POST request with a simple string in body with Alamofire

Question

how is it possible to send a POST request with a simple string in the HTTP body with Alamofire in my iOS app?

As default Alamofire needs parameters for a request:

Alamofire.request(.POST, "http://mywebsite.com/post-request", parameters: ["foo": "bar"])

These parameters contain key-value-pairs. But I don't want to send a request with a key-value string in the HTTP body.

I mean something like this:

Alamofire.request(.POST, "http://mywebsite.com/post-request", body: "myBodyString")

Answer 1

Your example Alamofire.request(.POST, "http://mywebsite.com/post-request", parameters: ["foo": "bar"]) already contains "foo=bar" string as its body. But if you really want string with custom format. You can do this:

Alamofire.request(.POST, "http://mywebsite.com/post-request", parameters: [:], encoding: .Custom({
            (convertible, params) in
            var mutableRequest = convertible.URLRequest.copy() as NSMutableURLRequest
            mutableRequest.HTTPBody = "myBodyString".dataUsingEncoding(NSUTF8StringEncoding, allowLossyConversion: false)
            return (mutableRequest, nil)
        }))

Note: parameters should not be nil

UPDATE (Alamofire 4.0, Swift 3.0):

In Alamofire 4.0 API has changed. So for custom encoding we need value/object which conforms to ParameterEncoding protocol.

extension String: ParameterEncoding {

    public func encode(_ urlRequest: URLRequestConvertible, with parameters: Parameters?) throws -> URLRequest {
        var request = try urlRequest.asURLRequest()
        request.httpBody = data(using: .utf8, allowLossyConversion: false)
        return request
    }

}

Alamofire.request("http://mywebsite.com/post-request", method: .post, parameters: [:], encoding: "myBody", headers: [:])