Android User Authentication

[fzk007]

So, I've been trying to develop a native android app for the frontend. So far things are in a "just working" state using the Webservice XML APIs. But now I have hit a wall.

 

The problem of how to authenticate a user who is already registered on the site and now wants to login to the app. I've spent weeks trying to figure how Authcontroller file works and if I can pass the username and password to that. No luck, so what I'm trying now is send the POST from the app to a duplicate copy of the actual prestashop login page(php file) and use Ajax/jQuery to capture server response without moving to the target page. No luck there too as what is being returned is just the whole page loading code. No user identifiable information.

 

Am I doing it completely wrong? What is the proper way to check for user authentication from the App? Which file should I be talking to on the server side? Can this be done through the webservice API which I doubt since there is a question about hash key? Or do I have to go the hard way of talking to the DB directly from the app?

 

Please help!

 

Thank you.

Edited July 3, 2016 by fzk007 (see edit history)