Make an NSURL with an encoded plus (+)

Question

I need to pass a timestamp with a timezone offset in a GET request, e.g.,

2009-05-04T11:22:00+01:00

This looks like a two arguments

Answer 1

encode you string by using below code

NSString *result = (NSString *)CFURLCreateStringByAddingPercentEscapes(NULL, (CFStringRef)self,NULL,(CFStringRef)@"+",kCFStringEncodingUTF8);

this will encode + of you string which will prevent replacement of + by %2b while posting data in post method

Answer 2

What worked for me was doing the UTF8 conversion, then replacing the + sign with %2B:

NSString *urlString =
    [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@/iphone/push/create?pn[token]=%@&pn[send_at]=%@",
     kHTTPURL, appDelegate.deviceAPNToken, [dateTimeToUse description]];

urlString =
    [[urlString stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]
     stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@"+" withString:@"%2B"];

Answer 3

Use NSString's stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding: method on the text you want to include as an argument.

As its name implies, the method will convert return an auto-released string containing an url-safe version of the receiver.

Answer 4

Thought I may as well provide my workaround as an answer, as I don't think there's a good solution to the original problem.

The plus sign (+) is completely valid in a URL, so my solution was to convert the time to GMT and remove the timezone/DST offset from the string. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine the value of secondsFromGMT below as, in my case, it's always the same because I'm only interested in timestamps generated by a web server.

NSString *gmtWhen = [[self descriptionWithCalendarFormat:nil
                           timeZone:[NSTimeZone
                           timeZoneForSecondsFromGMT:secondsFromGMT
                     ] locale:nil] stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@" +0000" withString:@""];

Answer 5

To get encoded plus (%2B) (It works with all charcters) use CFURLCreateStringByAddingPercentEscapes as

/**
 get parameterized url from url and query parameters.
 */
+(NSString *)getParameterizedUrl:(NSString *)url withParameters:(NSDictionary *)queryDictionary
{
    NSMutableArray *mutablePairs = [NSMutableArray array];
    for (NSString *key in queryDictionary) {
        [mutablePairs addObject:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@=%@", CTPercentEscapedQueryStringKeyFromStringWithEncoding(key, NSUTF8StringEncoding), CTPercentEscapedQueryStringValueFromStringWithEncoding(queryDictionary[key], NSUTF8StringEncoding)]];
    }

    return [[NSString alloc]initWithFormat:@"%@?%@",url,[mutablePairs componentsJoinedByString:@"&"]];
}

static NSString * const kCharactersToBeEscapedInQueryString = @":/?&=;+!@#$()',*";

static NSString * CTPercentEscapedQueryStringKeyFromStringWithEncoding(NSString *string, NSStringEncoding encoding) {
    static NSString * const kCharactersToLeaveUnescapedInQueryStringPairKey = @"[].";

    return (__bridge_transfer  NSString *)CFURLCreateStringByAddingPercentEscapes(kCFAllocatorDefault, (__bridge CFStringRef)string, (__bridge CFStringRef)kCharactersToLeaveUnescapedInQueryStringPairKey, (__bridge CFStringRef)kCharactersToBeEscapedInQueryString, CFStringConvertNSStringEncodingToEncoding(encoding));
}

static NSString * CTPercentEscapedQueryStringValueFromStringWithEncoding(NSString *string, NSStringEncoding encoding) {
    return (__bridge_transfer  NSString *)CFURLCreateStringByAddingPercentEscapes(kCFAllocatorDefault, (__bridge CFStringRef)string, NULL, (__bridge CFStringRef)kCharactersToBeEscapedInQueryString, CFStringConvertNSStringEncodingToEncoding(encoding));
}

And use in your code as

NSMutableDictionary *params = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc]init];
[params setObject:@"2009-05-04T11:22:00+01:00" forKey:@"timestamp"];

NSString *urlString = [self getParameterizedUrl:@"http://www.example.com" withParameters:params];
NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:[urlString stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];

Answer 6

Solution when using URLComponents (Swift 3):

var params = ["email": "user+ios-default@example.com", "name": "John Brown"]
var components = URLComponents(string: "http://www.example.com")!
components.path = "/login"
components.queryItems = params.map { URLQueryItem(name: $0, value: $1) }

let url_NoFix = components.url!
// http://www.example.com/login?name=John%20Brown&email=user+ios-default@example.com

let cs = CharacterSet(charactersIn: "+").inverted
let q =  components.percentEncodedQuery?.addingPercentEncoding(withAllowedCharacters: cs)
components.percentEncodedQuery = q

let url_Fixed = components.url!
// http://www.example.com/login?name=John%20Brown&email=user%2Bios-default@example.com