Text Field returns nil when there's a space

Question

If someone can help me understand/fix why it keeps crashing/saying my results is nil when there's an actual string being sent.

I know the problem has to do with white space but what am I doing wrong?

• When I type "Hello", it works fine.
• When I type "Hello Word", the error appears and says it's nil.

fatal error: unexpectedly found nil while unwrapping an Optional value

import Alamofire
import SwiftyJSON

@IBAction func searchBtn(sender: UIButton) {
  let searchTerm:String = self.searchTextField.text!
  let apiUrl = "http://localhost/v1/define?term=\(searchTerm)" 

  Alamofire.request(.GET, apiUrl!).responseJSON { response in print(response)
    let jsonData = JSON(response.result.value!)
    if jsonData["result_type"] == "exact" {
      let definitionText = jsonData["list"][0]["definition"].string
      self.resultLabel.text = definitionText
    } else {
      self.resultLabel.text = "Sorry, your word does not have a definition."
    }
  }
}

Answer 1

I'm using this for URL encode in swift 2, hope it work

let escapedSearchText = searchText.stringByAddingPercentEncodingWithAllowedCharacters(NSCharacterSet.letterCharacterSet())!