Handling response with raw data using RestKit

Question

I am using RestKit 0.23.3.

For a particular path pattern (say download_data/:dataId):

• I can send a request via RestKit without any problem,
• I expect a response with arbitrary Content Type (image/png, text/plain, text/xml,... or even application/json),
• If 2xx status code is returned by the server, I want to receive the body of HTTP response as NSData instance (regardless of Content Type) in the success handler block.

Is this possible (and how) using RestKit?

Thanks.

Answer 1

With new restkit 0.20.3 you can execute your rest web-service like:

[[AppDelegate appDelegate].rkomForProbeList getObjectsAtPath:[NSString stringWithFormat:kResource_Probe,[[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] valueForKey:kNS_DF_AccessRef]] parameters:nil success:^(RKObjectRequestOperation *operation, RKMappingResult *mappingResult) {
       NSLog(@"%@",operation.HTTPRequestOperation.responseString);
       // if raw data
 NSDictionary *jsonObject = [NSJSONSerialization JSONObjectWithData:[operation.HTTPRequestOperation.responseString dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding] options:0 error:NULL];
       // if mapped
       arrayForProbe = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithArray:mappingResult.array];             
   } failure:^(RKObjectRequestOperation *operation, NSError *error) {
       NSLog(@"%@",operation.HTTPRequestOperation.responseString);
        NSDictionary *jsonObject = [NSJSONSerialization JSONObjectWithData:[,operation.HTTPRequestOperation.responseString dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding] options:0 error:NULL];

       NSLog(@"%@",operation.HTTPRequestOperation.response.statusCode);
       NSLog(@"%@",error.description);
       [self hideViewContentAsProbesNotAvailable];
   }];

By mapping you will get your object directly from mappingarray. For parsing raw data you have get json object from response string.

rkomForProbeList is your RKObjectManager's instance. kResource_Probe is resource path. Like if base URL is http://www.hi.com/ and your rest api required http://www.hi.com/login then "login" will be your resource path.

Answer 2

I'm not familiar with RESTKit, but anyway maybe it will help you.
I suggest you to use NSURLSession for low level requests like this, as RESTKit adds a lot of abstractions, which is unnecessary for this task.

[[[NSURLSession sharedSession] dataTaskWithURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@"http://yourSite.com"]
                                completionHandler:^(NSData *data, NSURLResponse *response, NSError *error)
    {
        if ([response isKindOfClass:[NSHTTPURLResponse class]]) {
            NSInteger statusCode = [(NSHTTPURLResponse *)response statusCode];
            if (statusCode >= 200 && statusCode < 300) {
                // that's OK
            } else {
                // something wrong
            }
        }
    }] resume];