Unable to attach token to API calls (Basic Authentication, AFNetworking)

I am using Basic Authentication in my project. To get the token, I send a get request, get the token object, store it as NSUserDefault and I need attach this token to all of my API calls (besides login of course).

What is the right way of making API calls with a token in AFNetworking/RestKit?

This is what my token object looks like:

response.body={"Id":"84f4faf2","TokenValidity":"1.00:00:00","ValidTo":"2013-11-02T04:24:00.0817221Z","Parameters":{"AccountId":"1041"},"Token":"sF6G3czrqZmm70FtDKZxDoNC21tglUvo1+HqraqQU/Y="}

To get the token I subclassed the AFHTTPClient and made the token call as described in Stack Overflow question Using AFNetworking and HTTP Basic Authentication.

Currently I store the response body to id response object, set the create a NSUserDefault from that object and tried to call it.

This is how I get the token

SBAPIManager.h

#import "AFHTTPClient.h"
#import <AFNetworking/AFHTTPClient.h>

@interface SBAPIManager : AFHTTPClient
-(void)setUsername:(NSString *)username andPassword:(NSString *)password;
- (void)setAuthorizationHeaderWithToken:(NSString *)token;
+(SBAPIManager *)sharedManager;

@end

SBAPIManager.m

#import "SBAPIManager.h"
#import "AFNetworking/AFJSONRequestOperation.h"
#import "AFNetworking/AFNetworkActivityIndicatorManager.h"

@implementation SBAPIManager
#pragma mark - Methods
-(void)setUsername:(NSString *)username andPassword:(NSString *)password
{
    [self clearAuthorizationHeader];
    [self setAuthorizationHeaderWithUsername:username password:password];
}

-(void)setAuthorizationHeaderWithToken:(NSString *)token
{
    [self setAuthorizationHeaderWithToken:token];
}

#pragma mark - initialization
-(id)initWithBaseURL:(NSURL *)url
{
    self = [super initWithBaseURL:url];
    if (!self)
        return nil;
        [self registerHTTPOperationClass:[AFJSONRequestOperation class]];
        [self setDefaultHeader:@"Accept" value:@"application/json"];
        [self setParameterEncoding:AFJSONParameterEncoding];
        [[AFNetworkActivityIndicatorManager sharedManager]setEnabled:YES];

    return self;
}

#pragma mark - singleton methods
+(SBAPIManager *)sharedManager
{
    static dispatch_once_t pred;
    static SBAPIManager *_sharedManager =nil;

    dispatch_once(&pred, ^{_sharedManager =[[self alloc]initWithBaseURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@"https://qstage.azurewebsites.net"]]; });
    return _sharedManager;
}

@end

ViewController.m

        [[SBAPIManager sharedManager]setUsername:_nickname andPassword:_StoreIdentifierForVendor];

        [[SBAPIManager sharedManager]getPath:@"/Accounts/Token" parameters:nil success:^(AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation, id responseObject) {

            NSUserDefaults *TokenSession = [NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults ];
            [TokenSession setObject:responseObject forKey:@"TOKEN"];

            NSLog(@"JSON");
            NSLog(@"token %@",[self Token]);
        } failure:^(AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation,NSError *error) {
            //Error stuff here
        }];

    } failure:nil];
}

After creating the TokenSession object I do a Base64 encoding to TokenSession and use it with setAuthorizationHeaderWithToken method right before making an API call. But I get an [__NSCFDictionary dataUsingEncoding:]: unrecognized selector sent to instance error. So before I try to fix this, I would appreciate, if someone can tell me, whether the way I am doing is the right way of making API calls or not.

The responseObject you receive and store into user defaults is a dictionary (because you have configured AFNetworking to automatically deserialise JSON for you). So when you come to use it as a string you get an exception.

You either need to complete the download to just get the JSON string or you need to re serialise the dictionary (NSJSONSerialization) into a string before you try to use it.