When working on retrieving some information using more difficult requests I found batching my requests most convenient. It actually allows you to use the results from one request as input to the next.
However it did take some effort to find out how to actually get it working smoothly. After that I found myself using Batching over and over again, so it needed an easy to use interface to do so.

The Facebook+Batch category!

The Facebook Batch category adds some interfaces to construct and request a batch using your existing Facebook instance.
First there are the batchAddRequestWithPath: interfaces which will add requests to an requests array associated with your Facebook instance.
Once you added all instances the actual request can be made with batchRequestWithDelegate:
The great thing of this being an category is that you just include Facebook+Batch and magically you can make batch requests on your Facebook instance.

As simple usage example of a batch request would be:

// Facebook instance initialized and ready as facebook
[facebook batchAddRequestWithPath:@"me"];
[facebook batchAddRequestWithPath:@"me/friends?fields=id&limit=5"
                             name:@"myfriends"
                           method:@"GET"
                             body:nil
                     omitResponse:YES];
[facebook batchAddRequestWithPath:@"?ids={result=myfriends:$.data.*.id}"];
FBRequest *batchRequest = [facebook batchRequestWithDelegate:self];
// expect results in your FBRequestDelegate implementation

I released the Facebook+Batch category to public on git-hub

Please let know if you use it or when you have questions.

• browse the advertisements with fast scrolling
• call, text or email the seller straight from the application
• view the pictures fullscreen
• search advertisement by keywords
• Post a new advertisement with pictures

Profios Ltd has integrated the application into the web service with HTTP GET and POST calls, communication is JSON encoded and optimized for mobile use. Images can be shot with the camera, if available on the device, or selected from the user pictures library. The user interface is native components for optimum performance but customized to the look and feel of Kuopionkirppari.fi.

The design is provided by Pasi Lehtinen, a great designer with excellent iOS design skills.

More information on the application you can find here

I have found it really easy to integrate and use, and if it doesn’t have a specific feature which you need, its really easy to extend.

For example I wanted to track the loading of the images, so I updated some UIImageView+AFNetworking category interfaces to support a download progress block, basically it all boils down to this:

UIImageView+AFNetworking.h

- (void)setImageWithURLRequest:(NSURLRequest *)urlRequest 
              placeholderImage:(UIImage *)placeholderImage 
                       success:(void (^)(NSURLRequest *request, NSHTTPURLResponse *response, UIImage *image))success
                       failure:(void (^)(NSURLRequest *request, NSHTTPURLResponse *response, NSError *error))failure
         downloadProgressBlock:(void (^)(NSInteger bytesRead, NSInteger totalBytesRead, NSInteger totalBytesExpectedToRead))block;

UIImageView+AFNetworking.m

- (void)setImageWithURLRequest:(NSURLRequest *)urlRequest 
              placeholderImage:(UIImage *)placeholderImage 
                       success:(void (^)(NSURLRequest *request, NSHTTPURLResponse *response, UIImage *image))success
                       failure:(void (^)(NSURLRequest *request, NSHTTPURLResponse *response, NSError *error))failure
         downloadProgressBlock:(void (^)(NSInteger, NSInteger, NSInteger))block
{
    ...
        // Add the downloadProgressBlock to the request operation before execution.
        [requestOperation setDownloadProgressBlock:block];
    ...
}

AFNetworking disable caching

Another thing I noticed that by default all AFHTTPRequestOperations are cached if allow by the server, or at least they are using the cachePolicy: NSURLRequestUseProtocolCachePolicy, which defaults it to caching.

There are several possible ways to solve this issue, you can configure the server not to do caching (it should know best what to cache and what not), and the AFURLConnectionOperation (of which AFHTTPRequestOperation is inheriting) provides methods where you can set a cache response callback:

- (void)setCacheResponseBlock:(NSCachedURLResponse * (^)(NSURLConnection *connection, NSCachedURLResponse *cachedResponse))block;

But I preferred to handle this by setting the cache policy for my requests as following:

NSMutableURLRequest *request = [self requestWithMethod:@"GET"
                                                      path:kRequestPath
                                                parameters:nil];
// Do not allow to use a cached version for this request
[request setCachePolicy:NSURLRequestReloadIgnoringCacheData];