This post presents an implementation of HTTP requests in Swift without needing Alamofire, a Cocoapod, or other third-party library. Following the method in this post will allow you to make GET and POST HTTP requests to a url.

Why Not Use Alamofire and Cocoapods for HTTP requests?

Many apps do not require extensive network configuration for HTTP requests beyond what Apple-provided classes like URLSessonDataTask allow. By implementing network requests using Apple-provided classes, a developer can:

  • simplify the codebase by removing a large, third-party dependency like Alamofire
  • reduce the binary size of the application
  • reduce risk associated with relying on third-party dependencies

Create URL Request

The first step is to create a URLRequest. A URLRequest can be created with a URL, representing the API endpoint to make a HTTP request to.

// Create a URLRequest for an API endpoint
let url = URL(string: "https://www.myapi.com/v1/user")!
var request = URLRequest(url: url)

Configure HTTP Request Headers

If your HTTP request is to an API that requires authentication, you can set the necessary HTTP request headers on the URLRequest.

// Configure request authentication
request.setValue(
    "authToken", 
    forHTTPHeaderField: "Authorization"
)

POST HTTP Request

If you need to make a POST request, you can set the httpMethod and httpBody on the URLRequest.

// Serialize HTTP Body data as JSON
let body = ["user_id": "12"]
let bodyData = try? JSONSerialization.data(
    withJSONObject: body, 
    options: []
)

// Change the URLRequest to a POST request
request.httpMethod = "POST"
request.httpBody = bodyData

Create URLSessionDataTask

To handle a request response, create a URLSessionDataTask with a completion handler. Use the completion handler to parse the request response and handle any error that may have occurred.

// Create the HTTP request
let session = URLSession.shared
let task = session.dataTask(with: request) { (data, response, error) in

    if let error = error {
        // Handle HTTP request error
    } else if let data = data {
        // Handle HTTP request response
    } else {
        // Handle unexpected error
    }
}

Start HTTP Request

All newly created URLSessionDataTask objects are in a suspended state by default. To start the HTTP request, call:

task.resume()

Cancel HTTP Request

If the HTTP request needs to be cancelled after the request has started, call:

task.cancel()

HTTP Requests in Swift

That’s it! Using URL, URLRequest, URLSession, and URLSessonDataTask allows you to make HTTP requests in Swift without external libraries and dependencies.