Submitting properly escaped JSON to PHP in a POST request with Swift - php

Question

I have been struggling to get a web service to work with a native Swift application when a user is attempting to upload data using the "&" character, amongst others.
After various attempts at escaping the request, I am at a loss and looking for some advice to solving this. I have included a some code from both the Swift application and the PHP scripts for reference. The data is able to be posted to the server (I am using FileMaker Server PHP API), but not when the "&" is included in a user-submitted value as the JSON is being cut short when PHP hits that character.
The postData argument in the Swift request sample is a dictionary in JSON format, which is encoded using the below code from JSONStringify:
func JSONStringify(value: AnyObject, prettyPrinted: Bool = false) -> String {
let options = NSJSONWritingOptions.PrettyPrinted
if NSJSONSerialization.isValidJSONObject(value) {
do {
let data = try NSJSONSerialization.dataWithJSONObject(value, options: options)
if let string = NSString(data: data, encoding: NSUTF8StringEncoding) {
return string as String
}
} catch {
return ""
}
}
return ""
}
Swift Request
class func returnAnyObject (phpFile:String, postData:String) -> AnyObject? {
let server:String = "http://myserver.com"
let url = NSURL(string: "\(server)\(phpFile)")
let cachePolicy = NSURLRequestCachePolicy.ReloadIgnoringLocalCacheData
let request = NSMutableURLRequest(URL: url!, cachePolicy: cachePolicy, timeoutInterval: 10.0)
request.HTTPMethod = "POST"
// set data
let dataString = postData.stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding(NSUTF8StringEncoding)!
let requestBodyData = (dataString as NSString).dataUsingEncoding(NSUTF8StringEncoding)
request.HTTPBody = requestBodyData
var response: NSURLResponse? = nil
do {
let reply: NSData = try NSURLConnection.sendSynchronousRequest(request, returningResponse:&response)
if let results = NSString(data:reply, encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding) {
return results
} else {
return nil
}
} catch {
return nil
}
}
PHP
Below is the relevant portion of the PHP script. Perhaps there is some step I am missing with this as well?
<?php
error_reporting(E_ERROR | E_WARNING | E_PARSE);
$req1 = '../../FileMaker.php';
$req2 = '../../FM_Connect.php';
require_once $req1;
require_once $req2;
//set fixed variables
$layout = 'php_Lineitems';
//Define passed variables
$json = $_POST['json'];
$json = stripslashes($json);
$fieldArray = json_decode($json); // This is now an associative array
?>

Answer 1

Don't put the JSON as a string, you don't need to stringify it, should be of NSData type.
Then you set that in the body of your request directly.
Note on the PHP side you won't be able to access $_POST['json'].
You will need to change your code to:
$json = json_decode(file_get_contents('php://input'));