Peoplesoft Integration Broker REST services POST - how to set up in Peoplesoft - rest

This is the first time that I am setting a POST up in Peoplesoft, so need some input. The Service Operation needs to be set up with the parameters in the BODY, as I understand. I was fine with setting up GET, since all the parameters come in via the URL/URI.
How do I configure the Service Operation for the POST? I have set up the document and the message already.
We receive in json-format.

Since it a very high leve question, I'm gonna refer you to peoplebooks. Refer to page.219 in the below peoplebook. You can also find a lot of blog posts on the same topic.
https://docs.oracle.com/cd/F52214_01/psft/pdf/pt859tibr-b032022.pdf
On high level, to give you a head start,
create document definition
attach it to message definition
create service operation definition and use this message definition for request
create a message definition for response based on the expected structure
populate the document body and invoke the service operation from peoplecode.(refer attached peoplebook for code reference)
Please post a question with specifics if you get stuck somewhere.

Related

What REST method should be used to implement a simple inter-process communication?

This is more a theorical question than a practical one.
We have a backend application that uploads csv files to a frontend application, then and only then the backend sends an empty POST request to tell the frontend to start to process those files to update its database.
For this question it doesn't matter if this is a good design (I think it isn't), what are those files, and what database is: I am only want to know better about the REST "sintax".
I'm referring to wikipedia and restfulapi.net, but I'm not convinced about any alternative, because:
GET: Request sender doesn't receive data;
POST (the currently used): Request sender doesn't want to insert data that are on the request body (just data from external files, if existent. Also they can be insert/update/delete);
PUT: Sounds good, but again, data are not on the request body;
PATCH: Sounds best, but data are not on the body (Also, I am wrong or is it deprecated/unused?);
DELETE: Doesn't always need to delete.
I know it is habit to use POST requests to let machines yell "go!" to each other, but I never thought it was right.
What do you think - in theory - would be the proper method?
The actual reference for the semantics of the HTTP methods is the RFC 7231 and not the ones you referenced in your question.
POST is a catch all method and requests that the target resource process the representation enclosed in the request according to the resource's own specific semantics.
4.3.3. POST
The POST method requests that the target resource process the
representation enclosed in the request according to the resource's
own specific semantics. For example, POST is used for the following
functions (among others):
Providing a block of data, such as the fields entered into an HTML
form, to a data-handling process;
Posting a message to a bulletin board, newsgroup, mailing list,
blog, or similar group of articles;
Creating a new resource that has yet to be identified by the
origin server; and
Appending data to a resource's existing representation(s).
[...]
Responses to POST requests are only cacheable when they include
explicit freshness information. However, POST caching is not widely implemented.
In these scenarios, the receiving application knows where the CSV files will be and monitors that location. When it finds one, it processes it and then deletes or archives it. The application will likely have its own criteria for considering itself ready to process, e.g. time of day, size of file etc.
If the data load on the front end takes a long time you could "partition" the updates based on "importance". How you define importance would be up to your business rules. You could then POST a list of CSV filenames/locations to the front end. The list would be ordered by importance. The front end could then update its database based on that importance. Scheduling less important data for a more appropriate time of day.
If the backend knows the difference between new users and updated users you could use PUT and POST. The front end could assign higher priority to PUT requests as they relate to new users, perhaps assigning lower priority and staggered syncing for CSV filenames in POST requests.

What happens if i try to post one POST request with existing record in the database

As per my knowledge the main difference between PUT and POST method in REST is that POST request will create a new record where as PUT request will update the existing record/ create new record if not present.
Now my question is that :
Suppose we have a User with Id = 1 and name= "Pritam" in database.
Now if i try to make a POST request with request body Id = 1 and name= "Pritam", then what happens. (Duplicate records). will a new record will get created or what happens exactly.
Please help me to understand the difference between PUT and POST method. When to use PUT and When to use POST in real time scenarios.
As per my knowledge the main difference between PUT and POST method in REST is that POST request will create a new record where as PUT request will update the existing record/ create new record if not present.
That's not right. (It's also not your fault -- that misunderstanding is common). The real differences in the semantics of POST and PUT are currently described by RFC 7231
POST is the more general method, which can be used for any operation on the target resource
PUT is more specific - it indicates that the included document is intended as a replacement for the representation on the server.
Suppose we have a User with Id = 1 and name= "Pritam" in database. Now if i try to make a POST request with request body Id = 1 and name= "Pritam", then what happens. (Duplicate records). will a new record will get created or what happens exactly.
Those are implementation details; precisely the sort of thing that the REST API is insulating the client from needing to understand (as far as the client is concerned, the server is just a web site).
The "right" thing in your domain might be:
create a new user in your domain model, using the information in the POST message-body, and possibly creating a duplicate, or
report an error to the client, because of the conflict
report success to the client, with reference to the previously created user
None of those things happens by magic, you actually have to choose what makes sense for your circumstances and implement it, then work out the right way to describe what has happened in the body of the HTTP Response, and what information to include in the metadata so that generic components can intelligently participate in the exchange.

REST Creating a resource at point-of-request

Say I have the need to expose a service, where I can request an analysis of a user over a specific range of time (common actions, activities, relationships, etc.).
I would immediately think of this as:
/users/{userId}/analyses - POST
/users/{userId}/analyses/{analysisId} - GET
The problem here, is where the 'analysis' resource comes into existence - it is inherently request-based as it is the service that will do this complex analysis, and also the service that has the most up-to-date state of the user data. In short, it doesn't exist prior to request.
My current thinking has me at three options for requesting an analysis for the first time (with retrieval being the same):
/users/{userId}/analyses?from=2017-01-01&to=2018-01-01 - GET
/users/{userId}/analyses - POST { "from": "2017-01-01", "to": "2018-01-01" }
/users/{userId}/analyses?from=2017-01-01&to=2018-01-01 - POST
I like the GET with query parameters, as I'm requesting a resource, and scoping the user data to be used, until I recognise that the resource could change between requests (based on data on the back end, or processing logic change), and that I would need to call a second time to POST this resource.
I like the POST with the request body, as I'm expecting a resource to be created, until I recognise that the state I've transferred, is not the state I would get back when I retrieve this later, nor is it even the same hypermedia type.
I like the POST with query parameters and no body, as I'm creating a resource and scoping that resource, but I'm still transferring a state that isn't the resource or end media type, and I've seen practically no other examples of POSTs with query parameters.
Anyone have experience with these kinds of actions in a RESTful manner?
In my opinion, using GET /users/{userId}/analyses?from=...&to=... is a good approach.
You request a resource of type analysis which means you have to use HTTP verb GET. You pass parameters to limit the scope. That the resource might change between two requests is not a problem. You request a resource in a specific state and this state might be changed right after your GET request. Compare this to a collection resource where other clients are allowed to POST something.
Using POST would imply that you want clients to create a resource of type analysis with all necessary data, which is from what I understand not true in your case. Your own counter-arguments for the second and third example are correct, in my opinion.

REST API: How to deal with processing logic

I read (among others) the following blog about API design: https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/blog/rest-api-design-resource-modeling. It helped me to better understand a lot of aspects, but I have one question remaining:
How do I deal with functionality that processes some data and gives a response directly. Think, verbs like translate, calculate or enrich. Which noun should they have and should they be called by GET, PUT or POST?
P.S. If it should be GET, how to deal with the maximum length of a GET request
This is really a discussion about naming more so than functionality. Its very much possible to have processed logic in your API, you just need to be careful about naming it.
Imaginary API time. Its got this resource: /v1/probe/{ID} and it responds to GET, POST, and DELETE.
Let's say we want to launch our probes out, and then want the probe to give us back the calculated flux variation of something its observing (totally made up thing). While it isn't a real thing, let's say that this has to be calculated on the fly. One of my intrepid teammates decides to plunk the calculation at GET /v1/1324/calculateflux.
If we're following real REST-ful practices... Oops. Suddenly we're not dealing with a noun, are we? If we have GET /v1/probe/1324/calculateflux we've broken RESTful practices because we're now asking for a verb - calculateflux.
So, how do we deal with this?
You'll want to reconsider the name calculateflux. That's no good - it doesn't name a resource on the probe. **In this case, /v1/probe/1324/fluxvalue is a better name, and /v1/probe/1324/flux works too.
Why?
RESTFUL APIs almost exclusively use nouns in their URIs - remember that each URI needs to describe a specific thing you can GET POST PUT or DELETE or whatever. That means that any time there is a processed value we should give the resource the name of the processed (or calculated) value. This way, we remain RESTful by adhering to the always-current data (We can re-calculate the Flux value any time) and we haven't changed the state of the probe (we didn't save any values using GET).
Well, I can tell you that I know about this.
GET // Returns, JUST return
DELETE // Delete
POST // Send information that will be processed on server
PUT // Update a information
This schema is for laravel framework. Will be most interesting that you read the link in ref
Ref:
https://rafaell-lycan.com/2015/construindo-restful-api-laravel-parte-1/
You should start with the following process:
Identify the resources (nouns) in your system.
They should all respond to GET.
Let's take your translation example. You could decide that every word in the source language is a resource. This would give:
http://example.com/translations/en-fr/hello
Which might return:
Content-Type: text/plain
Content-Language: fr
bonjour
If your processes are long-running, you should create a request queue that clients can POST to, and provide them with another (new) resource that they can query to see if the process has completed.

RESTful way to create multiple items in one request

I am working on a small client server program to collect orders. I want to do this in a "REST(ful) way".
What I want to do is:
Collect all orderlines (product and quantity) and send the complete order to the server
At the moment I see two options to do this:
Send each orderline to the server: POST qty and product_id
I actually don't want to do this because I want to limit the number of requests to the server so option 2:
Collect all the orderlines and send them to the server at once.
How should I implement option 2? a couple of ideas I have is:
Wrap all orderlines in a JSON object and send this to the server or use an array to post the orderlines.
Is it a good idea or good practice to implement option 2, and if so how should I do it.
What is good practice?
I believe that another correct way to approach this would be to create another resource that represents your collection of resources.
Example, imagine that we have an endpoint like /api/sheep/{id} and we can POST to /api/sheep to create a sheep resource.
Now, if we want to support bulk creation, we should consider a new flock resource at /api/flock (or /api/<your-resource>-collection if you lack a better meaningful name). Remember that resources don't need to map to your database or app models. This is a common misconception.
Resources are a higher level representation, unrelated with your data. Operating on a resource can have significant side effects, like firing an alert to a user, updating other related data, initiating a long lived process, etc. For example, we could map a file system or even the unix ps command as a REST API.
I think it is safe to assume that operating a resource may also mean to create several other entities as a side effect.
Although bulk operations (e.g. batch create) are essential in many systems, they are not formally addressed by the RESTful architecture style.
I found that POSTing a collection as you suggested basically works, but problems arise when you need to report failures in response to such a request. Such problems are worse when multiple failures occur for different causes or when the server doesn't support transactions.
My suggestion to you is that if there is no performance problem, for example when the service provider is on the LAN (not WAN) or the data is relatively small, it's worth it to send 100 POST requests to the server. Keep it simple, start with separate requests and if you have a performance problem try to optimize.
Facebook explains how to do this: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/graph-api/making-multiple-requests
Simple batched requests
The batch API takes in an array of logical HTTP requests represented
as JSON arrays - each request has a method (corresponding to HTTP
method GET/PUT/POST/DELETE etc.), a relative_url (the portion of the
URL after graph.facebook.com), optional headers array (corresponding
to HTTP headers) and an optional body (for POST and PUT requests). The
Batch API returns an array of logical HTTP responses represented as
JSON arrays - each response has a status code, an optional headers
array and an optional body (which is a JSON encoded string).
Your idea seems valid to me. The implementation is a matter of your preference. You can use JSON or just parameters for this ("order_lines[]" array) and do
POST /orders
Since you are going to create more resources at once in a single action (order and its lines) it's vital to validate each and every of them and save them only if all of them pass validation, ie. you should do it in a transaction.
I've actually been wrestling with this lately, and here's what I'm working towards.
If a POST that adds multiple resources succeeds, return a 200 OK (I was considering a 201, but the user ultimately doesn't land on a resource that was created) along with a page that displays all resources that were added, either in read-only or editable fashion. For instance, a user is able to select and POST multiple images to a gallery using a form comprising only a single file input. If the POST request succeeds in its entirety the user is presented with a set of forms for each image resource representation created that allows them to specify more details about each (name, description, etc).
In the event that one or more resources fails to be created, the POST handler aborts all processing and appends each individual error message to an array. Then, a 419 Conflict is returned and the user is routed to a 419 Conflict error page that presents the contents of the error array, as well as a way back to the form that was submitted.
I guess it's better to send separate requests within single connection. Of course, your web-server should support it
You won't want to send the HTTP headers for 100 orderlines. You neither want to generate any more requests than necessary.
Send the whole order in one JSON object to the server, to: server/order or server/order/new.
Return something that points to: server/order/order_id
Also consider using CREATE PUT instead of POST