Best architectural approaches for building iOS networking applications (REST clients)

Question

I\'m an iOS developer with some experience and this question is really interesting to me. I saw a lot of different resources and materials on this topic, but nevertheless I\

Answer 1

In my situation I'm usually using ResKit library to set up the network layer. It provides easy-to-use parsing. It reduces my effort on setting up the mapping for different responses and stuff.

I only add some code to setup the mapping automatically. I define base class for my models (not protocol because of lot of code to check if some method is implemented or not, and less code in models itself):

MappableEntry.h

@interface MappableEntity : NSObject

+ (NSArray*)pathPatterns;
+ (NSArray*)keyPathes;
+ (NSArray*)fieldsArrayForMapping;
+ (NSDictionary*)fieldsDictionaryForMapping;
+ (NSArray*)relationships;

@end

MappableEntry.m

@implementation MappableEntity

+(NSArray*)pathPatterns {
    return @[];
}

+(NSArray*)keyPathes {
    return nil;
}

+(NSArray*)fieldsArrayForMapping {
    return @[];
}

+(NSDictionary*)fieldsDictionaryForMapping {
    return @{};
}

+(NSArray*)relationships {
    return @[];
}

@end

Relationships are objects which represent nested objects in response:

RelationshipObject.h

@interface RelationshipObject : NSObject

@property (nonatomic,copy) NSString* source;
@property (nonatomic,copy) NSString* destination;
@property (nonatomic) Class mappingClass;

+(RelationshipObject*)relationshipWithKey:(NSString*)key andMappingClass:(Class)mappingClass;
+(RelationshipObject*)relationshipWithSource:(NSString*)source destination:(NSString*)destination andMappingClass:(Class)mappingClass;

@end

RelationshipObject.m

@implementation RelationshipObject

+(RelationshipObject*)relationshipWithKey:(NSString*)key andMappingClass:(Class)mappingClass {
    RelationshipObject* object = [[RelationshipObject alloc] init];
    object.source = key;
    object.destination = key;
    object.mappingClass = mappingClass;
    return object;
}

+(RelationshipObject*)relationshipWithSource:(NSString*)source destination:(NSString*)destination andMappingClass:(Class)mappingClass {
    RelationshipObject* object = [[RelationshipObject alloc] init];
    object.source = source;
    object.destination = destination;
    object.mappingClass = mappingClass;
    return object;
}

@end

Then I'm setting up the mapping for RestKit like this:

ObjectMappingInitializer.h

@interface ObjectMappingInitializer : NSObject

+(void)initializeRKObjectManagerMapping:(RKObjectManager*)objectManager;

@end

ObjectMappingInitializer.m

@interface ObjectMappingInitializer (Private)

+ (NSArray*)mappableClasses;

@end

@implementation ObjectMappingInitializer

+(void)initializeRKObjectManagerMapping:(RKObjectManager*)objectManager {

    NSMutableDictionary *mappingObjects = [NSMutableDictionary dictionary];

    // Creating mappings for classes
    for (Class mappableClass in [self mappableClasses]) {
        RKObjectMapping *newMapping = [RKObjectMapping mappingForClass:mappableClass];
        [newMapping addAttributeMappingsFromArray:[mappableClass fieldsArrayForMapping]];
        [newMapping addAttributeMappingsFromDictionary:[mappableClass fieldsDictionaryForMapping]];
        [mappingObjects setObject:newMapping forKey:[mappableClass description]];
    }

    // Creating relations for mappings
    for (Class mappableClass in [self mappableClasses]) {
        RKObjectMapping *mapping = [mappingObjects objectForKey:[mappableClass description]];
        for (RelationshipObject *relation in [mappableClass relationships]) {
            [mapping addPropertyMapping:[RKRelationshipMapping relationshipMappingFromKeyPath:relation.source toKeyPath:relation.destination withMapping:[mappingObjects objectForKey:[relation.mappingClass description]]]];
        }
    }

    // Creating response descriptors with mappings
    for (Class mappableClass in [self mappableClasses]) {
        for (NSString* pathPattern in [mappableClass pathPatterns]) {
            if ([mappableClass keyPathes]) {
                for (NSString* keyPath in [mappableClass keyPathes]) {
                    [objectManager addResponseDescriptor:[RKResponseDescriptor responseDescriptorWithMapping:[mappingObjects objectForKey:[mappableClass description]] method:RKRequestMethodAny pathPattern:pathPattern keyPath:keyPath statusCodes:RKStatusCodeIndexSetForClass(RKStatusCodeClassSuccessful)]];
                }
            } else {
                [objectManager addResponseDescriptor:[RKResponseDescriptor responseDescriptorWithMapping:[mappingObjects objectForKey:[mappableClass description]] method:RKRequestMethodAny pathPattern:pathPattern keyPath:nil statusCodes:RKStatusCodeIndexSetForClass(RKStatusCodeClassSuccessful)]];
            }
        }
    }

    // Error Mapping
    RKObjectMapping *errorMapping = [RKObjectMapping mappingForClass:[Error class]];
    [errorMapping addAttributeMappingsFromArray:[Error fieldsArrayForMapping]];
    for (NSString *pathPattern in Error.pathPatterns) {
        [[RKObjectManager sharedManager] addResponseDescriptor:[RKResponseDescriptor responseDescriptorWithMapping:errorMapping method:RKRequestMethodAny pathPattern:pathPattern keyPath:nil statusCodes:RKStatusCodeIndexSetForClass(RKStatusCodeClassClientError)]];
    }
}

@end

@implementation ObjectMappingInitializer (Private)

+ (NSArray*)mappableClasses {
    return @[
        [FruiosPaginationResults class],
        [FruioItem class],
        [Pagination class],
        [ContactInfo class],
        [Credentials class],
        [User class]
    ];
}

@end

Some example of MappableEntry implementation:

User.h

@interface User : MappableEntity

@property (nonatomic) long userId;
@property (nonatomic, copy) NSString *username;
@property (nonatomic, copy) NSString *email;
@property (nonatomic, copy) NSString *password;
@property (nonatomic, copy) NSString *token;

- (instancetype)initWithUsername:(NSString*)username email:(NSString*)email password:(NSString*)password;

- (NSDictionary*)registrationData;

@end

User.m

@implementation User

- (instancetype)initWithUsername:(NSString*)username email:(NSString*)email password:(NSString*)password {
    if (self = [super init]) {
        self.username = username;
        self.email = email;
        self.password = password;
    }
    return self;
}

- (NSDictionary*)registrationData {
    return @{
        @"username": self.username,
        @"email": self.email,
        @"password": self.password
    };
}

+ (NSArray*)pathPatterns {
    return @[
        [NSString stringWithFormat:@"/api/%@/users/register", APIVersionString],
        [NSString stringWithFormat:@"/api/%@/users/login", APIVersionString]
    ];
}

+ (NSArray*)fieldsArrayForMapping {
    return @[ @"username", @"email", @"password", @"token" ];
}

+ (NSDictionary*)fieldsDictionaryForMapping {
    return @{ @"id": @"userId" };
}

@end

---

Now about the Requests wrapping:

I have header file with blocks definition, to reduce line length in all APIRequest classes:

APICallbacks.h

typedef void(^SuccessCallback)();
typedef void(^SuccessCallbackWithObjects)(NSArray *objects);
typedef void(^ErrorCallback)(NSError *error);
typedef void(^ProgressBlock)(float progress);

And Example of my APIRequest class that I'm using:

LoginAPI.h

@interface LoginAPI : NSObject

- (void)loginWithCredentials:(Credentials*)credentials onSuccess:(SuccessCallbackWithObjects)onSuccess onError:(ErrorCallback)onError;

@end

LoginAPI.m

@implementation LoginAPI

- (void)loginWithCredentials:(Credentials*)credentials onSuccess:(SuccessCallbackWithObjects)onSuccess onError:(ErrorCallback)onError {
    [[RKObjectManager sharedManager] postObject:nil path:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"/api/%@/users/login", APIVersionString] parameters:[credentials credentialsData] success:^(RKObjectRequestOperation *operation, RKMappingResult *mappingResult) {
        onSuccess(mappingResult.array);
    } failure:^(RKObjectRequestOperation *operation, NSError *error) {
        onError(error);
    }];
}

@end

And all you need to do in code, simply initialize API object and call it whenever you need it:

SomeViewController.m

@implementation SomeViewController {
    LoginAPI *_loginAPI;
    // ...
}

- (void)viewDidLoad {
    [super viewDidLoad];

    _loginAPI = [[LoginAPI alloc] init];
    // ...
}

// ...

- (IBAction)signIn:(id)sender {
    [_loginAPI loginWithCredentials:_credentials onSuccess:^(NSArray *objects) {
        // Success Block
    } onError:^(NSError *error) {
        // Error Block
    }];
}

// ...

@end

My code isn't perfect, but it's easy to set once and use for different projects. If it's interesting to anyone, mb I could spend some time and make a universal solution for it somewhere on GitHub and CocoaPods.