AFNetworking - How to make POST request

Question

EDIT 07/14

As Bill Burgess mentionned in a comment of his answer, this question is related to the version 1.3 of AFNetworking. It may be outdated for the newcomers here.

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I'm quite new to iPhone development, and I'm using AFNetworking as my services library.

The API i'm querying is a RESTful one, and I need to make POST requests. To do this, I tried with the following code :

NSDictionary *parameters = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:@"my_username", @"username", @"my_password", @"password", nil];
NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:@"http://localhost:8080/login"];

NSURLRequest *request = [NSURLRequest requestWithURL:url];
AFJSONRequestOperation *operation = [AFJSONRequestOperation JSONRequestOperationWithRequest:request success:^(NSURLRequest *request, NSHTTPURLResponse *response, id JSON) {
    NSLog(@"Pass Response = %@", JSON);
} failure:^(NSURLRequest *request, NSHTTPURLResponse *response, NSError *error, id JSON) {
    NSLog(@"Failed Response : %@", JSON);
}];
[operation start];

There are two main issues with this code :

• AFJSONRequestOperation seems to make a GET request, not a POST one.
• I can't put parameters to this method.

I also tried with this code :

NSDictionary *parameters = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:@"my_username", @"username", @"my_password", @"password", nil];
NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:@"http://localhost:8080"];
AFHTTPClient *httpClient = [[AFHTTPClient alloc] initWithBaseURL:url];

[httpClient postPath:@"/login" parameters:parameters success:^(AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation, id responseObject) {
    NSLog(@"Succes : %@", responseObject);
} failure:^(AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation, NSError *error) {
    NSLog(@"Failure : %@", error);
}];

Is there a better way to make what I want here to get it done ?

Thanks for the help !

Answer 1

You can override the default behavior of your request being used with AFNetworking to process as a POST.

NSURLRequest *request = [client requestWithMethod:@"POST" path:path parameters:nil];

This assumes you have overridden the default AFNetworking setup to use a custom client. If you aren't, I would suggest doing it. Just create a custom class to handle your network client for you.

MyAPIClient.h

#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>
#import "AFHTTPClient.h"

@interface MyAPIClient : AFHTTPClient

+(MyAPIClient *)sharedClient;

@end

MyAPIClient.m

@implementation MyAPIClient

+(MyAPIClient *)sharedClient {
    static MyAPIClient *_sharedClient = nil;
    static dispatch_once_t oncePredicate;
    dispatch_once(&oncePredicate, ^{
        _sharedClient = [[self alloc] initWithBaseURL:[NSURL URLWithString:webAddress]];
    });
    return _sharedClient;
}

-(id)initWithBaseURL:(NSURL *)url {
    self = [super initWithBaseURL:url];
    if (!self) {
        return nil;
    }
    [self registerHTTPOperationClass:[AFJSONRequestOperation class]];
    [self setDefaultHeader:@"Accept" value:@"application/json"];
    self.parameterEncoding = AFJSONParameterEncoding;

    return self;

}

Then you should be able to fire off your network calls on the operation queue with no problem.

    MyAPIClient *client = [MyAPIClient sharedClient];
    [[AFNetworkActivityIndicatorManager sharedManager] setEnabled:YES];
    [[AFNetworkActivityIndicatorManager sharedManager] incrementActivityCount];

    NSString *path = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"myapipath/?value=%@", value];
    NSURLRequest *request = [client requestWithMethod:@"POST" path:path parameters:nil];

    AFJSONRequestOperation *operation = [AFJSONRequestOperation JSONRequestOperationWithRequest:request success:^(NSURLRequest *request, NSHTTPURLResponse *response, id JSON) {
        // code for successful return goes here
        [[AFNetworkActivityIndicatorManager sharedManager] decrementActivityCount];

        // do something with return data
    }failure:^(NSURLRequest *request, NSHTTPURLResponse *response, NSError *error, id JSON) {
        // code for failed request goes here
        [[AFNetworkActivityIndicatorManager sharedManager] decrementActivityCount];

        // do something on failure
    }];

    [operation start];