How to use Faroo search API in cocoa - objective-c

Question

I never use web API and don't know what i may read about this. I read FAROO Return Values doc, but i don't understand how i may get result-array (or dictionary) in cocoa.
Please anybody give me example or tutorial how to use Faroo API (or other web API) in objective-c.
Thank you.

Answer 1

To use web API and FAROO API in particular i use NSURLConnection class and NSURLConnectionDelegate protocol:
- (IBAction)search:(id)sender {
NSString* requestString = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"http://www.faroo.com/api?q=%#&start=1&length=10&l=ru&src=news&f=xml&YOUR_API_KEY",[searchField stringValue]];
// NSLog(#"str %#",requestString);
NSURL* requestUrl = [NSURL URLWithString:requestString];
NSURLRequest* searchRequest = [NSURLRequest requestWithURL:requestUrl cachePolicy:NSURLRequestReloadRevalidatingCacheData timeoutInterval:60];
[self performSelectorOnMainThread:#selector(startConnectionWithRequest:) withObject:searchRequest waitUntilDone:NO];
}
- (void)startConnectionWithRequest:(NSURLRequest*)request {
NSURLConnection* connection = [[NSURLConnection alloc]initWithRequest:request delegate:self startImmediately:YES];
if (connection) {
//update GUI and do something...
theData = [NSMutableData data];
}
}
- (void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didReceiveData:(NSData *)data {
NSLog(#"Receive data");
[theData appendData:data];
}
- (void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didReceiveResponse:(NSURLResponse *)response {
if ([response isKindOfClass:[NSHTTPURLResponse class]]) {
NSHTTPURLResponse* httpResponse = (NSHTTPURLResponse*)response;
NSLog(#"Http status code %ld",(long)[httpResponse statusCode]);
}
}
- (void)connectionDidFinishLoading:(NSURLConnection *)connection {
NSLog(#"Finish");
//do something with data and update GUI
}
- (void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didFailWithError:(NSError *)error {
NSAlert* searchFailedAlert = [NSAlert alertWithError:error];
[searchFailedAlert runModal];
}

Answer 2

One other way of doing things is to declare the missing method yourself as a category of the class in question. This will get the compiler to stop complaining about not finding the method, though of course you'll still need the runtime check you're already doing to avoid actually calling the method. You might also want to wrap such a declaration using availability macros, so that it will be ignored once you do move up to using the 10.5/10.6 SDK and you won't get a different compiler complaint down the line. That would look something like this:
#if MAC_OS_X_VERSION_MAX_ALLOWED > MAC_OS_X_VERSION_10_4 //ignore when compiling with the 10.5 SDK or higher
#interface NSPropertyListSerialization(MissingMethods)
+ (NSData *)dataWithPropertyList:(id)plist format:(NSPropertyListFormat)format options:(NSPropertyListWriteOptions)opt error:(NSError **)error;
#end
#endif