How to remove headers in a NSMutableURLRequest?

Question

How can I make a request that contains no headers fields? The requests are being sent to my own server implementation from scratch, which doesn't care about header fields. The request will at most contain only a post body. Let me know if I'm missing something logical.

Please don't tell me about ASIHTTPRequest. Thank you.

Have you ever find an answer to this? I'm trying to remove all headers and the responses here don't seem to work today — Jan, Oct 20 '17 at 15:28

score 10 · Answer 1 · answered May 26 '12 at 13:04

10

As I wanted to remove specific header on a NSMutableURLRequest, I've just found that calling setValue:forHTTPHeaderField: with a nil value actually removes it.

It's not documented by Apple, but it seems quite logical.

answered May 26 '12 at 13:04

The Nicow

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Just for those who found this page with google -- It's not working anymore (I'm using 10.8 sdk). If you set it to nil, User-Agent will not be changed at all. – wecing Nov 05 '12 at 03:39
It works for me on iOS 6.1 SDK with a custom header (I did not test User-Agent). – Marián Černý Jun 10 '13 at 08:25

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 24 '14 at 09:04

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For me the code

[request addValue:@"" forHTTPHeaderField:@"User-Agent"];

only added an empty string instead of cleaning the User-Agent. Instead, using setValue fixed it:

[request setValue:@"" forHTTPHeaderField:@"User-Agent"];

answered Oct 24 '14 at 09:04

Antoine

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Just a note that this is the correct answer. addValue will append the new value to the previous value, comma delimited. setValue will replace the previous value. – Nate Potter Nov 09 '14 at 15:26
Echo that, this is still the correct answer as of iOS 11.3 – Sam Clewlow Apr 30 '18 at 11:07

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 04 '14 at 11:10

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I found that for some of the header fields ("User-Agent" is one of them), setting the header value to nil using

[request addValue:nil forHTTPHeaderField:@"User-Agent"];

doesn't actually remove the header field, but rather sets it to a default value!

If you want to actually remove the content, it is enough setting the value to an empty string with

[request addValue:@"" forHTTPHeaderField:@"User-Agent"];

answered Feb 04 '14 at 11:10

nburk

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I actually found using `nil` removes the header, at least on MacOS. – duncanc4 Jul 13 '18 at 11:11

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 13 '11 at 06:09

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Why not just ignore them, if you control the server implementation?
Does [request setAllHTTPHeaderFields:[NSDictionary dictionary]] work?
If #2 didn't work, try making your own subclass that always returns an empty dictionary from the allHTTPHeaderFields method, and nil from the valueForHTTPHeaderField: method. But NSURLConnection might make a copy of your request, so you might have to override copyWithZone: also.

answered Dec 13 '11 at 06:09

rob mayoff

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#1 Every byte saved matters for this implementation. – Gurpartap Singh Dec 13 '11 at 07:46
#2 won't work because it doesn't override the internal dictionary. It's just overriding the keys, if any. I'll look at subclassing and let you know if that helps. – Gurpartap Singh Dec 13 '11 at 07:47

How to remove headers in a NSMutableURLRequest?

4 Answers4