Objective C HTML Request - objective-c

Question

I am just starting out in Xcode and wanted to try and make a simple app where you press a button and it creates a html post request and returns the html in a string i can't then fiddle with. I realise i would be better server using path or soap or xml, but this is step 1 for me.
The problem i am having is that I can't understand why i get null data returned after my request. I think it might be something to do with me trying to convert the NSData variable into a string?
below is the code for the button press, and below that is the NSLog Details of what is coming out.
Could anyone please suggest what i am doing wrong with this?
Cheers,
John
-(IBAction)buttonTouchedSignIn{
NSString *userName = #"mymadeupuser";
NSLog (#"NSString userName = %#\n\n", userName);
NSString *password = #"1234";
NSLog (#"NSString password = %#\n\n", password);
NSString *url = #"http%3A%2F%2Fmyotherwebsite.com%3A80%2Fsomthing%2Fweb%2Faction%2Flogin.do%3FtargetURL%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fsomwherelse.com%2Fsite3%2Fweb3%2Faction%2FmyAccountMenu.do%3Fdscnt%3D0%26vid%3DBSU";
NSLog (#"NSString url = %#\n\n", url);
// Create the username and password string.
// username and password are the username and password to login with
NSString *postString = [[NSString alloc] initWithFormat:#"bor_id=%#&bor_verification=%#&url=%#",userName, password, url];
NSLog (#"NSString postString = %#\n\n", postString);
// Create the URL request
NSMutableURLRequest *request = [[NSMutableURLRequest alloc] initWithURL: [NSURL URLWithString:#"https://mywebsite.com/somthing/"]];
NSLog (#"NSString NSMutableURLRequest = %#\n\n", request);
NSData *requestData = [postString dataUsingEncoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding];
[request setHTTPBody: requestData]; // apply the post data to be sent
NSLog (#"NSData requestData = %#\n\n", requestData);
// Call the URL
NSURLResponse *response; // holds the response from the server
NSLog (#"NSURLResponse response = %#\n\n", response);
NSError *error; // holds any errors
NSLog (#"NSError error = %#\n\n", error);
NSData *returnData = [NSURLConnection sendSynchronousRequest: request returningResponse:&response error:&error]; // call the URL
NSLog (#"NSData returnedData = %#\n\n", returnData);
//If the response from the server is a web page, dataReturned will hold the string of the HTML returned.
NSString *dataReturned = [[NSString alloc] initWithData:returnData encoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding];
NSLog(#"returned htmlASCII is: %#\n\n", dataReturned);
NSString *dataReturned2 = [[NSString alloc] initWithData:returnData encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
NSLog(#"returned htmlUTF8 is: %#\n\n", dataReturned2);
}
Here is the NSLog output for all the variables
2012-03-29 12:10:04.306 MyApp[2635:f803] NSString userName = mymadeupusername
Current language: auto; currently objective-c
2012-03-29 12:10:16.520 MyApp[2635:f803] NSString password = 1234
2012-03-29 12:10:16.520 MyApp[2635:f803] NSString url = http%3A%2F%2Fsomewebpage.com%3A80%2Fweb2%2Fweb3%2Faction%2Fsigin.go%3FtargetURL%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fsomewebpage.com%2Fweb2%2Fweb3%2Faction%2Fyouraccounts.go%3Fdscnt%3D0%26vid%3DBSU
2012-03-29 12:10:16.521 MyApp[2635:f803] NSString postString = bor_id=joeliot&bor_verification=1234&url=http%3A%2F%2Fsomewebpage.com%3A80%2Fweb2%2Fweb3%2Faction%2Fsigin.go%3FtargetURL%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fsomewebpage.com%2Fweb2%2Fweb3%2Faction%2Fyouraccounts.go%3Fdscnt%3D0%26vid%3DBSU
2012-03-29 12:10:16.522 MyApp[2635:f803] NSString NSMutableURLRequest = https://somewebpage.com/pds?func=login&calling_system=blah&term1=short&company=BSU>
2012-03-29 12:10:16.522 MyApp[2635:f803] NSData requestData =
2012-03-29 12:10:16.650 MyApp[2635:f803] NSURLResponse response = (null)
2012-03-29 12:10:16.651 MyApp[2635:f803] NSError error = (null)
2012-03-29 12:10:17.422 MyApp[2635:f803] NSData returnedData = (null)
2012-03-29 12:10:17.422 MyApp[2635:f803] returned htmlASCII is:
2012-03-29 12:10:17.422 MyApp[2635:f803] returned htmlUTF8 is:

Answer 1

A few things I see:
1) You need to set the method as POST. Use setHTTPMethod on your request.
2) You need a content lenght Do something like: [request setValue:length forHTTPHeaderField:#"Content-Length"]; where length is a string representation of the number of bytes you are posting.
3) You probably need to set the host to the hostname of the server. This depends a bit per server, but they tend to reject things not for their hostname(s). Use setValue again.
4) You should probably have a content-type. Again, depends on the server, but most certainly good practice to have.
5) UTF8 string encoding is nicer than ascii, most of the web plays better with it.
I hope at least one of those helps. Good luck.