Use Sharepoint On Ios Platform
26 Oct 2013Request is to commuicate with SharePoint Server using iOS, the version of SharePoint is SharePoint 2013
SharePoint
First, we need a SharePoint Server, the host of this server is http://www.mySharePoint.com, which is the root site of the whole SharePoint. You can add your own subsite under the root site, like http://www.mySharePoint.com/mySubsite.
After getting the url of the Server, then invoke the new SharePoint 2013 REST api to communicate with the Server.
Authentication
The SharePoint Server I visiting uses Form-Based Authentication, users need to input his username and password when visiting it.
In iOS, you can use Credential to authenticate user. First, use NSURLConnection to request the Server
- (void) sendAuthenticateRequest
{
NSMutableURLRequest *request = [NSMutableURLRequest requestWithURL:[NSURL URLWithString:self.sharePointURL]];
[request setHTTPShouldHandleCookies:YES];
[request setHTTPMethod:@"POST"];
NSURLConnection *connection = [[NSURLConnection alloc] initWithRequest:request delegate:self startImmediately:YES];
if (connection == nil)
{
dispatch_semaphore_signal(self.sema);
self.requestCount --;
}
}
then you will receive an authentication challenge, which is invoked in NSURLConnectionDelegate
- (void) connection:(NSURLConnection *) connection didReceiveAuthenticationChallenge:(NSURLAuthenticationChallenge *) challenge
{
NSLog(@"Did receive authenticating challenge.");
if (self.challengeCount == 0)
{
self.challengeCount ++;
NSURLCredential *credential = [NSURLCredential credentialWithUser:self.username password:self.password persistence:NSURLCredentialPersistenceForSession];
[[challenge sender] useCredential:credential forAuthenticationChallenge:challenge];
}
else
{
NSLog(@"Failed to authenticate");
[[challenge sender] cancelAuthenticationChallenge:challenge];
self.challengeCount = 0;
}
}
- (BOOL) connectionShouldUseCredentialStorage:(NSURLConnection *) connection
{
return NO;
}
Then input your username and password, the client will receive a response if the information is correct
- (void) connection:(NSURLConnection *) connection didReceiveResponse:(NSURLResponse *) response
{
self.requestCount --;
self.challengeCount = 0;
NSLog(@"Login succeed.");
self.active = YES;
NSHTTPURLResponse *httpResponse = (NSHTTPURLResponse *) response;
NSDictionary *fields = [httpResponse allHeaderFields];
self.authenticateCookies = [NSArray arrayWithObject:[NSDictionary dictionaryWithObject:[fields objectForKey:@"request-id"] forKey:@"request-id"]];
}
After receive response, keep the key-value in the header of the response in your own cookie, which will be used when you requesting the server later. Take a look at Build mobile apps for other platforms using SharePoint 2013 for detail information
Get the directory of SharePoint
Take a example of getting directory of SharePoint here. Using REST api http://http://www.mySharePoint.com/mySubsite/_api/web/getFolderByServerRelativeUrl('Documents')/files and http://http://www.mySharePoint.com/mySubsite/_api/web/getFolderByServerRelativeUrl('Documents')/folders
The request will return the metadata of all folders and files in the directory you wanted to get like this
{"d":{
"__metadata":{,
"id":"http://<site url>/_api/Web/GetFileByServerRelativeUrl('/Shared Documents/folderName/fileName.docx')",
"uri":"http://<site url>/_api/Web/GetFileByServerRelativeUrl('/Shared%20Documents/folderName/fileName.docx')",
"type":"SP.File"
},
"Author":{"__deferred":{"uri":"http://<site url>/_api/Web/GetFileByServerRelativeUrl('/Shared%20Documents/folderName/fileName.docx')/Author"}},
"CheckedOutByUser":{"__deferred":{"uri":"http://<site url>/_api/Web/GetFileByServerRelativeUrl('/Shared%20Documents/folderName/fileName.docx')/CheckedOutByUser"}},
"ListItemAllFields":{"__deferred":{"uri":"http://<site url>/_api/Web/GetFileByServerRelativeUrl('/Shared%20Documents/folderName/fileName.docx')/ListItemAllFields"}},
"LockedByUser":{"__deferred":{"uri":"http://<site url>/_api/Web/GetFileByServerRelativeUrl('/Shared%20Documents/folderName/fileName.docx')/LockedByUser"}},
"ModifiedBy":{"__deferred":{"uri":"http://<site url>/_api/Web/GetFileByServerRelativeUrl('/Shared%20Documents/folderName/fileName.docx')/ModifiedBy"}},
"Versions":{"__deferred":{"uri":"http://<site url>/_api/Web/GetFileByServerRelativeUrl('/Shared%20Documents/folderName/fileName.docx')/Versions"}},
"CheckInComment":"Revisions to the file.",
"CheckOutType":2,
"ContentTag":"{2FBB0C3C-4059-41A2-A5CF-3E076EA0A94C},2,3",
"CustomizedPageStatus":0,
"ETag":"\"{2FBB0C3C-4059-41A2-A5CF-3E076EA0A94C},2\"",
"Exists":true,
"Length":"20609",
"Level":1,
"MajorVersion":1,
"MinorVersion":0,
"Name":"fileName.docx",
"ServerRelativeUrl":"/Shared Documents/folderName/fileName.docx",
"TimeCreated":"2013-05-16T21:01:23Z",
"TimeLastModified":"2013-05-18T04:57:32Z",
"Title":"",
"UIVersion":512,
"UIVersionLabel":"1.0"
}}
Tip
When requesting SharePoint, you may get Internal 500 error, this is a problem of the Server, so you can login to the host of SharePoint, and use localhost to invoke the REST api first, everything will be OK then. But I don’t know the reason of this problem yet.