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Asked: 2026-05-23T13:12:00+00:00

I have an iPhone app that uses ASIHTTPRequest to post data to a php

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I have an iPhone app that uses ASIHTTPRequest to post data to a php file, which then uses sql to update the database accordingly.

What’s bugging me is I keep reading that I should encode my posted data in JSON format. Can somebody explain to me the point in this? Why should I encode in JSON format? What are the benefits, needs for this..

EDIT:

Here is how I am posting my data:

-(void) postToDB:(NSString*) msg{
    NSString *myphp = @"http://localhost:8888/databases/test.php";
    NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:myphp];
    ASIFormDataRequest *request = [ASIFormDataRequest requestWithURL:url];
    [request setPostValue:msg forKey:@"message"];
    [request setDelegate:self];
    [request startAsynchronous];
}
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Encapsulating your data in a JSON structure helps creating a structured communications protocol with your server. Without going as far as this depending on your needs, take a look at the specs for JSON-RPC for example. This allows you to have a fully-defined protocol for exchanging data, where methods are always passed the same way, errors are always returned the same way too.

    The use of JSON, JSON-RPC, SOAP, or any other “envelope” is, strictly speaking, never mandatory. It’s just a good practice of standardizing communications over the wires.

    Also, I don’t know if setPostValue:ForKey: automatically escapes characters when needed, but imagine you’re sending a GET to http://whatever/get.php?nickname=nick&with?special@chars&password=qzerty.
    What happens here? your PHP script won’t be able to parse the “nickname” and “password” fields correctly.
    Encapsulating your data in JSON with the help of a JSON framework (you can turn a NSString dictionary to a JSON structure flawlessly in a single line of code) helps preventing this kind of situation.

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