Spaces in a NSURL with variables doesn't load

Question

Hello everyone I have an objective-c dilema :P I am quite new to objective-c, and I have tried searching for an answer, but to no avail.

So, here is my situation. I

Answer 1

If I understand you correctly, you're trying to generate a string with literal "%20"s embedded in it. The "%" character is special in format strings. If you want to insert a literal percent character, you need to escape it by putting two consecutive "%"s. Like

[NSURL URLWithString:[baseURLStr stringByAppendingFormat:@"foo%%20bar"]];

That would append "foo%20bar" to the end of the string.

Answer 2

You probably just need to encode the percent signs. Try: stringByAppendingFormat:@"announcements%%20%@%%20%d%%20carson.ashx"]

Answer 3

whenever an NSURL returns nil (0x0) after init it is almost always related to in improper url string. And its very picky about getting a properly formatted string.

my recommendation is to simply build your string, without any escapes or url encoding, then simply call

myUrlString = [myUrlString stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding];

here is the header declaration for it

- (NSString *)stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:(NSStringEncoding)enc NS_AVAILABLE(10_3, 2_0);

this way, I always know I get it formatted the way that the NSURL class wants it.

here is an example

NSString *sUrl = @"http://www.myside.ca/example/announcements carson.ashx"; //notice the embedded space
sUrl = [sUrl stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding];
NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:sUrl];

Answer 4

If you're not using printf-style formats, don't use stringByAppendingFormat:. Use stringByAppendingString: instead.

Second, is the resulting URL really supposed to be http://www.myside.ca/exampleannouncements%20%@%20%d%20carson.ashx? Or is there supposed to be a slash in the middle: http://www.myside.ca/example/announcements%20%@%20%d%20carson.ashx?

Also, http://www.myside.ca/exampleannouncements%20%@%20%d%20carson.ashx is an invalid URL. The percent signs that are not part of an escape (e.g. not part of %20) must themselves be encoded, as %25. Technically, the @ should also be escaped (as %40), but IIRC NSURL will let that slide.