Parsing a REST XML API response

Question

I am currently trying to parse a rest XML API response from a STANDS4 API...

The XML file would look something like this:

<results>
  <result>
    <quote>
      To be free it is not enough to beat the system, one must beat the system every day.
    </quote>
    <author>Anonymous</author>
  </result>
</results>

What I want to do is be able to print out the XML response and be able to assign the quote and author to a UILabel. What I currently have is the below code (I have my user ID and my token ID):

import UIKit

class ViewController: UIViewController,NSXMLParserDelegate {
    
    var strXMLData:String = ""
    var currentElement:String = ""
    var passData:Bool=false
    var passName:Bool=false
    var parser = NSXMLParser()
    
    
    @IBOutlet weak var lblNameData: UILabel!
    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()
        
        let url:String="http://www.stands4.com/services/v2/quotes.php?uid=youridhere&tokenid=youridherezf&searchtype=AUTHOR&query=Albert+Einstein"
        let urlToSend: NSURL = NSURL(string: url)!
        // Parse the XML
        parser = NSXMLParser(contentsOfURL: urlToSend)!
        parser.delegate = self
        
        let success:Bool = parser.parse()
        
        if success {
            print("parse success!")
            
            print(strXMLData)
            
            lblNameData.text=strXMLData
            
        } else {
            print("parse failure!")
        }
    }
    
    override func didReceiveMemoryWarning() {
        super.didReceiveMemoryWarning()
        // Dispose of any resources that can be recreated.
    }
    
    func parser(parser: NSXMLParser, didStartElement elementName: String, namespaceURI: String?, qualifiedName qName: String?, attributes attributeDict: [String : String]) {
        currentElement=elementName;
        if(elementName=="id" || elementName=="name" || elementName=="cost" || elementName=="description")
        {
            if(elementName=="name"){
                passName=true;
            }
            passData=true;
        }
    }
    
    func parser(parser: NSXMLParser, didEndElement elementName: String, namespaceURI: String?, qualifiedName qName: String?) {
        currentElement="";
        if(elementName=="id" || elementName=="name" || elementName=="cost" || elementName=="description")
        {
            if(elementName=="name"){
                passName=false;
            }
            passData=false;
        }
    }
    
    func parser(parser: NSXMLParser, foundCharacters string: String) {
        if(passName){
            strXMLData=strXMLData+"\n\n"+string
        }
        
        if(passData)
        {
            print(string)
        }
    }
    
    func parser(parser: NSXMLParser, parseErrorOccurred parseError: NSError) {
        NSLog("failure error: %@", parseError)
    }
}

I currently get the response that the parse was a success but nothing is printed out. I got the above code from this tutorial: http://ashishkakkad.com/2014/10/xml-parsing-in-swift-language-ios-9-nsxmlparser/

So there is most likely some changes I need to make to work with my current API, but I'm not sure what exactly to do.

Any help is appreciated!

Answer 1

Your first problem is that your XMLParsing functions never look for the proper element names (assuming your example xml is exactly what you are getting). Your XML parsing is looking for "id", "name", "cost", or "description". Your example XML provides "quote" and "author". You need to debug through the XML parsing functions and get a handle on what they are actually doing before using them. Then you should be good to go.