Replacement for stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingE

Question

In iOS8 and prior I can use:

NSString *str = ...; // some URL
NSString *result = [str stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];

in iOS9 stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding has been replaced with stringByAddingPercentEncodingWithAllowedCharacters:

NSString *str = ...; // some URL
NSCharacterSet *set = ???; // where to find set for NSUTF8StringEncoding?
NSString *result = [str stringByAddingPercentEncodingWithAllowedCharacters:set];

and my question is: where to find needed NSCharacterSet (NSUTF8StringEncoding) for proper replacement of stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding?

Answer 1

Swift 2.2:

extension String {
 func encodeUTF8() -> String? {
//If I can create an NSURL out of the string nothing is wrong with it
if let _ = NSURL(string: self) {

    return self
}

//Get the last component from the string this will return subSequence
let optionalLastComponent = self.characters.split { $0 == "/" }.last


if let lastComponent = optionalLastComponent {

    //Get the string from the sub sequence by mapping the characters to [String] then reduce the array to String
    let lastComponentAsString = lastComponent.map { String($0) }.reduce("", combine: +)


    //Get the range of the last component
    if let rangeOfLastComponent = self.rangeOfString(lastComponentAsString) {
        //Get the string without its last component
        let stringWithoutLastComponent = self.substringToIndex(rangeOfLastComponent.startIndex)


        //Encode the last component
        if let lastComponentEncoded = lastComponentAsString.stringByAddingPercentEncodingWithAllowedCharacters(NSCharacterSet.alphanumericCharacterSet()) {


        //Finally append the original string (without its last component) to the encoded part (encoded last component)
        let encodedString = stringWithoutLastComponent + lastComponentEncoded

            //Return the string (original string/encoded string)
            return encodedString
        }
    }
}

return nil;
}
}

Answer 2

Adding to the accepted answer. Taking into consideration this note

This method is intended to percent-encode an URL component or subcomponent string, NOT an entire URL string.

the whole URL should not be encoded:

let param = "=color:green|\(latitude),\(longitude)&\("zoom=13&size=\(width)x\(height)")&sensor=true&key=\(staticMapKey)".addingPercentEncoding(withAllowedCharacters: .urlHostAllowed) 
let url = "https://maps.google.com/maps/api/staticmap?markers" + param!