How to show JSON data in UIView labels - objective-c

Question

About every single tutorial and example on the internet I see shows how to fetch JSON from some url and show it in Tableview. This is not my problem I know how to do that with AFNetworking framework or with native APIs.
My problem is that after I have downloaded the JSON, I want to show some of it in my UIView labels. I have actually succeeded doing this when I was trying to find a way around NSURLSession inability to cache in iOS 8. But I didn't realize that it was synchronous.
Factory.m
+ (Factory *)responseJson
{
static Factory *shared = nil;
shared = [[Factory alloc] init];
NSHTTPURLResponse *response = nil;
NSString *jsonUrlString = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"http://urltojson.com/file.json"];
NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:[jsonUrlString stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];
NSError *error = nil;
NSURLRequest *request = [NSURLRequest requestWithURL:url
cachePolicy:NSURLRequestReturnCacheDataElseLoad
timeoutInterval:10.0];
NSData *responseData = [NSURLConnection sendSynchronousRequest:request returningResponse:&response error:&error];
if (error) {
NSLog(#"error");
} else {
//-- JSON Parsing
NSDictionary *result = [NSJSONSerialization JSONObjectWithData:responseData options:kNilOptions error:nil];
//NSLog(#"Result = %#",result);
shared.responseJson = result;
}
return shared;
}
My question is that is it possible to use for example AFNetwoking to do the same thing? Am I missing some method that I need to call like in case of a TableView
[self.tableView reloadData];
I would like to use that framework because I need to check Reachability and it seems to implement it already.
Edit as asked to show more code
ViewController.m
- (void)viewDidLoad
{
[super viewDidLoad];
[self factoryLoad];
[self setupView];
}
- (void)factoryLoad
{
Factory *shared = [Factory responseJson];
self.titles = [shared.responseJson valueForKeyPath:#"data.title"];
dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^{
[self.collectionView reloadData];
});
}
- (void)setupView
{
self.issueTitleLabel.text = [self.titles objectAtIndex:0];
}

Answer 1

There are a couple oddities in the code you posted.
Factory, which appears to be a singleton class, should be instantiated inside a dispatch_once to ensure thread safety.
In ViewController.m, you are calling factoryLoad on the main thread, which is subsequently calling sendSynchronousRequest on the main thread. Apple's NSURLConnection Documentation warns against calling this function on the main thread as it blocks the thread, making your application unresponsive to user input.
You should not be passing in nil as the error parameter in NSJSONSerialization JSONObjectWithData:.
In your case I would recommend separating the fetching of data from the construction of your singleton object.
Factory.m
+(Factory *)sharedFactory {
static Factory *sharedFactory = nil;
dispatch_once_t onceToken;
dispatch_once(&onceToken, {
sharedFactory = [[Factory alloc] init];
});
}
-(void)fetchDataInBackgroundWithCompletionHandler:(void(^)(NSURLResponse *response,
NSData *data,
NSError *error)
completion {
NSHTTPURLResponse *response = nil;
NSString *jsonUrlString = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"http://urltojson.com/file.json"];
NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:[jsonUrlString stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];
NSURLRequest *request = [NSURLRequest requestWithURL:url
cachePolicy:NSURLRequestReturnCacheDataElseLoad
timeoutInterval:10.0];
NSOperationQueue *downloadQueue = [[NSOperationQueue alloc] init];
[NSURLConnection sendAsynchronousRequest:request
queue:downloadQueue
completionHandler:completion];
}
Now you should be able to create a reference to the data with a guarantee that the download request has finished and thus the data will exist.
ViewController.m
-(void)factoryLoad {
[[Factory sharedFactory] fetchDataInBackgroundWithCompletionHandler:^(void)(NSURLResponse *response, NSData *data, NSError *error){
if(!error) {
NSError *error2;
NSDictionary *serializedData = [NSJSONSerialization JSONObjectWithData:data options:kNilOptions error:&error2];
if(error2){ /* handle error */ }
self.titles = [serializedData valueForKeyPath:#"data.title"];
[Factory sharedFactory].responseJSON = serializedData;
}
else {
// handle error
}
}];
}
This will guarantee that the download has completed before you try to access any of the downloaded information. However, I've left a few things out here, including any sort of activity indicator displaying to the user that the app is doing something important in the background. The rest is, uh, left as an exercise to the reader.

Answer 2

Ok I took a deeper investigation into Morgan Chen's answer and how to block.
The example code took some modification but I think It works as it should and is better code.
In Factory.m
+ (Factory *) sharedInstance
{
static Factory *_sharedInstance = nil;
static dispatch_once_t onceToken;
dispatch_once(&onceToken, ^{
_sharedInstance = [[self alloc] init];
});
return _sharedInstance;
}
-(void)fetchDataInBackgroundWithCompletionHandler: (void(^)(BOOL success, NSDictionary *data, NSError *error)) block
{
NSString * baseURL = #"http://jsonurl.com/file.json";
AFHTTPRequestOperationManager * manager = [[AFHTTPRequestOperationManager alloc] init];
__weak AFHTTPRequestOperationManager *weakManager = manager;
NSOperationQueue *operationQueue = manager.operationQueue;
[manager.reachabilityManager setReachabilityStatusChangeBlock:^(AFNetworkReachabilityStatus status) {
switch (status) {
case AFNetworkReachabilityStatusReachableViaWWAN:
case AFNetworkReachabilityStatusReachableViaWiFi:
NSLog(#"internet!");
[weakManager.requestSerializer setCachePolicy:NSURLRequestReloadIgnoringCacheData];
[operationQueue setSuspended:NO];
break;
case AFNetworkReachabilityStatusNotReachable:
NSLog(#"no internet");
[weakManager.requestSerializer setCachePolicy:NSURLRequestReturnCacheDataElseLoad];
[operationQueue setSuspended:YES];
break;
default:
break;
}
}];
[manager.reachabilityManager startMonitoring];
manager.responseSerializer = [AFJSONResponseSerializer serializer];
[manager GET:baseURL parameters:nil success:^(AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation, id responseObject) {
if (responseObject && [responseObject isKindOfClass:[NSDictionary class]]) {
block(YES, responseObject, nil);
}
} failure:^(AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation, NSError *error) { // invalid request.
NSLog(#"%#", error.localizedDescription);
block(NO, nil, error);
}];
}
In ViewController.m I call this method on viewDidLoad
-(void)factoryLoad
{
[[Factory sharedInstance] fetchDataInBackgroundWithCompletionHandler:^(BOOL success, NSDictionary *data, NSError *error) {
if (success) {
NSLog(#"we have stuff");
self.responseData = data;
self.titles = [self.responseData valueForKeyPath:#"data.title"];
[self setupView];
dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^{
[self.collectionView reloadData];
});
}
}];
}