Unirest for Objective-C

Unirest is a set of lightweight HTTP libraries available in multiple languages.

Features

Make GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE requests
Both syncronous and asynchronous (non-blocking) requests
It supports form parameters, file uploads and custom body entities
Supports gzip
Supports Basic Authentication natively
Customizable timeout
Customizable default headers for every request (DRY)
Automatic JSON parsing into native object (NSDictionary or NSArray) for JSON responses

Installing

Download the Objective-C Unirest Library from GitHub (or clone the repo) and import the folder into your project. You can also install Unirest-obj-c with CocoaPods.

CocoaPods

If you decide to use CocoaPods, create a Podfile file in your project's folder:

$ edit Podfile
platform :ios, '5.0'
pod 'Unirest', '~> 1.1.4'

and then execute pod install. Make sure to always open the Xcode workspace instead of the project file when building your project:

$ open App.xcworkspace

Now you can import your dependencies:

#import <UNIRest.h>

Requirements

The Unirest-Obj-C client library requires ARC (Automatic Reference Counting) to be enabled in your Xcode project. To enable ARC select your project or target and then go to Build Settings and under the section Apple LLVM compiler 3.0 - Language you will see the option Objective-C Automatic Reference Counting:

For existing projects, fortunately Xcode offers a tool to convert existing code to ARC, which is available at Edit -> Refactor -> Convert to Objective-C ARC

Creating Request

So you're probably wondering how using Unirest makes creating requests in Objective-C easier, let's look at a working example:

NSDictionary* headers = @{@"accept": @"application/json"};
NSDictionary* parameters = @{@"parameter": @"value", @"foo": @"bar"};

UNIHTTPJsonResponse *response = [[UNIRest post:^(UNISimpleRequest *request) {
  [request setUrl:@"http://httpbin.org/post"];
  [request setHeaders:headers];
  [request setParameters:parameters];
}] asJson];

Just like in the Unirest Java library the Objective-C library supports multiple response types given as the last parameter. In the example above we use asJson to get a JSON response, likewise there are asBinary and asString for responses of other nature such as file data and hypermedia responses.

Asynchronous Requests

For non-blocking requests you will want to make an asychronous request to keep your application going while data is fetched or updated in the background, doing so with unirest is extremely easy with barely any code change from the previous example:

NSDictionary *headers = @{@"accept": @"application/json"};
NSDictionary *parameters = @{@"parameter": @"value", @"foo": @"bar"};

[[UNIRest post:^(UNISimpleRequest *request) {
  [request setUrl:@"http://httpbin.org/post"];
  [request setHeaders:headers];
  [request setParameters:parameters];
}] asJsonAsync:^(UNIHTTPJsonResponse* response, NSError *error) {
  // This is the asyncronous callback block
  NSInteger code = response.code;
  NSDictionary *responseHeaders = response.headers;
  UNIJsonNode *body = response.body;
  NSData *rawBody = response.rawBody;
}];

Cancel Asynchronous Request

You can cancel an asyncronous request by invoking the cancel method on the UNIUrlConnection object:

UNIUrlConnection *asyncConnection = [[UNIRest get:^(UNISimpleRequest *simpleRequest) {
    [request setUrl:@"http://httpbin.org/get"];
}] asJsonAsync:^(UNIHTTPJsonResponse *response, NSError *error) {
    // Do something
}];

[asyncConnection cancel]; // Cancel request

File Uploads

Transferring files through request with unirest in Objective-C can be done by creating a NSURL object and passing it along as a parameter value with a UNISimpleRequest like so:

NSDictionary* headers = @{@"accept": @"application/json"};
NSURL* file = nil;
NSDictionary* parameters = @{@"parameter": @"value", @"file": file};

UNIHTTPJsonResponse *response = [[UNIRest post:^(UNISimpleRequest *request) {
  [request setUrl:@"http://httpbin.org/post"];
  [request setHeaders:headers];
  [request setParameters:parameters];
}] asJson];

Custom Entity Body

To send a custom body such as JSON simply serialize your data utilizing the NSJSONSerialization with a BodyRequest and [method]Entity instead of just [method] block like so:

NSDictionary *headers = @{@"accept": @"application/json"};
NSDictionary *parameters = @{@"parameter": @"value", @"foo": @"bar"};

UNIHTTPJsonResponse *response = [[UNIRest postEntity:^(UNIBodyRequest *request) {
  [request setUrl:@"http://httpbin.org/post"];
  [request setHeaders:headers];
  // Converting NSDictionary to JSON:
  [request setBody:[NSJSONSerialization dataWithJSONObject:parameters options:0 error:nil]];
}] asJson];

Basic Authentication

Authenticating the request with basic authentication can be done by setting the username and password properties in the builder:

UNIHTTPJsonResponse *response = [[UNIRest get:^(UNISimpleRequest *request) {
    [request setUrl:@"http://httpbin.org/get"];
    [request setUsername:@"user"];
    [request setPassword:@"password"];
}] asJson];

Request

The Objective-C unirest library uses configuration blocks of type UNISimpleRequest and UNIBodyRequest to configure the URL, Headers, and Parameters / Body of the request.

+(UNIHTTPRequest*) get:(void (^)(UNISimpleRequestBlock*)) config;

+(UNIHTTPRequestWithBody*) post:(void (^)(UNISimpleRequestBlock*)) config;
+(UNIHTTPRequestWithBody*) postEntity:(void (^)(UNIBodyRequestBlock*)) config;

+(UNIHTTPRequestWithBody*) put:(void (^)(UNISimpleRequestBlock*)) config;
+(UNIHTTPRequestWithBody*) putEntity:(void (^)(UNIBodyRequestBlock*)) config;

+(UNIHTTPRequestWithBody*) patch:(void (^)(UNISimpleRequestBlock*)) config;
+(UNIHTTPRequestWithBody*) patchEntity:(void (^)(UNIBodyRequestBlock*)) config;

+(UNIHTTPRequestWithBody*) delete:(void (^)(UNISimpleRequestBlock*)) config;
+(UNIHTTPRequestWithBody*) deleteEntity:(void (^)(UNIBodyRequestBlock*)) config;

UNIHTTPRequest [UNIRest get: (void (^)(UNISimpleRequestBlock*))] config;

Sends equivalent request with method type to given URL
UNIHTTPRequestWithBody [UNIRest (post|postEntity): (void (^)(UNISimpleRequestBlock|UNIBodyRequestBlock)(*))] config;

Sends equivalent request with method type to given URL
UNIHTTPRequestWithBody [UNIRest (put|putEntity): (void (^)(UNISimpleRequestBlock|UNIBodyRequestBlock)(*))] config;

Sends equivalent request with method type to given URL
UNIHTTPRequestWithBody [UNIRest (patch|patchEntity): (void (^)(UNISimpleRequestBlock|UNIBodyRequestBlock)(*))] config;

Sends equivalent request with method type to given URL
UNIHTTPRequestWithBody [UNIRest (delete|deleteEntity): (void (^)(UNISimpleRequestBlock|UNIBodyRequestBlock)(*))] config;

Sends equivalent request with method type to given URL

Response

The UNIHTTPRequest and UNIHTTPRequestWithBody can then be executed by calling one of:

-(UNIHTTPStringResponse*) asString;
-(UNIHTTPStringResponse*) asString:(NSError**) error;
-(UNIUrlConnection*) asStringAsync:(UNIHTTPStringResponseBlock) response;

-(UNIHTTPBinaryResponse*) asBinary;
-(UNIHTTPBinaryResponse*) asBinary:(NSError**) error;
-(UNIUrlConnection*) asBinaryAsync:(UNIHTTPBinaryResponseBlock) response;

-(UNIHTTPJsonResponse*) asJson;
-(UNIHTTPJsonResponse*) asJson:(NSError**) error;
-(UNIUrlConnection*) asJsonAsync:(UNIHTTPJsonResponseBlock) response;

-(UNIHTTPStringResponse*) asString;

Blocking request call with response returned as string for Hypermedia APIs or other.
-(UNIHTTPStringResponse*) asString:(NSError**) error;

Blocking request call with response returned as string and error handling.
-(UNIUrlConnection*) asStringAsync:(UNIHTTPStringResponseBlock) response;

Asynchronous request call with response returned as string for Hypermedia APIs or other.
-(UNIHTTPBinaryResponse*) asBinary;

Blocking request call with response returned as binary output for files and other media.
-(UNIHTTPBinaryResponse*) asBinary:(NSError**) error;

Blocking request call with response returned as binary output and error handling.
-(UNIUrlConnection*) asBinaryAsync:(UNIHTTPBinaryResponseBlock) response;

Asynchronous request call with response returned as binary output for files and other media.
-(UNIHTTPJsonResponse*) asJson;

Blocking request call with response returned as JSON.
-(UNIHTTPJsonResponse*) asString:(NSError**) error;

Blocking request call with response returned as JSON and error handling.
-(UNIUrlConnection*) asJsonAsync:(UNIHTTPJsonResponseBlock) response;

Asynchronous request call with response returned as JSON.

Advanced Configuration

You can set some advanced configuration to tune Unirest-Obj-C:

Timeout

You can set a custom timeout value (in seconds):

[UNIRest timeout:2];

By default the timeout is 60.

Default Request Headers

You can set default headers that will be sent on every request:

[UNIRest defaultHeader:@"Header1" value:@"Value1"];
[UNIRest defaultHeader:@"Header2" value:@"Value2"];

You can clear the default headers anytime with:

[UNIRest clearDefaultHeaders];

PIN TO SSL

Use the following to fetch the cert of interest. It will be in PEM format. PEM format is (--BEGIN CERTIFICATE--, --END CERTIFICATE--).

$ echo "Get HTTP/1.0" | openssl s_client -showcerts -connect www.random.org:443

Save the certifcate of interest to a file (for example, "random-org.pem"). The certificate is the leaf, and should be located at certifcates[0]. Then, convert the certifcate to DER.

$ openssl x509 -in "random-org.pem" -inform PEM -out "random-org.der" -outform DER

To get string representation of DER cert: NSData * myData = [NSData dataWithContentsOfURL:[[NSBundle mainBundle] URLForResource:@"mycert" withExtension:@"der"]]; NSLog(@"%@",myData);
Add to Podfile post_install do |installer_representation| installer_representation.project.targets.each do |target| if target.name == "Pods-DIAGEO-Unirest" target.build_configurations.each do |config| config.build_settings['GCC_PREPROCESSOR_DEFINITIONS'] ||= ['$(inherited)'] config.build_settings['GCC_PREPROCESSOR_DEFINITIONS'] << 'PIN_TO_SSL="@"< cert >""' end end end end

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README.md

README.md

Unirest for Objective-C

Features

Installing

CocoaPods

Requirements

Creating Request

Asynchronous Requests

Cancel Asynchronous Request

File Uploads

Custom Entity Body

Basic Authentication

Request

Response

Advanced Configuration

Timeout

Default Request Headers

Files

README.md

Latest commit

History

README.md

File metadata and controls

Unirest for Objective-C

Features

Installing

CocoaPods

Requirements

Creating Request

Asynchronous Requests

Cancel Asynchronous Request

File Uploads

Custom Entity Body

Basic Authentication

Request

Response

Advanced Configuration

Timeout

Default Request Headers