is fine. If you want a more powerful library that handles post, get, put etc. and can work asynchronously and link directly to core data, I recommend RestKit (https://github.com/RestKit/RestKit).
For more on NSURL, see my answer here: NSURLConnection delegate method

Synchronous request or asynchronous when checking user's login data

In my application i need to implement verification if user has entered correct login and password or not. the login and the password are stored at the web server so i have to organize correct connection to the server. I'm an absolute beginner in everything about http requests and all that stuff. Actually i downloaded ASIHTTPRequest library and added it to my project just yesterday. My main problem is that i don't have an actual server by now (and i' m using just a conventional URL which later will be replaced with true server name but i want my code to be correct already)so i cannot test myself whether i'm doing things correctly or not.So my questions are:
1)What is the best way to organize verifying user's login and password? Should i use synchronous request or asynchronous? For all i know synchronous requests are rare in use cause they stop the application while the request is being performed but there's really nothing else needed to be done in this event so i'm a bit confused.What would you use?
2)I suppose verifying user's login and password by using http requests is pretty common task so there must be a general rule what kind of data the web server returns. I don't want to invent a wheel. should i use NSString returned by responseString to check if user's login and password match? What does server returns usually in such cases? How should my code look like? Something like
ASIHTTPRequest *request = [ASIHTTPRequest requestWithURL:someUrl];
[request startSynchronous];
NSString *response = [request responseString];
if ([response isEqualToString:#"login and password match"])
//user enters next screen
else
//user is notified about the error
or something else? What would you do?
3)This request is not only i need to implement. Later i'm going to connect to the same URL with a different request. So how does the server know what kind of request is currently being used?
I really need your advice. Great thanks in advance
I have tried to answer your question,
Q:1. Synchronous or Asynchronous request model for login?
-> As per apple's documentation
A synchronous load is built on top of the asynchronous loading code made
available by the class. The calling thread is blocked while the asynchronous
loading system performs the URL load on a thread spawned specifically for
this load request.
also,
NSURLConnection provides support for downloading the contents of an
NSURLRequest in a synchronous manner using the class method
sendSynchronousRequest:returningResponse:error:. Using this method is
not recommended, because it has severe limitations:
The client application blocks until the data has been completely
received, an error is encountered, or the request times out.
Minimal support is provided for requests that require authentication.
There is no means of modifying the default behavior of response
caching or accepting server redirects.
As you are unaware of server side implementation, which may involve:
1. Redirection and other mechanisms for fulfilling the request.
2. It may require some proxy authentication or other similar stuff.
Q:2. What does server returns usually in such cases?
In general, a web service is implemented at server-side which returns XML or JSON as repsonse which you have to parse and use.
example response may look like:
for XML:
<auth>
<statusCode>0</statusCode>
<statusMessage>Login Successful.</statusMessage>
</auth>
for JSON
{
"statusCode" = "0"
"statusMessage" = "Login Successful."
}
tags(for XML) and keys(for JSON) will depend upon you sever implementation.
3. How does the server know what kind of request is currently being used?
-> The URL which you will use for request will tell server, what you are looking for?
for example
http://www.example.com/mywebapp/getItem?id="1";
Thanks,
or
http://www.example.com/mywebapp/removeItem?id="1";
The bold path item represents services which you are calling.

ASIHTTPRequest returns error 406 when trying to read RSS Feed

I'm trying to read the following URL: http://www.bandsintown.com/Godwrath/rss
My response string is empty and [request responseStatusCode] returns 406. I've tried adding the following with no success:
[request addRequestHeader:#"Accept" value:#"text/xml"];
[request addRequestHeader:#"Accept" value:#"application/rss+xml"];
Have any of you ever bumped into this problem?
Greets,
Shai.
Use CharlesProxy (or wireshark, or ...) to capture the http traffic from:
Your iOS app
A working client (eg. a web browser)
Compare the 2 and try to correct any differences (you can probably ignore User-Agent:, Connection:, If-Modified-Since: and a few other headers)
If you still can't get it working edit your question to add in the request captured in charlesproxy from the browser, your changed code to create the request and the request captured from your app.
406 generally means your browser doesn't understand the return data from the web server. In the example you give, you overwrite the Accept header. You can't provide the same header tag twice if I remember correctly...

Preventing ASIHTTPRequest from following HTTP 303 See Other

I'm writing an iPhone Application using the ASIHTTPRequest (http://allseeing-i.com/ASIHTTPRequest/) library for REST interactions to a Web App's RESTful services.
I am currently facing a bug where I am receiving a 200 OK from one of these pages and there is no body. Additionally, I noticed that the headers are blank after the request has been completed, but the headers were not blank beforehand (they were filled with an OAuth Authentication).
Through an over-complicated network / proxy setup, I was able to verify that I am receiving a 303 (as expected) and that ASIHTTPRequest is following that request (as semi-expected). However, since I need to recreate my OAuth authentication headers so that the RESTful services will give me the information I want, I need to prevent ASIHTTPRequest from following 303s, and instead to just return the 303 so I can read the Location header myself and create a new request with the appropriate OAuth Headers.
If anybody has had to do this, please let me know how you did it!
Thanks,
Tyler
Dives off the diving board into the NSAutoreleasePool
You can check your HTTP status in request:didReceiveResponseHeaders: delegate method. Here's the code:
- (void)request:(ASIHTTPRequest *)request didReceiveResponseHeaders:(NSDictionary *)responseHeaders {
if(request.responseStatusCode == 303) {
[request cancel];
}
}
- (void)requestFailed:(ASIHTTPRequest *)request {
if(request.responseStatusCode == 303) {
// here you can call your custom methods
}
}
It will cancel your connection as soon as it receives HTTP headers, so it will not load the full page.