How to download file in swift?

Example downloader class without Alamofire:

class Downloader {
    class func load(URL: NSURL) {
        let sessionConfig = NSURLSessionConfiguration.defaultSessionConfiguration()
        let session = NSURLSession(configuration: sessionConfig, delegate: nil, delegateQueue: nil)
        let request = NSMutableURLRequest(URL: URL)
        request.HTTPMethod = "GET"
        let task = session.dataTaskWithRequest(request, completionHandler: { (data: NSData!, response: NSURLResponse!, error: NSError!) -> Void in
            if (error == nil) {
                // Success
                let statusCode = (response as NSHTTPURLResponse).statusCode
                println("Success: \(statusCode)")

                // This is your file-variable:
                // data
            }
            else {
                // Failure
                println("Failure: %@", error.localizedDescription);
            }
        })
        task.resume()
    }
}

This is how to use it in your own code:

class Foo {
    func bar() {
        if var URL = NSURL(string: "http://www.mywebsite.com/myfile.pdf") {
            Downloader.load(URL)
        }
    }
}

Swift 3 Version

Also note to download large files on disk instead instead in memory. see `downloadTask:

class Downloader {
    class func load(url: URL, to localUrl: URL, completion: @escaping () -> ()) {
        let sessionConfig = URLSessionConfiguration.default
        let session = URLSession(configuration: sessionConfig)
        let request = try! URLRequest(url: url, method: .get)

        let task = session.downloadTask(with: request) { (tempLocalUrl, response, error) in
            if let tempLocalUrl = tempLocalUrl, error == nil {
                // Success
                if let statusCode = (response as? HTTPURLResponse)?.statusCode {
                    print("Success: \(statusCode)")
                }

                do {
                    try FileManager.default.copyItem(at: tempLocalUrl, to: localUrl)
                    completion()
                } catch (let writeError) {
                    print("error writing file \(localUrl) : \(writeError)")
                }

            } else {
                print("Failure: %@", error?.localizedDescription);
            }
        }
        task.resume()
    }
}