Superb
Pluggable HTTP authentication for Swift.
Advantages
- Safe, secure token storage in the iOS Keychain.
- Automatic handling of 401 responses and reauthentication.
- Scales to handle many concurrent requests in a thread-safe way.
- Stays out of your way until you need it with a simple, minimal API.
- Promotes Apple's Authentication Guidelines by "delaying sign-in as long as possible".
- Supports adapters for any number of authentication providers.
- Extensible without requiring any source modifications or pull requests.
Caveats
- Opinionated about user experience.
Usage
Example: GitHub OAuth Authentication
When you register the app with your OAuth provider, you will give a redirect
URI. This URI must use a URL scheme that is registered for your app in your
app's Info.plist
.
Superb allows your app to support multiple authentication providers via a registration mechanism. iOS apps have a single entrypoint for URLs, so Superb searches through the registered providers to find the correct one to handle the redirect URL.
// GitHub+Providers.swift
import Superb
import SuperbGitHub
extension GitHubOAuthProvider {
static var shared: GitHubOAuthProvider {
// Register a provider to handle callback URLs
return Superb.register(
GitHubOAuthProvider(
clientId: "<your client id>",
clientSecret: "<your client secret>",
redirectURI: URL(string: "<your chosen redirect URI>")!
)
)
}
}
// AppDelegate.swift
@UIApplicationMain
final class AppDelegate: UIResponder, UIApplicationDelegate {
// ...
func application(_ app: UIApplication, open url: URL, options: [UIApplicationOpenURLOptionsKey: Any]) -> Bool {
// Pass the URL and options off to Superb.
return Superb.handleAuthenticationRedirect(url, options: options)
}
}
Then, in our API client, we can use RequestAuthorizer
to fence the code that
must be run with authentication, using RequestAuthorizer.performAuthorized()
.
// GitHubAPIClient.swift
struct GitHubAPIClient {
static let oauthClient = GitHubAPIClient(
requestAuthorizer: RequestAuthorizer(
authorizationProvider: GitHubOAuthProvider.shared
)
)
private let authorizer: RequestAuthorizerProtocol
init(requestAuthorizer: RequestAuthorizerProtocol) {
authorizer = requestAuthorizer
}
// An authorized request to get the current user's profile.
func getProfile(completionHandler: @escaping (Result<Profile, SuperbError>) -> Void) {
let request = URLRequest(url: URL(string: "https://api.github.com/user")!)
authorizer.performAuthorized(request) { result in
switch result {
case let .success(data, _):
let profile = parseProfile(from: data)
completionHandler(.success(profile))
case let .failure(error):
completionHandler(.failure(error))
}
}
}
// An unauthorized request.
func getZen(completionHandler: @escaping (Result<String, SuperbError>) -> Void) {
let request = URLRequest(url: URL(string: "https://api.github.com/zen")!)
URLSession.shared.dataTask(with: request) { data, _, error in
let result = parseZen(data, error)
completionHandler(result)
}.resume()
}
}
// later
let api = GitHubAPIClient.oauthClient
api.getProfile { result in
// ...
}
List of Authentication Providers
Installation
Carthage
Add the following to your Cartfile:
github "thoughtbot/Superb" ~> 0.2
Then run carthage update
.
Follow the current instructions in Carthage's README for up to date installation instructions.
You will need to embed both Superb.framework
and Result.framework
in your
application.
CocoaPods
Add the following to your Podfile:
pod "Superb", "~> 0.2.0"
You will also need to make sure you're opting into using frameworks:
use_frameworks!
Then run pod install
.
Troubleshooting
Authentication always fails when using OAuth
Superb.register
.
You forgot to call If you do not call Superb.register
then your authentication provider will not
have a chance to receive callback URLs.
Contributing
See the CONTRIBUTING document. Thank you, contributors!
License
Superb is Copyright (c) 2017 thoughtbot, inc. It is free software, and may be redistributed under the terms specified in the LICENSE file.
About
Superb is maintained and funded by thoughtbot, inc. The names and logos for thoughtbot are trademarks of thoughtbot, inc.
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