Category Archives: Web Services

Making a POST in Objective-C (Xcode) to SharePoint Webservice requiring Windows NTLM Authenticaton for iPhone or Ipad

Xcode logoIn my previous posts I was talking about how to use SOAP to SharePoint Webservices using different programing languages (PHP, Android – Java). I found it very convenient to be able to publish also a sample how to do the same in Xcode (Objective-C).

I also had to browse the web quite a bit. Finilly I stumbeled upon article from Ravi Dixit about the tipical webservice changing celsius to fahrenheit. Becase I was missing some steps in the code Erhan Demirci steped in. Because I also needed to authenticate this article came handy. I connected the dots, changed the SOAP request and displayed the responce in the screen (also in the log).

When creating new project in Xcode just choose View-based Application, name it “SoapSharePoint” and copy-paste the code below.

The SoapSharePointController.h code:

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#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>

@interface SoapSharePointViewController : UIViewController <NSXMLParserDelegate> {

    IBOutlet UILabel *output;
    NSMutableData *webData;
    NSXMLParser *xmlParser;
    NSString *finaldata;
    NSString *convertToStringData;
    NSMutableString *nodeContent;

}
@property (nonatomic,retain) UILabel *output;
-(IBAction)invokeService;

@end

And the SoapSharePointController.m file:

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#import "SoapSharePointViewController.h"

@implementation SoapSharePointViewController
@synthesize output;

-(IBAction)invokeService
{
   
        nodeContent = [[NSMutableString alloc]init];

        NSString *soapFormat = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>\n"
                                "<soap:Envelope xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">\n"
                                "<soap:Body>\n"
                                "<GetListCollection xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/soap/" />\n"
                                "</soap:Body>\n"
                                "</soap:Envelope>\n"];

       
       
        NSLog(@"The request format is %@",soapFormat);
       
        NSURL *locationOfWebService = [NSURL URLWithString:@"http://localhost/_vti_bin/lists.asmx"];
       
        NSLog(@"web url = %@",locationOfWebService);
       
        NSMutableURLRequest *theRequest = [[NSMutableURLRequest alloc]initWithURL:locationOfWebService];
       
        NSString *msgLength = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%d",[soapFormat length]];
       
       
        [theRequest addValue:@"text/xml" forHTTPHeaderField:@"Content-Type"];
        [theRequest addValue:@"http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/soap/GetListCollection" forHTTPHeaderField:@"SOAPAction"];
        [theRequest addValue:msgLength forHTTPHeaderField:@"Content-Length"];
        [theRequest setHTTPMethod:@"POST"];
        //the below encoding is used to send data over the net
        [theRequest setHTTPBody:[soapFormat dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];
       
       
        NSURLConnection *connect = [[NSURLConnection alloc]initWithRequest:theRequest delegate:self];
       
        if (connect) {
            webData = [[NSMutableData alloc]init];
        }
        else {
            NSLog(@"No Connection established");
        }
   
}


//NSURLConnection delegate method

-(void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didReceiveResponse:(NSURLResponse *)response
{
    [webData setLength: 0];
}
-(void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didReceiveData:(NSData *)data
{
    [webData appendData:data];
}
-(void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didFailWithError:(NSError *)error
{
    NSLog(@"ERROR with theConenction");
    [connection release];
    [webData release];
}

-(BOOL)connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection canAuthenticateAgainstProtectionSpace:(NSURLProtectionSpace *)protectionSpace
{
    return YES;
}

-(void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didReceiveAuthenticationChallenge:(NSURLAuthenticationChallenge *)challenge
{
    NSURLCredential *credential = [NSURLCredential credentialWithUser:@"username" password:@"password" persistence:NSURLCredentialPersistenceForSession];
    [[challenge sender] useCredential:credential forAuthenticationChallenge:challenge];
}


-(void)connectionDidFinishLoading:(NSURLConnection *)connection
{
    NSLog(@"DONE. Received Bytes: %d", [webData length]);
    NSString *theXML = [[NSString alloc] initWithBytes: [webData mutableBytes] length:[webData length] encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
    NSLog(@"%@",theXML);
   
    convertToStringData = [[NSString alloc] initWithData:webData encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
   
    output.numberOfLines = 0;
    output.text = convertToStringData;
    [output sizeToFit];
   
    [connection release];
}


- (void)didReceiveMemoryWarning {
    [super didReceiveMemoryWarning];
}

- (void)viewDidUnload {
    [super viewDidUnload];
}


- (void)dealloc {
    [output release];
    [convertToStringData release];
    [super dealloc];
}

@end

Also don’t forget to create a label and a button in the XIB (nib) file. Connect the the File’s Owner in outlets output to label and in the received action invokeService to button.

Or you can simply download it.

Manipulating SharePoint list items with Android (JAVA) and NTLM Authentication

Android LogoRegarding to my previous post about manipulation of SharePoint list items with PHP I have been struggling with the same problem to connect SharePoint Web Services to Android even longer. I was able to come up with a solution quite fast but the SharePoint site had to be enabled for anonious access. And another issue here: you can just read the SharePoint Web Service. Don’t forget to include KSOAP2 library as external JAR.

I was browsing for some kind of a solution for quite some time. And if there were some kind of directions towards a probable solution I was not developer enough to figure it out on my own.

The sample without the need of authentication I was able to figure out with help from article in stackoverflow.com. If you google a bit you will find quite a bunch of articles about changing temparature or about the halloworld webservice. Both of them hosted in http://tempuri.org. The article is talking about calling a .NET WebService to change Celsius to Farenheit and vice versa. Anyways… was a very good start.

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package com.balavec.ws;

import java.io.IOException;
import org.apache.http.HttpEntity;
import org.apache.http.HttpResponse;
import org.apache.http.client.ClientProtocolException;
import org.apache.http.client.HttpClient;
import org.apache.http.client.methods.HttpPost;
import org.apache.http.entity.StringEntity;
import org.apache.http.impl.client.DefaultHttpClient;
import org.apache.http.protocol.HTTP;
import org.apache.http.util.EntityUtils;
import android.app.Activity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.text.method.ScrollingMovementMethod;
import android.widget.TextView;

public class wsActivity extends Activity {
    /** Called when the activity is first created. */
   
    TextView tv;
   
    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.main);
       
        tv = (TextView)findViewById(R.id.textView1);
        tv.setMovementMethod(ScrollingMovementMethod.getInstance());
       
       
        HttpClient httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient();
        HttpPost httppost = new HttpPost("http://localhost/_vti_bin/Lists.asmx");

        try {
            StringEntity se = new StringEntity( "<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><soap:Envelope xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"><soap:Body><GetListItems xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/soap/"><listName>quotes</listName><rowLimit>50</rowLimit></GetListItems></soap:Body></soap:Envelope>", HTTP.UTF_8);
            se.setContentType("text/xml");
            httppost.setEntity(se);

            HttpResponse httpresponse = httpclient.execute(httppost);
            HttpEntity resEntity = httpresponse.getEntity();
            tv.setText("Status OK: \n" + EntityUtils.toString(resEntity));

        } catch (ClientProtocolException e) {
            // TODO Auto-generated catch block
            e.printStackTrace();
            tv.setText("Status NOT OK: \n" + e.getMessage());
        } catch (IOException e) {
            // TODO Auto-generated catch block
            e.printStackTrace();
            tv.setText("Status NOT OK: \n" + e.getMessage());
        }
       
    }
}

But if you want to lock your Web Services (SharePoint Lists) behind NTLM (windows) authentication, you will have to include KSOAP2 and JCIFS library.

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package com.balavec.ws;

import java.io.IOException;
import jcifs.ntlmssp.Type1Message;
import jcifs.ntlmssp.Type2Message;
import jcifs.ntlmssp.Type3Message;
import jcifs.util.Base64;
import org.apache.http.HttpEntity;
import org.apache.http.HttpResponse;
import org.apache.http.client.ClientProtocolException;
import org.apache.http.client.HttpClient;
import org.apache.http.client.methods.HttpPost;
import org.apache.http.entity.StringEntity;
import org.apache.http.impl.auth.NTLMScheme;
import org.apache.http.impl.client.AbstractHttpClient;
import org.apache.http.impl.client.DefaultHttpClient;
import org.apache.http.params.CoreProtocolPNames;
import org.apache.http.params.HttpConnectionParams;
import org.apache.http.params.HttpParams;
import org.apache.http.protocol.HTTP;
import org.apache.http.util.EntityUtils;
import android.app.Activity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.text.method.ScrollingMovementMethod;
import android.widget.TextView;
import org.apache.http.auth.AuthScheme;
import org.apache.http.auth.AuthSchemeFactory;
import org.apache.http.auth.AuthScope;
import org.apache.http.auth.NTCredentials;
import org.apache.http.impl.auth.NTLMEngine;
import org.apache.http.impl.auth.NTLMEngineException;

public class wsActivity extends Activity {
    /** Called when the activity is first created. */
       
    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.main);
           
        TextView tv = (TextView)findViewById(R.id.textView1);
        tv.setMovementMethod(ScrollingMovementMethod.getInstance());
               
        HttpClient httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient();        
        ((AbstractHttpClient) httpclient).getAuthSchemes().register("ntlm",new NTLMSchemeFactory());

        NTCredentials creds = new NTCredentials("username", "password", "", "domain");

        ((AbstractHttpClient) httpclient).getCredentialsProvider().setCredentials(AuthScope.ANY, creds);
        HttpConnectionParams.setConnectionTimeout(httpclient.getParams(), 5000);
       
        HttpPost httppost = new HttpPost("http://localhost/_vti_bin/Lists.asmx");
        httppost.getParams().setBooleanParameter(CoreProtocolPNames.USE_EXPECT_CONTINUE, false);
       
        try {
            StringEntity se = new StringEntity( "<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><soap:Envelope xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"><soap:Body><GetListItems xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/soap/"><listName>quotes</listName><rowLimit>50</rowLimit></GetListItems></soap:Body></soap:Envelope>", HTTP.UTF_8);
            se.setContentType("text/xml");
            httppost.setEntity(se);

            HttpResponse httpresponse = httpclient.execute(httppost);
            HttpEntity resEntity = httpresponse.getEntity();

            tv.setText("Status OK: \n" + EntityUtils.toString(resEntity));
   
        } catch (ClientProtocolException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
            tv.setText("Status NOT OK: \n" + e.getMessage());
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
            tv.setText("Status NOT OK: \n" + e.getMessage());
        }
    }
 
    // JCIFSEngine
    public class JCIFSEngine implements NTLMEngine {

        public String generateType1Msg(
                String domain,
                String workstation) throws NTLMEngineException {

            Type1Message t1m = new Type1Message(
                    Type1Message.getDefaultFlags(),
                    domain,
                    workstation);
            return Base64.encode(t1m.toByteArray());
        }

        public String generateType3Msg(
                String username,
                String password,
                String domain,
                String workstation,
                String challenge) throws NTLMEngineException {
            Type2Message t2m;
            try {
                t2m = new Type2Message(Base64.decode(challenge));
            } catch (IOException ex) {
                throw new NTLMEngineException("Invalid Type2 message", ex);
            }
            Type3Message t3m = new Type3Message(
                    t2m,
                    password,
                    domain,
                    username,
                    workstation, 0);
            return Base64.encode(t3m.toByteArray());
        }

    }

    //NTLM Scheme factory
    public class NTLMSchemeFactory implements AuthSchemeFactory {

        public AuthScheme newInstance(final HttpParams params) {
            return new NTLMScheme(new JCIFSEngine());
        }
       
    }

}