preparing for 'categories'

lib/common/apifunctions/categories.dart

@@ -0,0 +1,78 @@
+import 'dart:convert';
+import 'dart:async';
+import 'package:http/http.dart' as http;
+import 'package:local_spend/common/functions/get_token.dart';
+
+class Category {
+  String name;
+  String index;
+
+  Category({
+    this.name,
+    this.index,
+  });
+}
+
+Future<List<Category>> getCategories() async {
+  const url = "https://dev.peartrade.org/api/search/category";
+  var token;
+
+  await getToken().then((result) {
+    token = result;
+  });
+
+  Map<String, String> body = {
+    "session_key":token,
+  };
+
+  final response = await http.post (
+    url,
+    body: json.encode(body),
+  );
+
+//  print(response.body);
+
+  if (response.statusCode == 200) {
+    //request successful
+    List<Category> categories = new List<Category>();
+    Map responseMap = json.decode(response.body);
+
+    var categoriesJSON = responseMap['categories'];
+
+    //nice.
+    // so the response needs to be decoded iteratively, like
+    // categories.add(new Category(name: categoriesJSON[i.toString()], index: i.toString()));
+
+//    print(categoriesJSON['11']); // prints "Banana"
+
+    int i = 1;  // starts on 1. that was annoying to debug!
+    while (true) {
+
+      if (categoriesJSON[i.toString()] != null) {
+//        print("Iteration " + i.toString());
+//        print(categoriesJSON[i.toString()]);
+        categories.add(new Category(
+            name: categoriesJSON[i.toString()], index: i.toString()));
+//        print(categories.last);
+        i++;
+      } else {
+//        print("Number of categories: " + (i - 1).toString());
+//        print("categoriesJSON[" + i.toString() + ".toString()] == null");
+        break;
+      }
+    } // does this until error, which then tells it that there is no more JSON left
+
+//    print(categories[11].name);
+
+//    decodedResponse.forEach((key, value) {
+////      print(key + ": " + value);
+//      categories.add(new Category(name: value, index: key));
+//    });
+
+//    print(categories[10].name.toString());  // prints "Banana"
+    return categories;
+  } else {
+    // not successful
+    return null;
+  }
+}