Wanted: Up-to-date example for JSON/POST with basic auth using AFNetworking-2

Question

I have a toy app which submits an https JSON/POST using basic auth security. I've been told I should consider using AFNetworking. I've been able to install AFNetwork-2 into my XCode project (ios7 target, XCode5) just fine. But none of the examples out there seem to be relevant to current versions of AFNetworking-2, but rather previous versions. The AFNetworking docs are pretty sparse, so I'm struggling how to put the pieces together. The non-AFNetworking code looks something like:

NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:@"https://xxx.yyy.zzz.aaa:bbbbb/twig_monikers"]; NSMutableURLRequest *request = [NSMutableURLRequest     requestWithURL:url     cachePolicy: NSURLRequestUseProtocolCachePolicy     timeoutInterval: 10.0];  NSData *requestData = [NSJSONSerialization dataWithJSONObject: [self jsonDict] options: 0 error: nil]; [request setHTTPMethod: @"POST"]; [request setValue: @"application/json" forHTTPHeaderField: @"Accept"]; [request setValue: @"application/json" forHTTPHeaderField: @"Content-Type"]; [request setValue:[NSString stringWithFormat: @"%d", [requestData length]] forHTTPHeaderField: @"Content-Length"]; NSData *plainPassText = [@"app_pseudouser:sample_password" dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]; NSString *base64PassText = [plainPassText base64EncodedStringWithOptions: NSDataBase64Encoding76CharacterLineLength]; [request setValue:[NSString stringWithFormat: @"Basic %@", base64PassText] forHTTPHeaderField: @"Authorization"];  FailedCertificateDelegate *fcd=[[FailedCertificateDelegate alloc] init]; NSURLConnection *c=[[NSURLConnection alloc] initWithRequest:request delegate:fcd startImmediately:NO]; [c setDelegateQueue:[[NSOperationQueue alloc] init]]; [c start]; NSData *data=[fcd getData];  if (data)     NSLog(@"Submit response data: %@", [NSString stringWithUTF8String:[data bytes]]); 

I'm not looking for someone to write my code for me. I just can't seem to figure out how to map the AFNetworking-2 parts over to that. Any links, or examples, or explanations much welcome.

UPDATE 1

The above is a non AF version that is known to work. Moving trying to get it all in one go, I just tried:

AFHTTPRequestOperationManager *manager = [AFHTTPRequestOperationManager manager]; manager.requestSerializer = [AFJSONRequestSerializer serializer]; [manager.requestSerializer     setAuthorizationHeaderFieldWithUsername:@"app_pseudouser"     password:@"sample_password"]; AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation = [manager     PUT: @"https://172.16.214.214:44321/twig_monikers"     parameters: [self jsonDict]     success:^(AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation, id responseObject){         NSLog(@"Submit response data: %@", responseObject);}     failure:^(AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation, NSError *error){         NSLog(@"Error: %@", error);} ]; 

Which produces the following error:

2013-10-09 11:41:38.558 TwigTag[1403:60b] Error: Error Domain=NSURLErrorDomain Code=-1012 "The operation couldn’t be completed. (NSURLErrorDomain error -1012.)" UserInfo=0x1662c1e0 {NSErrorFailingURLKey=https://172.16.214.214:44321/twig_monikers, NSErrorFailingURLStringKey=https://172.16.214.214:44321/twig_monikers} 

Watching on the server side, nothing ever makes it through. I don't know if it is because the https, or what, but I can flip the app back to the original code, and it gets through just fine.

Answer 1

UPDATE: The JSON portion of the following was found to work for PUT/POST, but NOT for GET/HEAD/DELETE

After some wrangling, and help outside SO, I got something working, which I wanted to leave as a memento. In the end, I was really very impressed with AFNetworking-2. It was so simple, I kept trying to make it harder than it should have been. Given a jsonDict method that returns the json packet to send, I created the following:

- (void) submitAuthenticatedRest_PUT {     // it all starts with a manager     AFHTTPRequestOperationManager *manager = [AFHTTPRequestOperationManager manager];     // in my case, I'm in prototype mode, I own the network being used currently,     // so I can use a self generated cert key, and the following line allows me to use that     manager.securityPolicy.allowInvalidCertificates = YES;     // Make sure we a JSON serialization policy, not sure what the default is     manager.requestSerializer = [AFJSONRequestSerializer serializer];     // No matter the serializer, they all inherit a battery of header setting APIs     // Here we do Basic Auth, never do this outside of HTTPS     [manager.requestSerializer         setAuthorizationHeaderFieldWithUsername:@"basic_auth_username"         password:@"basic_auth_password"];     // Now we can just PUT it to our target URL (note the https).     // This will return immediately, when the transaction has finished,     // one of either the success or failure blocks will fire     [manager         PUT: @"https://101.202.303.404:5555/rest/path"         parameters: [self jsonDict]         success:^(AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation, id responseObject){             NSLog(@"Submit response data: %@", responseObject);} // success callback block         failure:^(AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation, NSError *error){             NSLog(@"Error: %@", error);} // failure callback block     ]; } 

3 setup statements, followed by 2 message sends, it really is that easy.

EDIT/ADDED: Here's an example @jsonDict implementation:

- (NSMutableDictionary*) jsonDict {     NSMutableDictionary *result = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] init];     result[@"serial_id"] = self.serialID;     result[@"latitude"] = [NSNumber numberWithDouble: self.location.latitude];     result[@"longitude"] = [NSNumber numberWithDouble: self.location.longitude];     result[@"name"] = self.name;     if ([self hasPhoto])     {         result[@"photo-jpeg"] = [UIImageJPEGRepresentation(self.photo, 0.5)             base64EncodedStringWithOptions: NSDataBase64Encoding76CharacterLineLength]; } return result; 

}

It should just return a dictionary with string keys, and simple objects as values (NSNumber, NSString, NSArray (I think), etc). The JSON encoder does the rest for you.