iOS and OS X Network Programming Cookbook

Over 50 recipes to develop network applications in both the iOS and OS X environment

Overview

• Use several Apple and third-party APIs to develop both server and client networked applications
• Shows you how to integrate all of the third-party libraries and APIs with your applications
• Includes sample projects for both iOS and OS X environments

In Detail

Darwin, which forms the core set of components for OS X and iOS, is compatible with the Single UNIX Specification Version 3 and POSIX UNIX. Therefore OS X and iOS are UNIX operating systems. While there are numerous books and articles written to teach network development in a UNIX environment there is surprisingly little dedicated to teaching network development specifically in an Apple environment. In this book we will be covering the standard UNIX networking stack with BSD Sockets as well as Apple’s frameworks like CFNetworking and Bonjour.

“iOS and OS X Network Programming Cookbook” is an enthralling code-focused book on developing client and server applications for the iOS and OS X environments. You will learn how to integrate a number of Unix (BSD Sockets), Apple specific (CFNetworking, NSMutableURLRequest, Bonjour) and third party APIs (AFNetworking, MKNetworking) with your own apps.

“iOS and OS X Network Programming Cookbook” begins by showing you how to build both client and server applications using the BSD Socket Library as well as Apple’s CFNetworking library. The sample code includes samples for both iOS and OS X.

It then covers how to add Bonjour to publish, find, and connect to services. This can be used to create peer-to-peer applications over local networks. Finally it shows how to integrate third-party libraries like Libnet, LibPCAP, AFNetworking, and MKNetworking with the reader’s apps.

A lot of developers do not realize that iOS is a full UNIX-based operating system that contains a full set of networking APIs. These APIs can be used to create both client- and server-based applications in the iOS environment as well as OS X. Using the Apple’s Bonjour library you will learn how to publish, find, and connect the services together without hardcoding the connection information. There are also a number of third-party APIs that can be used to easily connect iOS and OS X applications to web-based services. Finally this book will cover several low level libraries like LibNET and LibPCAP on the OS X environment.

“iOS and OS X Network Programming Cookbook” will cover several UNIX, Apple, and third-party libraries and APIs. The book will show the user how to integrate all of these libraries and APIs with their applications.

What you will learn from this book

• Create client- and server-based applications with the BSD socket API
• Create client- and server-based applications with CFNetworking
• Publish, find, and connect client applications with servers using Apple’s Bonjour library
• Use the AFNetworking library to connect to web-based services
• Connect to web-based services using the MKNetworking library
• Explore the LibNET packet construction library in OS X
• Get to grips with the LibPCAP packet capture library in OS X
• Discover Apple’s high-level APIs to connect to devices via Bluetooth
• Connect two devices with a Bluetooth connection

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: BSD Socket Library
Chapter 2: Apple Low-level Networking
Chapter 3: Using Libnet
Chapter 4: Using Libpcap
Chapter 5: Apple High-level Networking
Chapter 6: Bonjour
Chapter 7: AFNetworking 2.0 Library
Chapter 8: MKNetworkKit