Encode NSString for XML/HTML

Question

Is there a way to HTML encode a string (NSString) in Objective-C, something along the lines of Server.HtmlEncode in .NET?

Answer 1

This easiest solution is to create a category as below:

Here’s the category’s header file:

#import 
@interface NSString (URLEncoding)
-(NSString *)urlEncodeUsingEncoding:(NSStringEncoding)encoding;
@end

And here’s the implementation:

#import "NSString+URLEncoding.h"
@implementation NSString (URLEncoding)
-(NSString *)urlEncodeUsingEncoding:(NSStringEncoding)encoding {
    return (NSString *)CFURLCreateStringByAddingPercentEscapes(NULL,
               (CFStringRef)self,
               NULL,
               (CFStringRef)@"!*'\"();:@&=+$,/?%#[]% ",
               CFStringConvertNSStringEncodingToEncoding(encoding));
}
@end

And now we can simply do this:

NSString *raw = @"hell & brimstone + earthly/delight";
NSString *url = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"http://example.com/example?param=%@",
            [raw urlEncodeUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];
NSLog(url);

The credits for this answer goes to the website below:-

http://madebymany.com/blog/url-encoding-an-nsstring-on-ios