NSURLConnection wrong order

Question

I have a NSURLConnection (two of them), and they're running in the wrong order.
Here's my method:

- (void)loginToMistarWithPin:(NSString *)pin password:(NSString *)password {

    NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:@"https://mistar.oakland.k12.mi.us/novi/StudentPortal/Home/Login"];

    //Create and send request
    NSMutableURLRequest *request = [[NSMutableURLRequest alloc] initWithURL:url];

    [request setHTTPMethod:@"POST"];

    NSString *postString = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"Pin=%@&Password=%@",
                            [self percentEscapeString:pin],
                            [self percentEscapeString:password]];
    NSData * postBody = [postString dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
    [request setHTTPBody:postBody];

    [NSURLConnection sendAsynchronousRequest:request queue:[NSOperationQueue mainQueue] completionHandler:^(NSURLResponse *response, NSData *data, NSError *error)
     {
         // do whatever with the data...and errors
         if ([data length] > 0 && error == nil) {
             NSError *parseError;
             NSDictionary *responseJSON = [NSJSONSerialization JSONObjectWithData:data options:0 error:&parseError];
             if (responseJSON) {
                 // the response was JSON and we successfully decoded it

                 NSLog(@"Response was = %@", responseJSON);
             } else {
                 // the response was not JSON, so let's see what it was so we can diagnose the issue

                 NSString *loggedInPage = [[NSString alloc] initWithData:data encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
                 NSLog(@"Response was not JSON (from login), it was = %@", loggedInPage);
             }
         }
         else {
             NSLog(@"error: %@", error);
         }
     }];


    //Now redirect to assignments page

    NSURL *homeURL = [NSURL URLWithString:@"https://mistar.oakland.k12.mi.us/novi/StudentPortal/Home/PortalMainPage"];
    NSMutableURLRequest *requestHome = [[NSMutableURLRequest alloc] initWithURL:homeURL];
    [request setHTTPMethod:@"POST"];

    [NSURLConnection sendAsynchronousRequest:requestHome queue:[NSOperationQueue mainQueue] completionHandler:^(NSURLResponse *homeResponse, NSData *homeData, NSError *homeError)
     {
         // do whatever with the data...and errors
         if ([homeData length] > 0 && homeError == nil) {
             NSError *parseError;
             NSDictionary *responseJSON = [NSJSONSerialization JSONObjectWithData:homeData options:0 error:&parseError];
             if (responseJSON) {
                 // the response was JSON and we successfully decoded it

                 NSLog(@"Response was = %@", responseJSON);
             } else {
                 // the response was not JSON, so let's see what it was so we can diagnose the issue

                 NSString *homePage = [[NSString alloc] initWithData:homeData encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
                 NSLog(@"Response was not JSON (from home), it was = %@", homePage);
             }
         }
         else {
             NSLog(@"error: %@", homeError);
         }
     }];

}

- (NSString *)percentEscapeString:(NSString *)string
{
    NSString *result = CFBridgingRelease(CFURLCreateStringByAddingPercentEscapes(kCFAllocatorDefault,
                                                                                 (CFStringRef)string,
                                                                                 (CFStringRef)@" ",
                                                                                 (CFStringRef)@":/?@!$&'()*+,;=",
                                                                                 kCFStringEncodingUTF8));
    return [result stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@" " withString:@"+"];
}

So, it's two NSURLConnection's that are added to the [NSOperationQueue mainQueue]. What my output is showing me is that the second NSURLConnection is running before the first one. So it tries to go to the page where I download data before I'm logged in, so it (obviously) returns a "You're not logged in" error. How do I schedule them one after another?

Rob · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-22T05:22:13.197

The issue, as I suspect you have realized, is that you're doing asynchronous network requests (which is good; you don't want to block the main queue), so there's no assurance of the order they'll finish.

The quickest and easiest answer is to simply put the call to the second request inside the completion block of the first one, not after it. You don't want to be making that second one unless the first one succeeded anyway.

To keep your code from getting unwieldy, separate the login from the request for main page. And you can use the completion block pattern which is common with asynchronous methods. You add a parameter to loginToMistarWithPin that specifies what it should do when the request finishes. You might have one completion block handler for success, and one for failure:

- (void)loginToMistarWithPin:(NSString *)pin password:(NSString *)password success:(void (^)(void))successHandler failure:(void (^)(void))failureHandler {

    NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:@"https://mistar.oakland.k12.mi.us/novi/StudentPortal/Home/Login"];

    //Create and send request
    NSMutableURLRequest *request = [[NSMutableURLRequest alloc] initWithURL:url];

    [request setHTTPMethod:@"POST"];

    NSString *postString = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"Pin=%@&Password=%@",
                            [self percentEscapeString:pin],
                            [self percentEscapeString:password]];
    NSData * postBody = [postString dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
    [request setHTTPBody:postBody];

    [NSURLConnection sendAsynchronousRequest:request queue:[NSOperationQueue mainQueue] completionHandler:^(NSURLResponse *response, NSData *data, NSError *error)
     {
         // do whatever with the data...and errors
         if ([data length] > 0 && error == nil) {
             NSError *parseError;
             NSDictionary *responseJSON = [NSJSONSerialization JSONObjectWithData:data options:0 error:&parseError];
             if (responseJSON) {
                 // the response was JSON and we successfully decoded it

                 NSLog(@"Response was = %@", responseJSON);

                 // assuming you validated that everything was successful, call the success block

                 if (successHandler)
                     successHandler();
             } else {
                 // the response was not JSON, so let's see what it was so we can diagnose the issue

                 NSString *loggedInPage = [[NSString alloc] initWithData:data encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
                 NSLog(@"Response was not JSON (from login), it was = %@", loggedInPage);

                 if (failureHandler)
                     failureHandler();
             }
         }
         else {
             NSLog(@"error: %@", error);

             if (failureHandler)
                 failureHandler();
         }
     }];
}

- (void)requestMainPage {

    //Now redirect to assignments page

    NSURL *homeURL = [NSURL URLWithString:@"https://mistar.oakland.k12.mi.us/novi/StudentPortal/Home/PortalMainPage"];
    NSMutableURLRequest *requestHome = [[NSMutableURLRequest alloc] initWithURL:homeURL];
    [requestHome setHTTPMethod:@"GET"]; // this looks like GET request, not POST

    [NSURLConnection sendAsynchronousRequest:requestHome queue:[NSOperationQueue mainQueue] completionHandler:^(NSURLResponse *homeResponse, NSData *homeData, NSError *homeError)
     {
         // do whatever with the data...and errors
         if ([homeData length] > 0 && homeError == nil) {
             NSError *parseError;
             NSDictionary *responseJSON = [NSJSONSerialization JSONObjectWithData:homeData options:0 error:&parseError];
             if (responseJSON) {
                 // the response was JSON and we successfully decoded it

                 NSLog(@"Response was = %@", responseJSON);
             } else {
                 // the response was not JSON, so let's see what it was so we can diagnose the issue

                 NSString *homePage = [[NSString alloc] initWithData:homeData encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
                 NSLog(@"Response was not JSON (from home), it was = %@", homePage);
             }
         }
         else {
             NSLog(@"error: %@", homeError);
         }
     }];

}

Then, when you want to login, you can do something like:

[self loginToMistarWithPin:@"1234" password:@"pass" success:^{
    [self requestMainPage];
} failure:^{
    NSLog(@"login failed");
}];

Now, change those successHandler and failureHandler block parameters to include whatever data you need to pass back, but hopefully it illustrates the idea. Keep your methods short and tight, and use completion block parameters to specify what an asynchronous method should do when it's done.

It *might* be working, not sure. How would I download the HTML contents of the `https://mistar.oakland.k12.mi.us/novi/StudentPortal/Home/PortalMainPage` from inside the block? I tried just printing the `homeData` from the `sendAsynchronousRequest`, but that didn't give me anything. — AndrewSB, Mar 22 '14 at 05:27
I am so sorry, I didn't implement your changes (because of my idiocy) it's working *perfectly*, thank you so much — AndrewSB, Mar 22 '14 at 05:34
Now I'm going to add another success block inside that success block, would that be wise or should I do it some other way? Because now I'm going to want to `POST` some data to the `PortalMainPage` — AndrewSB, Mar 22 '14 at 05:35
@AndrewSB Use that completion block pattern wherever you want the code that calls your method to be able to specify a block of code that should be called upon successful (or unsuccessful) completion of the asynchronous request. So, bottom line, feel free to use it wherever is appropriate. — Rob, Mar 22 '14 at 05:37

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:05

0

Can you check the below link. It is about forcing one operation to wait for another.

NSOperation - Forcing an operation to wait others dynamically

Hope this helps.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:05

Community

1
1

answered Mar 22 '14 at 04:39

rshankar

3,045
2
18
19

NSURLConnection wrong order

2 Answers2