How do I URL encode a string

Question

I have a URL string (NSString) with spaces and & characters. How do I url encode the entire string (including the & ampersand

Answer 1

In my case where the last component was Arabic letters I did the following in Swift 2.2:

extension String {

 func encodeUTF8() -> String? {

    //If I can create an NSURL out of the string nothing is wrong with it
    if let _ = NSURL(string: self) {

        return self
    }

    //Get the last component from the string this will return subSequence
    let optionalLastComponent = self.characters.split { $0 == "/" }.last


    if let lastComponent = optionalLastComponent {

        //Get the string from the sub sequence by mapping the characters to [String] then reduce the array to String
        let lastComponentAsString = lastComponent.map { String($0) }.reduce("", combine: +)


        //Get the range of the last component
        if let rangeOfLastComponent = self.rangeOfString(lastComponentAsString) {
            //Get the string without its last component
            let stringWithoutLastComponent = self.substringToIndex(rangeOfLastComponent.startIndex)


            //Encode the last component
            if let lastComponentEncoded = lastComponentAsString.stringByAddingPercentEncodingWithAllowedCharacters(NSCharacterSet.alphanumericCharacterSet()) {


            //Finally append the original string (without its last component) to the encoded part (encoded last component)
            let encodedString = stringWithoutLastComponent + lastComponentEncoded

                //Return the string (original string/encoded string)
                return encodedString
            }
        }
    }

    return nil;
}
}

usage:

let stringURL = "http://xxx.dev.com/endpoint/nonLatinCharacters"

if let encodedStringURL = stringURL.encodeUTF8() {

    if let url = NSURL(string: encodedStringURL) {

      ...
    }

}