NSURL Encoding in ObjC

Question

How to do URL encoding in NSURL ?

Thanks

It is easier now with iOS 7: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3423545/objective-c-iphone-percent-encode-a-string/20271177#20271177 — Steve Moser, Nov 04 '15 at 16:58

score 27 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 17 '09 at 13:47

27

You can use stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:

NSString* escapedUrlString =
   [unescapedString stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:
                        NSUTF8StringEncoding];

However, in my experience, this method isn't quite perfect (in handling some reserved characters), and in many cases I needed to use the variant:

 NSString * escapedUrlString =
  (NSString *)CFURLCreateStringByAddingPercentEscapes(
    NULL,
    (CFStringRef)unescapedString,
    NULL,
    (CFStringRef)@"!*'();:@&=+$,/?%#[]",
    kCFStringEncodingUTF8 );

answered Nov 17 '09 at 13:47

notnoop

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+1, but with a reminder that `CFURLCreateStringByAddingPercentEscapes` returns a string with a +1 retain count, so you must `release` it when you're done. – Dave DeLong Nov 17 '09 at 15:12
You saved my day @notnoop – Samir Jwarchan Jul 29 '15 at 06:32

score 6 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 17 '09 at 13:53

6

stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding: has some problems with URL arguments.

In conjunction I use gtm_stringByEscapingForURLArgument from Google Toolbox for Mac for URL arguments.

answered Nov 17 '09 at 13:53

amrox

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score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 12 '12 at 10:56

This worked for me:

NSString *response = [NSString stringWithContentsOfURL:[NSURL URLWithString:[url  stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:STRING_ENCODING_IN_THE_SERVER]] 
                                                      encoding:STRING_ENCODING_IN_THE_SERVER 
                                                         error:&error];

NSURL Encoding in ObjC

3 Answers3

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