Question

I know that conventionally for an app to interact with the internet, it must use a web service to exchange information. However, how would one upload data(photos, text, audio recordings etc.etc.) from app to server(which holds data for all user accounts)? I know some people use an email-to-server tactic from research but even then it sounds ineffective and slow. How do apps such as Instagram upload so fast? I am trying to replicate that sort of uploading. Please guide me in the right direction.

Thanks for the help!

Answer 1

You should definitely look into AFNetworking. Here is an example of my uploading an image to a php web service:

NSData *imageData = UIImagePNGRepresentation(pageImage);

AFHTTPClient *client= [AFHTTPClient clientWithBaseURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@"http://www.SERVER.com"]];


//You can add POST parameteres here
NSDictionary *params = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:
                        author, @"author",
                        title, @"title",
                        nil];

NSMutableURLRequest *request = [client multipartFormRequestWithMethod:@"POST" path:@"/PATH/TO/WEBSERVICE.php" parameters:params constructingBodyWithBlock: ^(id <AFMultipartFormData>formData) {

//This is the image
    [formData appendPartWithFileData: imageData name:@"cover_image" fileName:@"temp.png" mimeType:@"image/png"];


}];



AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation = [[AFHTTPRequestOperation alloc] initWithRequest:request];

//Setup Upload block to return progress of file upload
[operation setUploadProgressBlock:^(NSInteger bytesWritten, long long totalBytesWritten, long long totalBytesExpectedToWrite) {
    float progress = totalBytesWritten / (float)totalBytesExpectedToWrite;
    NSLog(@"Upload Percentage: %f %%", progress*100);
}];




//Setup Completeion block to return successful or failure
[operation setCompletionBlockWithSuccess:^(AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation, id responseObject) {
    NSString *response = [operation responseString];
    NSLog(@"response: [%@]",response);
    //Code to run after webservice returns success response code

} failure:^(AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation, NSError *error) {
    NSLog(@"error: %@", [operation error]);
    //Code to Run if Failed

}];

[operation start];

Edit- Also I use MBProgressHUD to display to the user the uploading on longer uploads.