CODEWITHSUNDEEP
iphoneweb-services
tacos_tacos_tacos
tacos_tacos_tacos

Reputation: 10585

Handling a lack of connectivity in iPhone application

Our web service has a "ping" function which is great for testing if the web service is available or not (I don't really care if the internet connection is available, right?) and I know how to test this condition, but how do I go about implementing this in my application? As in where do I test?

If there is no connection, the app doesn't crash of course, it just returns an empty table view or set of views. Should I put the ping before each request and generate an exception or error message when the ping fails? The web service request + response itself can take longer than the transmission of the actual data (latency I guess it would be) so I worry that implementing a Ping before each request might almost double the time it takes to perform each request. Or, should I be continually ping-ing and making sure there is a connection? What is the best practice?

Or should I even worry about it at all?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 124

Answers (2)

tacos_tacos_tacos
tacos_tacos_tacos

Reputation: 10585

I was able to use the Reachability library as seen in the answer to How to check for an active Internet connection on iOS or OSX? . You can extend the library to include not only hostReachable but wsReachable with a little bit of work that is probably obvious to all.

Upvotes: 1

KPK
KPK

Reputation: 467

iOS can provide you with callbacks once the network connectivity changes (e.g. from airplane mode to cell only to wifi and back). So you get notified whenever the network state changes and you don't need to keep pinging the server and can display proper online/offline messages.

Have a look at the SCNetworkReachabilitySetCallback method in the NetworkReachability.h header.

Upvotes: 0

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