Swift extension of a URLRequest that add Basic Authentication to the authorization header of a HTTP request as per rfc7617: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7617

BasicAuthentication.swift

//
//  BasicAuthenticationExtension.swift
//  ToCheckIn
//
//  Created by arbel03 on 25/08/2016.
//  Copyright © 2016 arbel03. All rights reserved.
//

import Foundation

extension NSMutableURLRequest {
    //Adding base64 encoded authorization field
    func addBasicAuthentication(username username: String, password: String) {
        let utf8String = "\(username):\(password)".dataUsingEncoding(NSUTF8StringEncoding)
        if let base64Encoded = utf8String?.base64EncodedDataWithOptions(NSDataBase64EncodingOptions(rawValue: 0)) {
            self.setValue("Basic \(NSString(data: base64Encoded, encoding: NSUTF8StringEncoding)!)", forHTTPHeaderField: "Authorization")
        }
    }
}