How to make a rest api call in microsoft bot framework - rest

I need a bot that takes users input, uses it as an id to some third party rest api call and posts back a response. I've looked through Microsoft documentation but didn't find any examples on how to program that request-response process.
Any examples or useful links would be appreciated

Adding to Jason's answer, since you wanted to make a REST api call, take a look at this code :
public class RootDialog : IDialog<object>
{
public Task StartAsync(IDialogContext context)
{
context.Wait(MessageReceivedAsync);
return Task.CompletedTask;
}
private async Task MessageReceivedAsync(IDialogContext context, IAwaitable<object> result)
{
var activity = await result as Activity;
// User message
string userMessage = activity.Text;
try
{
using (HttpClient client = new HttpClient())
{
//Assuming that the api takes the user message as a query paramater
string RequestURI = "YOUR_THIRD_PARTY_REST_API_URL?query=" + userMessage ;
HttpResponseMessage responsemMsg = await client.GetAsync(RequestURI);
if (responsemMsg.IsSuccessStatusCode)
{
var apiResponse = await responsemMsg.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
//Post the API response to bot again
await context.PostAsync($"Response is {apiResponse}");
}
}
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
}
context.Wait(MessageReceivedAsync);
}
}
Once you get the input from user, you can make a REST call and then after you get the response back from API, post it back to the user using the context.PostAsync method.

As Ashwin said, A bot is just a web API and you are just sending/receiving requests as you would with any web API. Below is some documentation that should help get you started.
Basic Overview
Create a bot with the Bot Connector service
API Reference

Related

How to handle api failure in gupshup bot http call

I am making a http call from the gupshup IDE bot as below.
function MessageHandler(context, event) {
if(event.message. == "postdata") {
var url = "https://abcserver.com/sm/postData";
var header = {"token":"ca916a68d94","Content-Type": "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"};
var param = "userName=John&phoneNumber=1123111111";
context.simplehttp.makePost(url,param,header);
}
function HttpResponseHandler(context, event) {
var result= JSON.parse(event.getresp);
if(result=="success")
context.sendResponse("We have successfully stored your data");
}
I need a way to handle the failure i.e if the url (https://abcserver.com/sm/postData) is not reachable then I don't get any callback, HttpResponseHandler is not called in this case and the bot stops abruptly. I need a way to know that the corresponding api request has failed.I tried using try catch but it doesn't work.
Any link to the correct documentation or code example is welcome.

Microsoft bot framework: What must a messaging endpoint return?

I am implementing my own messaging endpoint for a MS Teams bot from scratch. I'm almost there. The endpoint does get called with conversationUpdate events, but I see:
There was an error sending this message to your bot: HTTP status code
BadRequest
in the admin on https://dev.botframework.com/bots/channels?id=...
I am probably returning something bad in the HTTP request. As I didn't find anything about the response in the REST API docs, I am just sending the string "{}" with a standard content type.
So what do I actually need to return?
Edit: It appears that the relevant part of the botbuilder-java package is this function in ControllerBase.java:
protected void doPost(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) {
try {
Activity activity = getActivity(request);
String authHeader = request.getHeader("Authorization");
adapter.processIncomingActivity(
authHeader, activity, turnContext -> bot.onTurn(turnContext)
).handle((result, exception) -> {
if (exception == null) {
response.setStatus(HttpServletResponse.SC_ACCEPTED);
return null;
}
if (exception.getCause() instanceof AuthenticationException) {
response.setStatus(HttpServletResponse.SC_UNAUTHORIZED);
} else {
response.setStatus(HttpServletResponse.SC_INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR);
}
return null;
});
} catch (Exception ex) {
response.setStatus(HttpServletResponse.SC_INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR);
}
}
As far as I can tell, this only sets a return code (202) but does not return any content. I now try to do the same thing in my messaging endpoint, but Teams still complains about "BadRequest".
Edit: I have snooped what the actual BotFramework Java sample does - it just returns a code 202 with an empty request body and no content type. I'm now doing the exact same thing, and Teams still complains that it could not send the message. Kinda giving up here.

Sending an async email without await from a .Net core web service

I have a webservice .Net core2 that has certain methods that send an email. I have it working fine using smtpclient.sendemailasync.
public async Task<bool> SendEmailAsync(MailMessage email)
{
try
{
if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(emailFrom)) email.From = new MailAddress(emailFrom);
using (SmtpClient client = getSMTPClientInstance())
{
await client.SendMailAsync(email);
}
return true;
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
Log.Error(ex, "Error sending email in EmailService.SendEmailAsync");
return false;
}
}
The only issue is that some SMTP servers take a little too long to respond. I want to set up the email, queue it and return without waiting for the result.
Just using an unawaited async is out for 2 reasons;
It is not reliable to continue a method outside a request context in asp
I need access to the database context of my entity framework to write a log
I have to allow for external or internal SMTP (my client specifies), so a collection folder is not a possibility - at least not without a service that manages it.
How could I achieve this? Do I need to write a service that manages this? If so, how would I do that inside my .Net Core App, keeping in mind that the service also needs to access the EF context to write a log
UPDATE
There is plumbing available in .NetCore DI especially for this. Refer to my additional answer below. Use IServiceScopeFactory
You can call the RegisterAsyncTask method on the Page object. That will signal the ASP.NET runtime you want to make sure these are finished before terminating the request context:
Example:
public void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
RegisterAsyncTask(new PageAsyncTask(LoadSomeData));
}
public async Task LoadSomeData()
{
var clientcontacts = Client.DownloadStringTaskAsync("api/contacts");
var clienttemperature = Client.DownloadStringTaskAsync("api/temperature");
var clientlocation = Client.DownloadStringTaskAsync("api/location");
await Task.WhenAll(clientcontacts, clienttemperature, clientlocation);
var contacts = Newtonsoft.Json.JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<List<Contact>>(await clientcontacts);
var location = Newtonsoft.Json.JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<string>(await clientlocation);
var temperature = Newtonsoft.Json.JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<string>(await clienttemperature);
listcontacts.DataSource = contacts;
listcontacts.DataBind();
Temparature.Text = temperature;
Location.Text = location;
}
https://www.hanselman.com/blog/TheMagicOfUsingAsynchronousMethodsInASPNET45PlusAnImportantGotcha.aspx
So, while I have marked an answer, there are a couple of options that are better solutions for my specific example. First is the option to use a library like hangfire to schedule tasks - although that is not technically an answer to the question.
The better solution in .net core is to use IServiceScopeFactory
With IServiceScopeFactory you can rescope a task so it doesnt go out of scope when the request is complete. I did the following directly in a controller (I later moved to using the hangfire approach, but this works). As you can see, the async task is fired off in a new unawaited thread while the controller code continues.
var task = Task.Run(async () =>
{
using (var scope = _serviceScopeFactory.CreateScope())
{
var service = scope.ServiceProvider.GetRequiredService<ApprovalService>();
await service.sendResponseEmailAsync(approvalInfo.ApprovalId, userID, approvalInfo.emailTo, approvalInfo.ccTo);
}
});

Do some work after the response in ASP.NET Core

I have an ASP.NET Core website, using EFCore.
I would like to do some work like logging to the database, but after having sent the response to the user in order to answer faster.
I could do it in a different thread, but due to async access of the DbContext I am not sure it is safe. Is there any recommended way to do that?
public async Task<IActionResult> Request([FromForm]RequestViewModel model, string returnUrl = null)
{
try
{
var newModel = new ResponseViewModel(model);
// Some work
return View("RequestView",newModel)
}
finally
{
// Some analysis on the request
// I would like to defer this part
await Log(model);
}
}
One of the reason is that I would like to call a web-service (geocoding), which is not needed to answer, but good to work on the log (I need the city/country of coordinates).
I see this has never been answered, but actually have a solution.
The simple solution:
public async Task<IActionResult> Request([FromForm]RequestViewModel model, string returnUrl = null)
{
try
{
var newModel = new ResponseViewModel(model);
// Some work
return View("RequestView",newModel)
}
finally
{
Response.OnCompleted(async () =>
{
// Do some work here
await Log(model);
});
}
}
The secure solution, as OnCompleted used to be called before the response being sent, so delaying the response:
public static void OnCompleted2(this HttpResponse resp, Func<Task> callback)
{
resp.OnCompleted(() =>
{
Task.Run(() => { try { callback.Invoke(); } catch {} });
return Task.CompletedTask;
});
}
and call Response.OnCompleted2(async () => { /* some async work */ })
Building on Jeans answer and a question and answer on the try - return - finally pattern, the try and finally blocks can be removed (if you don't really want to catch an exception).
This leads to the following code:
public async Task<IActionResult> Request([FromForm] RequestViewModel model, string returnUrl = null)
{
var newModel = new ResponseViewModel(model);
// Some work
Response.OnCompleted(async () =>
{
// Do some work here
await Log(model);
});
return View("RequestView", newModel);
}
There's no out of the box way to do what you want.
But, here's a possible approach:
Have a queue and a worker (thread or process)
Just before the request is sent back to the client, add a message in that queue
The worker will pick up that message at some point in the future, and process it.
Since the worked runs somewhere else and not on the request thread, the server can complete the request thread and the worker can do what's left.
Try using Hangfire. Hangfire is an easy way to perform background processing in .NET and .NET Core applications. No Windows Service or separate process required.
Backed by persistent storage. Open and free for commercial use.
You could do something like
var jobId = BackgroundJob.Enqueue(() => Log(model));
And here is my blog post on using HangFire in ASP.NET Core
Create a new class that inherits from ActionFilterAttribute, overwrite the OnResultExecuted method to perform the logging and then apply your attribute class to the controller actions you want to do logging.

How to consume REST api in Xamarin.iOS?

I have made a REST API and I want to use it using my Xamarin.iOS application.
Basically I want to call the API from my Xamarin application by sending some arguments to one of my API's function.
I tried the resources available at Xamarin's official website, but I a newbie so I cannot understand how it was done.
The REST API is hosted locally by the network I am using. It is not hosted at a static IP.
Kindly guide me.
You don't really need a fancy plugin if you just want to hit Web Endpoints. I simply use the basic WebRequest API.
var request = WebRequest.CreateHttp(YOUR_URL_HERE);
request.Method = "GET";
request.ContentType = "application/JSON";
request.BeginGetResponse(ResponseComplete, request);
... and then your response method can be something along the lines of...
protected void ResponseComplete(IAsyncResult result)
{
try
{
var request = result.AsyncState as HttpWebRequest;
if (request != null)
{
Debug.WriteLine("Completed query: " + request.RequestUri);
using (var streamReader = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream()))
{
var result = streamReader.ReadToEnd();
Debug.WriteLine("Query Result: " + result);
}
}
}
}
... and if you need to post data you can add request.BeginGetRequestStream(PostData, request); before request.BeginGetResponse(ResponseComplete, request); and make your GetRequestStream handling method something along the lines of...
protected void PostData(IAsyncResult result)
{
var request = result.AsyncState as HttpWebRequest;
if (request != null)
{
using (var postStream = request.EndGetRequestStream(result))
{
var json = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(DATA_TO_POST);
Debug.WriteLine("Posting data: " + json);
var byteArray = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(json);
postStream.Write(byteArray, 0, byteArray.Length);
}
}
}
I would recommend Refit, you can install it as a NuGet package. Its pritty simple to use.
Refit allows us to define an interface that describes the API that we're calling, and the Refit framework handles making the call to the service and deserializing the return.
Have a look at this great blog post on how to set it up and other packages that might help you out. http://arteksoftware.com/resilient-network-services-with-xamarin/
I have used RestSharp before but Refit is alot easier to get running.