Yii Framework, an example of send push notifications for IOS devices

May 11, 2016 20 Alex

I have a website and app for it. And of course the app is running through API with the website. I need make sending Push notifications on apple device. Based on the obtained experience, I decided to write a small instructions.

The whole mechanism of sending, receiving and storing of tokens I will not describe because it all depends on the structure of your application. I will describe only the key points with the help of which you can make sending push notifications of any complexity.

What is a token of device?

To send push notifications on the IOS device, we need his token. Token it is a unique string for apple account, device and application for which notifications will be sent.

Example of IOS token: 4a9cf2a8eb22e1718f7368982870eb950a7367134d2e2b66cbb6b21773600671

Yii extension to send push notifications

To send push notifications I will use the extension Yii 1.1: apns-gcm. You can download it from the official site extensions yii: http://www.yiiframework.com/extension/apns-gcm/ or from site devreadwrite.com.

Certificate to send push notifications

Before using the extension we need to get a certificate from the IOS Programmer.Or make it yourself, how to generate the certificate, you can search in Google. I received a certificate from the developer IOS with extension p12. Yii 1.1: apns-gcm need certificate with pem of extension, here you can convert p12 to pem: https://www.sslshopper.com/ssl-converter.html. But you can ask for IOS developer to do it.

And so we have a certificate and extension. Now we can connect the extension to the project.

Connecting expansion apns-gcm to send push notifications

Copy the contents of the archive to a folder /protected/extensions/apns-gcm. And add next code in configuration file /protected/config/main.php:

return array(

    //...

    'components' => array(

        //...

        'apns' => array(
            'class' => 'application.extensions.apns-gcm.YiiApns',
            'environment' => 'sandbox',
            'pemFile' => $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/apnssert/apns-dev.pem',
            'dryRun' => false,
            'options' => array(
                'sendRetryTimes' => 5
            ),
        ),
        'gcm' => array(
            'class' => 'ext.apns-gcm.YiiGcm',
            'apiKey' => ''
        ),
        'apnsGcm' => array(
            'class' => 'ext.apns-gcm.YiiApnsGcm',
        ),

        //...

    ),

    //...

);

Where, /apnssert/apns-dev.pem - path to certificate.

The verification token before sending push notifications

If user uninstall an application or disable notifications from it, then you must delete him token. Because keep it no longer useful. He will not receive any more notifications.

Sample code for delete of old tokens: 

public function actionIosDeleteOldToken() {
    $apns = Yii::app()->apns;

    $feedback = new ApnsPHP_Feedback(
        ApnsPHP_Abstract::ENVIRONMENT_SANDBOX,
        //ApnsPHP_Abstract::ENVIRONMENT_PRODUCTION,
        Yii::app()->apns->pemFile
    );
    $feedback->connect();
    $deviceTokens = $feedback->receive();

    if (!empty($deviceTokens)) {
        foreach ($deviceTokens as $token) {
            /**
             * In response, we have an array in the following format
             * ['timestamp'] => 1406040206
             * ['tokenLength'] => 32
             * ['deviceToken'] => 4a9cf2a8eb22e1718f7368982870eb950a7367134d2e2b66cbb6b21773600671
             */
            //Here we run a sql query for delete the token
            echo 'Token removed: ' . $token['deviceToken'] . '<br/>';
        }
    }
}

Sending push notifications

Example of sending push notifications to the one device (1 tokenн): 

public function actionIosSendTest($token) {
    $message = 'Hello! This is a test push notification:)';
    //$token - device token

    $apns = Yii::app()->apns;
    $apns->send(
        $token, 
        $message, 
        array(
            'customProperty1' => 'If necessary, you can pass additional ',
            'customProperty2' => 'Another additional parameters'
        ), 
        array(
            'sound' => 'default',
            'badge' => 1
        )
    );
}

Mass sending push notifications

Example of sending a push notification to multiple devices (multiple tokens): 

public function actionIosSendTestMas() {
    $message = 'Hello! This is a test push notification for all:)';
    //We form an array of tokens
    $devicesTokens = array('<token1>', '<token2>', 'tokenN'),

    $apns = Yii::app()->apns;
    $apns->sendMulti(
        devicesTokens, 
        $message, 
        array(
            //Additional parameters
        ), 
        array(
            'sound' => 'default',
            'badge' => 1
        )
    );
}

Later, I will write about how I did send push notifications to Android devices.

IOS,  API