Restkit 0.20 basic operation - restkit

Question

I am just getting started with RestKit and have arrived just as Rk 0.20 is going live and the documentation and demo's are a step behind. Most stuff on the web is for RK 0.10 and there are big changes in the 0.20 version.
I don't want to fall back to an earlier version when the new one will very soon be up and running.
I have a JSON resource at a URL "test.myserver.com" that returns a simple datagram -
{
"id_user": "4401",
"datalocation": "4401",
"country": "Great-Britain",
"data": "testdata",
"login": "Fred Bloggs",
"password": "579c0cb0ed2dc25db121283f7a98cc71",
"accessLevel": "2",
"timestamp": "1012",
"datahash": "2749da29f20ce7a85092323f193adee8"
}
I am pretty sure I have the Mappings etc sorted but my service requires authentication so I need to pass a user name and password in the request to the server.
I have got this so far
NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:#"http://test.myserver.com"];
NSURLRequest *request = [NSURLRequest requestWithURL:url];
RKObjectRequestOperation *objectRequestOperation = [[RKObjectRequestOperation alloc] initWithRequest:request responseDescriptors:#[ responseDescriptor ]];
[objectRequestOperation setCompletionBlockWithSuccess:^(RKObjectRequestOperation *operation, RKMappingResult *mappingResult) {
RKLogInfo(#"Load collection of Articles: %#", mappingResult.array);
} failure:^(RKObjectRequestOperation *operation, NSError *error) {
RKLogError(#"Operation failed with error: %#", error);
}];
[objectRequestOperation start];
Which appears to contact the server but inevitably logs the following error
restkit.network:RKObjectRequestOperation.m:296 Object request failed: Underlying HTTP request operation failed with error: Error Domain=org.restkit.RestKit.ErrorDomain Code=-1011 "Expected status code in (200-299), got 401" UserInfo=0x7884030 {NSLocalizedRecoverySuggestion={
"error": {
"code": 401,
"message": "Unauthorized: Authentication required"
}
}, AFNetworkingOperationFailingURLRequestErrorKey=http://elancovision.umfundi.com>, NSErrorFailingURLKey=http://elancovision.umfundi.com, NSLocalizedDescription=Expected status code in (200-299), got 401, AFNetworkingOperationFailingURLResponseErrorKey=}
The question of course is how I add the user name and password into the request.
Sorry for the noob question!

Answer 1

With basic HTTP authentication, username and password should be inserted into the HTTP request authorization header field for each request.
First, I suggest you to use RKObjectManager to centralize configuration for requests and mappings. http://restkit.org/api/latest/Classes/RKObjectManager.html
RKObjectManager can store network parameters (through AFNetworking Library), then build appropriate http query based on username/password, paths, objectmapping.
Adapting your example, it would give something like :
NSURL* url = [[NSURL alloc]initWithString:#"http://test.myserver.com"];
RKObjectManager* objectManager = [RKObjectManager managerWithBaseURL:url];
[objectManager.HTTPClient setAuthorizationHeaderWithUsername:#"username" password:#"password"];
//NSURLRequest *request = [NSURLRequest requestWithURL:url];
NSURLRequest *request = [objectManager requestWithObject:nil method:RKRequestMethodGET path:#"/yourAPI/yourmethod" parameters:nil];
RKObjectRequestOperation *objectRequestOperation = [[RKObjectRequestOperation alloc] initWithRequest:request responseDescriptors:#[ responseDescriptor ]];
[objectRequestOperation setCompletionBlockWithSuccess:^(RKObjectRequestOperation *operation, RKMappingResult *mappingResult) {
RKLogInfo(#"Load collection of Articles: %#", mappingResult.array);
} failure:^(RKObjectRequestOperation *operation, NSError *error) {
RKLogError(#"Operation failed with error: %#", error);
}];
[objectRequestOperation start];
If authentication works, having a look at the RESTKit wiki should give you the next hints to build correct mappings : https://github.com/RestKit/RestKit/wiki/Object-mapping

Answer 2

My solution here:
// Build a RestKit manager object to look after the restful stuff
RKObjectManager *manager = [RKObjectManager managerWithBaseURL:[NSURL URLWithString:#"http://test.myserver.com"]];;
// Hash the GUI input password string and pass the username in plain text
NSString *md5PW = [umfundiCommon md5:passwordField.text];
[manager.HTTPClient setAuthorizationHeaderWithUsername:userField.text password:md5PW];
RKObjectMapping *WebResponse = [RKObjectMapping mappingForClass:[WSObject class]];
[WebResponse addAttributeMappingsFromDictionary:#{#"id_user":#"id_user", #"datalocation": #"datalocation", #"country":#"country", #"data": #"data", #"login": #"login", #"password": #"password", #"accessLevel": #"accessLevel", #"timestamp": #"timestamp", #"datahash": #"datahash"}];
RKResponseDescriptor *responseDescriptor = [RKResponseDescriptor responseDescriptorWithMapping:WebResponse pathPattern:nil keyPath:nil statusCodes:RKStatusCodeIndexSetForClass(RKStatusCodeClassSuccessful)];
// Add the above response descriptor to the manager
[manager addResponseDescriptor:responseDescriptor];
// the getObject makes the call using the stuff assembled into the manager Object and drops into either the success or the failure routines.
[manager getObject:nil path:#"" parameters:nil success:^(RKObjectRequestOperation *operation, RKMappingResult *result)
{
NSLog (#"Server WS call success:");
NSArray *theresults = [result array];
for (WSObject *item in theresults) {
NSLog(#"datahash=%#",item.datahash);
NSLog(#"user_id=%#",item.id_user);
}
} failure:^(RKObjectRequestOperation * operation, NSError * error)
{
NSLog (#"Server WS call failure: operation: %# \n\nerror: %#", operation, error);
}];
........