How To Send “chat message” From iOS TextField To A Remote Database

Question

so I am trying to create a simple iOS program where I can save a chat message to a remote MySQL server and then load it back.

My app has textbox where I can enter in data and a button to save the data to an external database.

My php file looks like this:

<?php

$DB_HostName = "hostname";
$DB_Name = "dbname";
$DB_User = "dbuser";
$DB_Pass = "dbpass";
$DB_Table = "dbtable";

if (isset ($_GET["name"]))
    $name = $_GET["name"];
else
    //$name = "Ghalia";
    echo ('Please enter a name');

$con = mysql_connect($DB_HostName,$DB_User,$DB_Pass) or die(mysql_error()); 
mysql_select_db($DB_Name,$con) or die(mysql_error()); 

$sql = "insert into $DB_Table (name) values('$name');";
$res = mysql_query($sql,$con) or die(mysql_error());

mysql_close($con);
if ($res) {
    echo "success";
}else{
    echo "faild";
}
?>

My ViewController.h file looks like this:

#import "ViewController.h"

@interface ViewController ()

@end

@implementation ViewController
@synthesize txtName;

- (void)viewDidLoad {
[super viewDidLoad];
// Do any additional setup after loading the view, typically from a nib.
}

- (void)didReceiveMemoryWarning {
[super didReceiveMemoryWarning];
// Dispose of any resources that can be recreated.
}

- (IBAction)insert:(id)sender {
//create string contains url address for php file, the file name is phpfile.php, it receives a     parameter :name

NSString *strURL = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"http://xxdsadxx.net/phpFile.php?name=%@", txtName.text];

//to execute php code
NSData *dataURL = [NSData dataWithContentsOfURL:[NSURL URLWithString:strURL]];
//to receive the returned value
NSString *strResult = [[NSString alloc] initWithData:dataURL encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];

NSLog(@"%@", strResult);

}
@end

Right now, I have it coded to only store names.

I want to store a chat message like "hello, how are you?", the string will not store properly to the external server. Any idea how I can achieve this? Thanks.

Answer 1

You should not use dataWithContentsOfURL. That is a blocking call. It will freeze the UI until the network request complete. You want to do an HTTP get using NSURLConnection.