If you're using NSURLConnection, and the session is cookie based, this would automatically be done. So all you'd need to write would be similar to this
NSMutableURLRequest *request = nil;
request = [NSMutableURLRequest requestWithURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@"http:///login.php"]];
NSString *post = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"username=%@&password=%@", @"<username>", @"<password>"];
NSData *postData = [post dataUsingEncoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding allowLossyConversion:YES];
[request setValue:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%d", [postData length]] forHTTPHeaderField:@"Content-Length"];
[request setTimeoutInterval: 15];
[request setHTTPMethod:@"POST"];
[request setHTTPBody:postData];
_urlConnection = [[NSURLConnection alloc] initWithRequest:request delegate:self];
[_urlConnection start];
And you would have to implement the NSURLConnectionDelegate methods as well
- (void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didReceiveData:(NSData *)data {
[_responseData appendData:data];
}
- (void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didFailWithError:(NSError *)error {
//Oops! handle failure here
}
- (void)connectionDidFinishLoading:(NSURLConnection *)connection {
if (_statusCode >= 200 && _statusCode < 400) {
//Things look ok
NSString *responseString = [[[NSString alloc] initWithData:_responseData] autorelease];
//Send this to an xml lib and parse
}
[_responseData release];
_responseData = nil;
[connection autorelease];
}
If you have some other information thats in the headers and which you need to send back with consequent requests, you can read it from the response like this
- (void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didReceiveResponse:(NSURLResponse *)response {
if ([response isKindOfClass:[NSHTTPURLResponse class]]) {
NSDictionary *headerFields = [(NSHTTPURLResponse*)response allHeaderFields]; //This would give you all the header fields;
}
}
And set the header fields for the next request like this
[request setValue:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%d", [postData length]] forHTTPHeaderField:@"Content-Length"];
To save information, be it username and/or password or session information you can use NSUserDefaults
//To save
NSUserDefaults *standardUserDefaults = [NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults];
if (standardUserDefaults) {
[standardUserDefaults setObject:@"<username>" forKey:@"username"];
[standardUserDefaults setObject:@"<pass>" forKey:@"password"];
[standardUserDefaults synchronize];
}
//To retrieve
NSUserDefaults *standardUserDefaults = [NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults];
NSString *val = nil;
if (standardUserDefaults)
val = [standardUserDefaults objectForKey:@"username"];
Lastly, it would be advisable to build a model to map the xml API with [Eg: a User class with username and password properties].
Google for Apple's docs on MVC.
Hope this helps!
