iOS Registration Form Example using PHP and MySQL

February 5, 2017 by Belal Khan 22 Comments

In this post we will see an iOS Registration Form Example. A user registration and login screen is a very essential thing in many application. Thats why I am posting this iOS Registration Form Example. In the next post we will see iOS Login Example.

I am going to use PHP and MySQL as application’s backend. And we will use Swift Programming in XCode. We already learnt about connecting iOS App to MySQL database, in one of the previous tutorials. You can check the tutorial from the below link.

Connecting iOS App to MySQL Database

In this post we will use the same concept but this time for networking operations I will be using Alamofire. If you don’t know what it is then don’t worry just keep reading.

iOS User Registration Video Tutorial

You can also watch this video tutorial to know how to build this app.

Building Server Side Scripts and Database

Building Database

First we need a database. So I have the following database.

For creating the above Table you can use the following query.

-- tables
-- Table: users
CREATE TABLE users (
    id int  NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY AUTO_INCREMENT,
    username varchar(100)  NOT NULL,
    password text  NOT NULL,
    email varchar(100)  NOT NULL,
    name varchar(100)  NOT NULL,
    phone varchar(10)  NOT NULL
);

-- End of file.

Executing the above query will create the following table.

Building Web Service

Now we need a Web Service that will act as a medium of communication between our application and database. Again I am using very simple method to do this. But you can also check the recommended method of Building a REST API on this link.

Creating a PHP Project

The first step is creating a new project. I am using PHP Storm, you can use any IDE you like or a normal source code editor like sublime or notepad++ will also be good enough.

Now inside your project you have to create two directories named includes and v1. Inside includes create three php files Constants.php, DbConnect.php, DbOperation.php and inside v1 create register.php. (See the screenshot below for help).

Constants.php

Open Constants.php and write the following code. The file is containing the required constants.

<?php
/**
 * Created by PhpStorm.
 * User: Belal
 * Date: 04/02/17
 * Time: 7:50 PM
 */

define('DB_USERNAME', 'root');
define('DB_PASSWORD', '');
define('DB_HOST', 'localhost');
define('DB_NAME', 'simplifiedios');

define('USER_CREATED', 0);
define('USER_ALREADY_EXIST', 1);
define('USER_NOT_CREATED', 2);

DbConnect.php

This file will connect to the database and will return a connection link.

<?php

/**
 * Created by PhpStorm.
 * User: Belal
 * Date: 04/02/17
 * Time: 7:51 PM
 */
class DbConnect
{
    private $conn;

    function __construct()
    {
    }

    /**
     * Establishing database connection
     * @return database connection handler
     */
    function connect()
    {
        require_once 'Constants.php';

        // Connecting to mysql database
        $this->conn = new mysqli(DB_HOST, DB_USERNAME, DB_PASSWORD, DB_NAME);

        // Check for database connection error
        if (mysqli_connect_errno()) {
            echo "Failed to connect to MySQL: " . mysqli_connect_error();
        }

        // returing connection resource
        return $this->conn;
    }
}

DbOperation.php

This file will handle all the database operations. Right now we have to only insert the user data to the table.

<?php

/**
 * Created by PhpStorm.
 * User: Belal
 * Date: 04/02/17
 * Time: 7:51 PM
 */
class DbOperation
{
    private $conn;

    //Constructor
    function __construct()
    {
        require_once dirname(__FILE__) . '/Constants.php';
        require_once dirname(__FILE__) . '/DbConnect.php';
        // opening db connection
        $db = new DbConnect();
        $this->conn = $db->connect();
    }

    //Function to create a new user
    public function createUser($username, $pass, $email, $name, $phone)
    {
        if (!$this->isUserExist($username, $email, $phone)) {
            $password = md5($pass);
            $stmt = $this->conn->prepare("INSERT INTO users (username, password, email, name, phone) VALUES (?, ?, ?, ?, ?)");
            $stmt->bind_param("sssss", $username, $password, $email, $name, $phone);
            if ($stmt->execute()) {
                return USER_CREATED;
            } else {
                return USER_NOT_CREATED;
            }
        } else {
            return USER_ALREADY_EXIST;
        }
    }


    private function isUserExist($username, $email, $phone)
    {
        $stmt = $this->conn->prepare("SELECT id FROM users WHERE username = ? OR email = ? OR phone = ?");
        $stmt->bind_param("sss", $username, $email, $phone);
        $stmt->execute();
        $stmt->store_result();
        return $stmt->num_rows > 0;
    }
}

register.php

Now this is the main script where we will send the request to register a new user.

<?php
/**
 * Created by PhpStorm.
 * User: Belal
 * Date: 04/02/17
 * Time: 7:51 PM
 */

//importing required script
require_once '../includes/DbOperation.php';

$response = array();

if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] == 'POST') {
    if (!verifyRequiredParams(array('username', 'password', 'email', 'name', 'phone'))) {
        //getting values
        $username = $_POST['username'];
        $password = $_POST['password'];
        $email = $_POST['email'];
        $name = $_POST['name'];
        $phone = $_POST['phone'];

        //creating db operation object
        $db = new DbOperation();

        //adding user to database
        $result = $db->createUser($username, $password, $email, $name, $phone);

        //making the response accordingly
        if ($result == USER_CREATED) {
            $response['error'] = false;
            $response['message'] = 'User created successfully';
        } elseif ($result == USER_ALREADY_EXIST) {
            $response['error'] = true;
            $response['message'] = 'User already exist';
        } elseif ($result == USER_NOT_CREATED) {
            $response['error'] = true;
            $response['message'] = 'Some error occurred';
        }
    } else {
        $response['error'] = true;
        $response['message'] = 'Required parameters are missing';
    }
} else {
    $response['error'] = true;
    $response['message'] = 'Invalid request';
}

//function to validate the required parameter in request
function verifyRequiredParams($required_fields)
{

    //Getting the request parameters
    $request_params = $_REQUEST;

    //Looping through all the parameters
    foreach ($required_fields as $field) {
        //if any requred parameter is missing
        if (!isset($request_params[$field]) || strlen(trim($request_params[$field])) <= 0) {

            //returning true;
            return true;
        }
    }
    return false;
}

echo json_encode($response);

Testing Web Service

Now lets test it is working or not. You can use any REST Client extension I am using POSTMAN.

As you can see it is working fine. Also check the database whether the values are inserted or not.