post data to PHP script from iOS

Question

I am trying the following code that executes after user enter data in fields (title, desc, city) and then clicks save.

- (IBAction)saveDataAction:(id)sender {
    NSString *lEventTitle = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"var=%@",eventTitle.text];
    NSString *lEventDesc = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"var=%@",eventDescription.text];
    NSString *lEventCity = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"var=%@",eventCity.text];

    NSMutableURLRequest *request = [NSMutableURLRequest requestWithURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@"http://mydomain.com/ios/form.php"]];
    [request setHTTPMethod:@"POST"];
    [request setValue:@"application/x-www-form-urlencoded" forHTTPHeaderField:@"content-type"];
    //this is hard coded based on your suggested values, obviously you'd probably need to make this more dynamic based on your application's specific data to send

    NSString *postString = [[NSString alloc] initWithFormat:@"title=%@&description=%@&city=%@", lEventTitle, lEventDesc, lEventCity];
    NSString *clearPost = [postString
                                     stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@"var=" withString:@""];
    NSLog(@"%@", clearPost);
    [request setHTTPBody:[clearPost dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];
    [request setValue:clearPost forHTTPHeaderField:@"Content-Length"];
    [NSURLConnection connectionWithRequest:request delegate:self];
    NSLog(@"%@", request);
}

When I NSLog the clearPost string (string containing the variables to be sent to server), it shows:

title=xmas&description=Celebration&city=NY

on the PHP end, I have simple as:

<?php
 $title = $_POST['title'];
 $description = $_POST['description'];
 $city = $_POST['city'];

 echo "Title: ". $title;
 echo "Description: ". $description;
 echo "City: ". $city;
?>

Just trying to get data on PHP so that later I can manipulate it. Right now when I execute the

domain.com/ios/form.php, it shows the title, description and city empty.

Sorry but I am very new to iOS and Objective-C.

Answer 1

NSURLConnection has been depracrated since IOS 9.0. Please use NSURLSesstion:

-(void) httpPostWithCustomDelegate
{
NSURLSessionConfiguration *defaultConfigObject = [NSURLSessionConfiguration defaultSessionConfiguration];
NSURLSession *defaultSession = [NSURLSession sessionWithConfiguration: defaultConfigObject delegate: nil delegateQueue: [NSOperationQueue mainQueue]];

NSURL * url = [NSURL URLWithString:@"http://hayageek.com/examples/jquery/ajax-post/ajax-post.php"];
NSMutableURLRequest * urlRequest = [NSMutableURLRequest requestWithURL:url];
NSString * params =@"name=Ravi&loc=India&age=31&submit=true";
[urlRequest setHTTPMethod:@"POST"];
[urlRequest setHTTPBody:[params dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];

NSURLSessionDataTask * dataTask =[defaultSession dataTaskWithRequest:urlRequest
                                    completionHandler:^(NSData *data, NSURLResponse *response, NSError *error) {
                                      NSLog(@"Response:%@ %@\n", response, error);
                                      if(error == nil)
                                      {
                                          NSString * text = [[NSString alloc] initWithData: data encoding: NSUTF8StringEncoding];
                                          NSLog(@"Data = %@",text);
                                      }

                                  }];
[dataTask resume];

}

reference

Answer 2

Objective C

// Create your request string with parameter name as defined in PHP file
NSString *myRequestString = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"title=%@&description=%@&city=%@",eventTitle.text,eventDescription.text,eventCity.text];

// Create Data from request
NSData *myRequestData = [NSData dataWithBytes: [myRequestString UTF8String] length: [myRequestString length]];
NSMutableURLRequest *request = [[NSMutableURLRequest alloc] initWithURL: [NSURL URLWithString: @"http://www.youardomain.com/phpfilename.php"]];
// set Request Type
[request setHTTPMethod: @"POST"];
// Set content-type
[request setValue:@"application/x-www-form-urlencoded" forHTTPHeaderField:@"content-type"];
// Set Request Body
[request setHTTPBody: myRequestData];
// Now send a request and get Response
NSData *returnData = [NSURLConnection sendSynchronousRequest: request returningResponse: nil error: nil];
// Log Response
NSString *response = [[NSString alloc] initWithBytes:[returnData bytes] length:[returnData length] encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
NSLog(@"%@",response);

Swift

// Create your request string with parameter name as defined in PHP file
var myRequestString: String = "title=\(eventTitle.text!)&description=\(eventDescription.text!)&city=\(eventCity.text!)"
// Create Data from request
var myRequestData: NSData = NSData.dataWithBytes(myRequestString.UTF8String(), length: myRequestString.characters.count)
var request: NSMutableURLRequest = NSMutableURLRequest(URL: NSURL(string: "http://www.youardomain.com/phpfilename.php")!)
// set Request Type
request.HTTPMethod = "POST"
// Set content-type
request.setValue("application/x-www-form-urlencoded", forHTTPHeaderField: "content-type")
// Set Request Body
request.HTTPBody = myRequestData
// Now send a request and get Response
var returnData: NSData = NSURLConnection.sendSynchronousRequest(request, returningResponse: nil, error: nil)
// Log Response
var response: String = String(bytes: returnData.bytes(), length: returnData.characters.count, encoding: NSUTF8StringEncoding)
NSLog("%@", response)