What is the quickest way to get the String contents of a URL using Cocoa/iPhoneSDK?

Question

Say I want to get the HTML of

http://www.google.com

as a String using some built-in classes of the Cocoa Touch framework.

What is the least amount of code I need to write?

I've gotten this far, but can't figure out how to progress. There must be an easier way.

CFHTTPMessageRef req;
NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:@"http://www.google.com"];
req = CFHTTPMessageCreateRequest(kCFAllocatorDefault,
                                 CFSTR("GET"),
                                 (CFURLRef)url,
                                 kCFHTTPVersion1_1);

Answer 1

The quickest way is to use NSString's +stringWithContentsOfURL: method. However, this is a modal call, and your application will be non-responsive while it runs. You can either move it to a background thread, or use the NSURLConnection class to make a proper, asynchronous request.

Answer 2

One way to do this is as follows, however as Ben Gottlieb points out, this is a synchronouseRequest and will cause your program's execution to wait on the return of this function call, possibly making your application non-responsive.

NSURL *url = [ NSURL URLWithString: @"http://www.google.com"]; 
NSURLRequest *req = [ NSURLRequest requestWithURL:url
                                      cachePolicy:NSURLRequestReloadIgnoringCacheData
                                  timeoutInterval:30.0 ];
NSError *err;
NSURLResponse *res;
NSData *d = [ NSURLConnection sendSynchronousRequest:req
                                   returningResponse:&res
                                               error:&err ];

You can find information on writing the proper delegate methods to handle a Asynchronous Connection here on the Apple dev-docs.