Parse NSURL query property

Question

I have a URL like myApp://action/1?parameter=2&secondparameter=3

With the property query I get following part of my URL

parameter=2&secondparameter=3

Is there any way easy to put this in a NSDictionary or an Array?

Thx a lot

Answer 1

You can use queryItems in URLComponents.

When you get this property’s value, the NSURLComponents class parses the query string and returns an array of NSURLQueryItem objects, each of which represents a single key-value pair, in the order in which they appear in the original query string.

Swift

let url = "http://example.com?param1=value1&param2=param2"
let queryItems = URLComponents(string: url)?.queryItems
let param1 = queryItems?.filter({$0.name == "param1"}).first
print(param1?.value)

Alternatively, you can add an extension on URL to make things easier.

extension URL {
    var queryParameters: QueryParameters { return QueryParameters(url: self) }
}

class QueryParameters {
    let queryItems: [URLQueryItem]
    init(url: URL?) {
        queryItems = URLComponents(string: url?.absoluteString ?? "")?.queryItems ?? []
        print(queryItems)
    }
    subscript(name: String) -> String? {
        return queryItems.first(where: { $0.name == name })?.value
    }
}

You can then access the parameter by its name.

let url = "http://example.com?param1=value1&param2=param2"
print(url.queryParameters["param1"])

Answer 2

I had reason to write some extensions for this behavior that might come in handy. First the header:

#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>

@interface NSString (XQueryComponents)
- (NSString *)stringByDecodingURLFormat;
- (NSString *)stringByEncodingURLFormat;
- (NSMutableDictionary *)dictionaryFromQueryComponents;
@end

@interface NSURL (XQueryComponents)
- (NSMutableDictionary *)queryComponents;
@end

@interface NSDictionary (XQueryComponents)
- (NSString *)stringFromQueryComponents;
@end

These methods extend NSString, NSURL, and NSDictionary, to allow you to convert to and from query components strings and dictionary objects containing the results.

Now the related .m code:

#import "XQueryComponents.h"

@implementation NSString (XQueryComponents)
- (NSString *)stringByDecodingURLFormat
{
    NSString *result = [self stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@"+" withString:@" "];
    result = [result stringByReplacingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
    return result;
}

- (NSString *)stringByEncodingURLFormat
{
    NSString *result = [self stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@" " withString:@"+"];
    result = [result stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
    return result;
}

- (NSMutableDictionary *)dictionaryFromQueryComponents
{
    NSMutableDictionary *queryComponents = [NSMutableDictionary dictionary];
    for(NSString *keyValuePairString in [self componentsSeparatedByString:@"&"])
    {
        NSArray *keyValuePairArray = [keyValuePairString componentsSeparatedByString:@"="];
        if ([keyValuePairArray count] < 2) continue; // Verify that there is at least one key, and at least one value.  Ignore extra = signs
        NSString *key = [[keyValuePairArray objectAtIndex:0] stringByDecodingURLFormat];
        NSString *value = [[keyValuePairArray objectAtIndex:1] stringByDecodingURLFormat];
        NSMutableArray *results = [queryComponents objectForKey:key]; // URL spec says that multiple values are allowed per key
        if(!results) // First object
        {
            results = [NSMutableArray arrayWithCapacity:1];
            [queryComponents setObject:results forKey:key];
        }
        [results addObject:value];
    }
    return queryComponents;
}
@end

@implementation NSURL (XQueryComponents)
- (NSMutableDictionary *)queryComponents
{
    return [[self query] dictionaryFromQueryComponents];
}
@end

@implementation NSDictionary (XQueryComponents)
- (NSString *)stringFromQueryComponents
{
    NSString *result = nil;
    for(__strong NSString *key in [self allKeys])
    {
        key = [key stringByEncodingURLFormat];
        NSArray *allValues = [self objectForKey:key];
        if([allValues isKindOfClass:[NSArray class]])
            for(__strong NSString *value in allValues)
            {
                value = [[value description] stringByEncodingURLFormat];
                if(!result)
                    result = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@=%@",key,value];
                else 
                    result = [result stringByAppendingFormat:@"&%@=%@",key,value];
            }
        else {
            NSString *value = [[allValues description] stringByEncodingURLFormat];
            if(!result)
                result = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@=%@",key,value];
            else 
                result = [result stringByAppendingFormat:@"&%@=%@",key,value];
        }
    }
    return result;
}
@end

Answer 3

Something like that:

NSMutableDictionary *params = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] init];
for (NSString *param in [url componentsSeparatedByString:@"&"]) {
  NSArray *elts = [param componentsSeparatedByString:@"="];
  if([elts count] < 2) continue;
  [params setObject:[elts lastObject] forKey:[elts firstObject]];
}

Note : This is sample code. All error cases are not managed.

Answer 4

Try this ;)!

NSString *query = @"parameter=2&secondparameter=3"; // replace this with [url query];
NSArray *components = [query componentsSeparatedByString:@"&"];
NSMutableDictionary *parameters = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] init];
for (NSString *component in components) {
    NSArray *subcomponents = [component componentsSeparatedByString:@"="];
    [parameters setObject:[[subcomponents objectAtIndex:1] stringByReplacingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]
                   forKey:[[subcomponents objectAtIndex:0] stringByReplacingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];
}