Can Swift be used to scrape data from APIs instead of HTML?

Yes, Swift can be used to scrape data from APIs. Scraping data from an API typically involves making HTTP requests to the API endpoint and parsing the response. APIs usually return data in structured formats like JSON or XML, which are easier to handle programmatically compared to scraping data from HTML.

Swift provides several libraries and frameworks that can be used to make network requests and parse JSON data. One of the most popular is URLSession, which is a powerful and flexible API built into the Foundation framework. For JSON parsing, Swift has a built-in Codable protocol, which allows for easy encoding and decoding of JSON data into Swift objects.

Here's an example of how you might use Swift to scrape data from a JSON API:

import Foundation

// Define a model that conforms to Codable
struct MyDataModel: Codable {
    let id: Int
    let name: String
    // Add other properties that match the JSON structure
}

// The API endpoint you want to scrape
let urlString = "https://api.example.com/data"

// Make sure the URL is valid
if let url = URL(string: urlString) {
    // Create a URLSession data task to fetch data from the URL
    let task = URLSession.shared.dataTask(with: url) { (data, response, error) in
        // Check for errors and unwrap data
        if let error = error {
            print("Error fetching data: \(error)")
            return
        }

        guard let data = data else {
            print("No data returned from server")
            return
        }

        // Parse the JSON data
        do {
            // Decode the JSON into an array of MyDataModel objects
            let models = try JSONDecoder().decode([MyDataModel].self, from: data)

            // Do something with the models
            for model in models {
                print("ID: \(model.id), Name: \(model.name)")
            }
        } catch let jsonError {
            print("Failed to decode JSON: \(jsonError)")
        }
    }

    // Start the data task
    task.resume()
}

// Since URLSession tasks are asynchronous, you need to keep the application running
RunLoop.main.run()

In the example above, we define a MyDataModel struct to represent the data we expect to receive from the API. The struct conforms to the Codable protocol, which allows us to easily decode JSON into Swift objects.

We then create a URLSession data task to make a GET request to the API endpoint. Upon receiving the data, we decode it using JSONDecoder into an array of MyDataModel objects. Finally, we print out the properties of each object.

Remember that network requests in iOS apps need to be made on a background thread to avoid blocking the main thread, which is responsible for updating the UI. The URLSession data task runs asynchronously on a background thread. Also, you must configure your app to allow network requests, especially if you're fetching data from a non-secure (http) source, by editing the app's Info.plist file to include the appropriate App Transport Security settings.

Additionally, if you're scraping data from an API in an iOS app, be sure to follow the API's terms of service and handle user privacy responsibly.