The Watson Dialog Service on IBM Bluemix allows to create profile variables and to pass values to them. In the examples these variables always seem to have the type "TEXT" (see "myVariable" below). Are there any other types available? How would I pass a JSON object and how would I access specific values inside a dialog?
<variables>
<var_folder name="Home">
<var name="myVariable" type="TEXT"/>
</var_folder>
</variables>
I talked with the service team, and the recommendation is to use the new Watson Conversation service as it is actually possible to pass an array of name:value pairs. Below is a sample that the team came up with on the fly. Hopefully it's helpful.
Sample:
{
"client_id": 4435,
"name_values": [
{
"name": "string",
"value": "string"
}
]
}
For example, if you want to post to a context variable named JSON_object, the PUT context payload would be:
{
"client_id": 4435,
"name_values": [
{
"name": "JSON_object",
"value": "{"sample":"data"}"
}
]
}
HOWEVER, they highly recommend converting the JSON to flat XML before posting as context, since dialog has much more versatility to parse XML, using {variable_name.xmlElementName}.
More info found on the API explorer - https://watson-api-explorer.mybluemix.net/apis/dialog-v1#!/Profile/setProfile under PUT CONTEXT method.
Best to go to the documentation.
variables can be objects - consisting of many vars
http://www.ibm.com/watson/developercloud/doc/dialog/reference_elements.shtml#reference_variables
vars can be of types
http://www.ibm.com/watson/developercloud/doc/dialog/reference_elements.shtml#reference_var
Related
I would like to start a Azure Pipelines build through the REST API. There is an API for queuing builds but I couldn't find a way to define variables.
The accepted answer does not really answers the question when you need to set a value at queue time.
The solution is actually pretty simple you just have to add a parameters field to the json payload. The content should be a json string (not directly an object) containing the parameters
Ex :
{
"parameters": "{\"ReleaseNumber\": \"1.0.50\", \"AnotherParameter\": \"a value\"}",
"definition": {
"id": 2
}
}
EDIT : This feature is now properly documented as an optional stringified dictionary. See https://www.visualstudio.com/fr-fr/docs/integrate/api/build/builds#queue-a-build
Variables are included in definitions, you can update your build definition to set the variables via build-definition api first and then queue the build.
Following is the variable section get via build-definition api:
"variables": {
"system.debug": {
"value": "false",
"allowOverride": true
},
"BuildConfiguration": {
"value": "release",
"allowOverride": true
},
"BuildPlatform": {
"value": "any cpu",
"allowOverride": true
}
},
For anyone having problems with this (I did), there is a difference in APIs used since the accepted answer (which to me didn't work at all). But following Cyprien Autexier's advice, I took a look under the hood (Firefox Dev Tools) and I noticed the portal does not use the Builds API anymore. It uses the Pipelines one (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/azure/devops/pipelines/runs/run-pipeline?view=azure-devops-rest-6.1). With this, worked flawlessly.
For anyone looking this, I was able to make it work with 'templateParameters', which allow you to send an Object instead of a String on version 7.1.
Method: POST
URL: https://dev.azure.com/{organization}/{project}/_apis/build/builds?api-version=7.1-preview.7
Body: JSON example:
{
"sourceBranch":"Development",
"definition": {
"id": 5
}
"templateParameters": {
"PARAMETER1": "value1",
"parameter2": "valuex"
}
}
Docs: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/azure/devops/build/builds/queue?view=azure-devops-rest-7.1
Seems it works with 5.1. All you need to do is define the variables you pass in as parameters within the pipeline variables and ensure the checkbox "Settable at queue time" is checked. If you have same variable in any library make sure you remove those references as library variables are seen to override those set via API.
Note I use Azure Devops Server 2019
API: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/azure/devops/build/builds/queue?view=azure-devops-rest-5.1
Navigating to set variables: Edit the YAML pipeline -->click on the 3 dots near "Run" button --> Variables --> Variables TAB
Hope it helps someone
I am trying to use https://github.com/ibm-watson-iot/openwhisk-package-watsoniotp in an OpenWhisk sequence (containing two actions) all code is node.js
Testing the sequence using Postman. Once the action completes, the action returns the variable, payload. The variable payload is passed over to the next action in the sequence which is the openwhisk-package-watsoniotp (added via a binding in the IBM Cloud console so I am unable to modify this code, it is locked).
I can post data from postman into Watson IoT platform via the sequence. However the format of the payload is interpreted as a String, not a JSON string.
This is the body I post from Postman, one of the variants I have tried.
{"payload": "{'speed': 10}"}
My node.JS actions return the input, unmodified.
return {payload: params.payload};
The value should be a JSON string. However WIOTP is unable to interpret the payload and basically tokenizes the values. This is evident when I try to create a board and a card. The property list lets me select each value in the array.
enter image description here
The openwhisk-package-watsontiotp code as far as I can tell just takes, params.payload as is and passes it along.
I found an example in the code that answer the question,
The payload, should be nested. I missed that originally.
{
"key": "sampleInput",
"value": {
"eventType": "status",
"payload": {
"temp": 4
},
"domain": "messaging.internetofthings.ibmcloud.com",
"typeId": "xxxx",
"deviceId": "xxxx01"
}
}
I'm building an Angular SPA with a Cloudant data store on Bluemix.
Since the Bluemix implementation of OpenWhisk doesn't use VCAP services, I see 3 options to use OpenWhisk as my api provider for cloudant queries for my Angular app:
Follow the pattern of passing credentials as seen here: https://github.com/IBM-Bluemix/openwhisk-visionapp (very interesting approach btw)
Include the credentials as though I'm running locally as seen here: https://github.com/IBM-Bluemix/nodejs-cloudant/blob/master/app.js
Use the http API as seen here: https://docs.cloudant.com/api.html (which highlights the security problem passing credentials.
Since my service is not intended for publishing (it's intended for my own app) I'm thinking option 2 is my "least of all evils" choice. Am I missing something? My thinking is such that while fragile to changes it would be the most secure since credentials aren't passed in the open. The serverless infrastructure would have to be hacked...
Thanks in advance!
(lengthy) Update: (apologies in advance)
I've gotten a little farther along but still no answer - stuck in execution right now.
To clarify, my objective is for the app to flow from Angular Client -> OpenWhisk -> Cloudant.
In this simplest use case, I want to pass a startTime parameter and an endTime parameter, have OpenWhisk fetch all the records in that time range with all fields, and passing back selected fields. In my example, I have USGS earthquake data in a modified GeoJSON format.
Following information from the following articles below, I've concluded that I can invoke the wsk command line actions and use the bindings I've setup from within my Javascript function and therefore not pass my credentials to the database. This gives me a measure of security (still question the rest endpoint of my OpenWhisk action) but I figure once I get my sample running I think through that part of it.
My command line (that works):
wsk action invoke /my#orgname.com_mybluemixspace/mycfAppName/exec-query-find --blocking --result --param dbname perils --param query {\"selector\":{\"_id\":{\"$gt\":0},\"properties.time\":{\"$gt\":1484190609500,\"$lt\":1484190609700}}}
This successfully returns the following:
{
"docs": [
{
"_id": "eq1484190609589",
"_rev": "1-b4fe3de75d9c5efc0eb05df38f056a65",
"dbSaveTime": 1.484191201099e+12,
"fipsalpha": "AK",
"fipsnumer": "02",
"geometry": {
"coordinates": [
-149.3691,
62.5456,
0
],
"type": "Point"
},
"id": "ak15062242",
"properties": {
"alert": null,
"cdi": null,
"code": "15062242",
"detail": "http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/feed/v1.0/detail/ak15062242.geojson",
"dmin": null,
"felt": null,
"gap": null,
"ids": ",ak15062242,",
"mag": 1.4,
"magType": "ml",
"mmi": null,
"net": "ak",
"nst": null,
"place": "45km ENE of Talkeetna, Alaska",
"rms": 0.5,
"sig": 30,
"sources": ",ak,",
"status": "automatic",
"time": 1.484190609589e+12,
"title": "M 1.4 - 45km ENE of Talkeetna, Alaska",
"tsunami": 0,
"type": "earthquake",
"types": ",geoserve,origin,",
"tz": -540,
"updated": 1.484191127265e+12,
"url": "http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/ak15062242"
},
"type": "Feature"
}
]
}
The action I created in OpenWhisk (below) returns an Internal Server Error. I'm passing the input value as
{
"startTime": "1484161200000",
"endTime": "1484190000000"
}
Here's the code for my action:
`var openWhisk = require('openwhisk');
var ow = openWhisk({
api_key:'im really a host'
});
function main(params) {
return new Promise(function(resolve, reject) {
ow.actions.invoke({
actionName:'/my#orgname.com_mybluemixspace/mycfAppName/exec-query-find',
blocking:true,
parameters:{
dbname: 'perils',
query: {
"selector": {
"_id": {
"$gt": 0
},
"properties.time": {
"$gt": params.startTime,
"$lt": params.endTime
}
}
}
}
}).then(function(res) {
//get the raw result
var raw = res.response.result.rows;
//lets make a new one
var result = [];
raw.forEach(function(c) {
result.push({id:c.docs._id, time:c.docs.properties.time, title:c.docs.properties.title});
});
resolve({result:result});
});
});
}`
Here are the links to my research:
http://infrastructuredevops.com/08-17-2016/news-openwhisk-uniq.html
Useful because of the use of the exec-query-find and selector syntax usage but also cool for the update function I need to build for populating my data!
https://www.raymondcamden.com/2016/12/23/going-serverless-with-openwhisk
The article referenced by #csantanapr
Am I overlooking something?
Thanks!
I'm assuming what you are trying to do is to access your Cloudant DB directly from your angular client side code from the Browser.
If you don't need any business logic, or you can get away by using Cloudant features (design docs, views, map, reduce, etc..) and you are generating Cloudant API keys with certain access (i.e. write vs. read), then you don't need a server or serveless middlewear/tier.
But now let's get real, most people need that tier, and if you are looking a OpenWhisk, then you are in good luck this is very easy to do.
OpenWhisk on Bluemix support VCAP service credentials, but in a different way.
Let's name you have a Bluemix Org carlos#example.com and space dev that would translate to OpenWhisk namespace carlos#example.com_dev
If you add a Cloudant service under the space dev in Bluemix, this will generate service key credentials for this Cloudant Account. This credentials give you super power access meaning you are admin.
If you want to use this Cloudant credentials in OpenWhisk, you can use the automatic binding generated with the cloudant package.
To do this using the OpenWhisk CLI run wsk package refresh this will pull the Cloudant credentials and create you a new package with the credentials binded as default parameter for all the cloudant actions under that package. This is modified version of #1 above
Another alternative is to bind the credentials manually to a package or an action as default parameters, this makes sense when you don't want to use the super power admin credentials, and you generated a Cloudant API key for a specific database. This is option #1 above.
I would not recommend to put the credentials in source code #2
For option #3, what's insecure is to pass your credentials as part of the URL like https://username:password#user.cloudant.com, but passing the username and password in the Authorization header over https is secured.
This is because even if you are using secure transport https everything in the URI/URL is not encrypted anyone can see that value, but passing secrets in body or header is standard practice as this is transfer after secure connection is established.
Then you create actions that use the credentials as parameters in your OpenWhisk actions to build your business logic for your backend.
Then how to do you access this backend from the Browser, well OpenWhisk has a API Gateway feature in experimental that allows your to expose your actions as public APIs with CORS enable.
Only a url is expose, your credentials as default parameters are never expose.
If you want to see an example on check out Raymond Camden Blog posts where he show Ionic/Angular App accessing his Cloudant Database of Cats
https://www.raymondcamden.com/2016/12/23/going-serverless-with-openwhisk
If I wanted to create (POST) a new resource linking two independent resources, what is the most proper - with respect to HATEOAS and REST principles - way to structure the entity of the request?
Any references in RFCs, W3C documents, Fielding's thesis, etc., about the proper way for a client to request two independent resources be linked together would be most valuable. Or, if what I'm interested in is simply outside the scope of REST, HATEOAS, an explanation of why would also be great.
Hopefully my question above is clear. If not, here's a scenario and some background to ground the question.
Let's say I have two independent resources: /customer and /item, and a third resource /order intended to the two.
If I'm representing these resource to the client in a HATEOAS-like way (say with JSON-LD), a customer might (minimally) look like:
{
"#id": "http://api.example.com/customer/1"
}
and similarly an item like:
{
"#id": "http://api.example.com/item/1"
}
I'm more concerned about what scheme the entity of the POST request should have, rather than the URL I'm addressing the request to. Assuming I'm addressing the request to /order, would POSTing the following run afoul of HATEOAS and REST principles in any way?
{
"customer": {"#id": "http://api.example.com/customer/1"},
"item": {"#id": "http://api.example.com/item/1"}
}
To me, this seems intuitively OK. However, I can't find much or any discussion of the right way to link two independent resources with a POST. I discovered the LINK and UNLINK HTTP methods, but these seem inappropriate for a public API.
The client does not build URIs, so this is wrong unless these resource identifiers or at least their template came from the service. It is okay to use the id numbers instead of the URIs until you describe this in the response which contains the POST link.
An example from the hydra documentation:
{
"#context": "http://www.w3.org/ns/hydra/context.jsonld",
"#id": "http://api.example.com/doc/#comments",
"#type": "Link",
"title": "Comments",
"description": "A link to comments with an operation to create a new comment.",
"supportedOperation": [
{
"#type": "CreateResourceOperation",
"title": "Creates a new comment",
"method": "POST",
"expects": "http://api.example.com/doc/#Comment",
"returns": "http://api.example.com/doc/#Comment",
"possibleStatus": [
... Statuses that should be expected and handled properly ...
]
}
]
}
The "http://api.example.com/doc/#Comment" contains the property descriptions.
{
"#context": "http://www.w3.org/ns/hydra/context.jsonld",
"#id": "http://api.example.com/doc/#Comment",
"#type": "Class",
"title": "The name of the class",
"description": "A short description of the class.",
"supportedProperty": [
... Properties known to be supported by the class ...
{
"#type": "SupportedProperty",
"property": "#property", // The property
"required": true, // Is the property required in a request to be valid?
"readable": false, // Can the client retrieve the property's value?
"writeable": true // Can the client change the property's value?
}
]
}
A supported property can have an rdfs:range, which describes the value constraints. This is not yet (2015.10.22.) added to the hydra vocab as far as I can tell, but I don't have time to follow the project. I think you still can use the rdfs:range instead of waiting for a hydra range.
So in your case you could add an item property with a range of http://api.example.com/doc/#Item and so on. I assume you could add the links of the alternatives, something like http://api.example.com/items/, so you could generate a select input box. Be aware that this technology is not stable yet.
So you can send a simple JSON as POST body {item: {id:1}, customer: {id:1}} or something like that, which you generate based on the POST link. The RDF is for the client not for the server. The server can understand the data structure it requires, it does not need RDF. You don't need a dictionary to understand yourself...
On forhand : sorry if I misunderstood hypermedia or Restfull concepts : it's a work in progress...)
I try to figure out hypermedia and hydra (http://www.markus-lanthaler.com/hydra), and have some questions about returning information to the client before designing my api.
say I have a webshop located at www.myshop.com
a HTTP GET to the root could return (for example) a list of resources represented as link (in a json-ld document):
...
"#id": "/api",
"products" : "www.myshop.com/api/products",
"customers":"www.myshop.com/api/customers"
...
First question on hydra, how could I add actions here ? it seems the client needs to load another document before the load of application. I mean the potential actions are not in the docuemnt retrieved from www.myshop.com/api Or do I miss something?
Then going further, I've stated that products is a hydra:Link so that the client could follow that link (interact with it) with a HTTP GET and retrieve a list of products. that will be a list like this :
....
{
"#id": "/api/products/123",
"#type": "vocab:Product"
},
{
"#id": "/api/products/124",
"#type": "vocab:Product"
},
....
here the client receives a list of product (That could be a paged collection). But if the client wants to display it to the user, let's say a table with [product Id, price, name] (not all Product's properties)
Second Question : How could I do that without the client sending a request to the server for each product, but still provide the link to get the product's detailed information,(or even here having four link : one for getting the detailed information, one for Delete and one for sharing it with a friend and a last one to add it to a Basket) ?
In fact I have difficulties to figure out how hydra is coming into play by not having Links in the document itself? I think that Hal uses this approach to having links in the document itself (if I am right) and I try to find how hydra does this link...
regards
A bit late but I'll nevertheless try to answer your questions Cedric.
say I have a webshop located at www.myshop.com
a HTTP GET to the root could return (for example) a list of resources
represented as link (in a json-ld document):
... "#id": "/api",
"products" : "www.myshop.com/api/products",
"customers":"www.myshop.com/api/customers" ...
First question on hydra, how could I add actions here ? it seems the
client needs to load another document before the load of application.
I mean the potential actions are not in the docuemnt retrieved from
www.myshop.com/api Or do I miss something?
You basically have two options here: 1) embed the operations directly in the response or 2) attach the operations to the properties (products, customers) instead.
Approach 1) would look somewhat like this:
...
"#id": "/api",
"products" : {
"#id": "http://www.myshop.com/api/products",
"operation": {
"#type": "Operation",
"method": "POST",
"expects": "Product"
}
}
...
While approach 2) would attach the same operation to the products property in the referenced Hydra ApiDocumentation:
...
"#id": "...products",
"supportedOperation": {
"#type": "Operation",
"method": "POST",
"expects": "Product"
}
...
Please note that in 1) I used operation while in 2) I used supportedOperation. Also, you should use a more specific type than Operation.
Regarding your second question:
with a HTTP GET and retrieve a list of products. that will be a list like this :
....
{
"#id": "/api/products/123",
"#type": "vocab:Product"
},
{
"#id": "/api/products/124",
"#type": "vocab:Product"
},
....
here the client receives a list of product (That could be a paged
collection). But if the client wants to display it to the user, let's
say a table with [product Id, price, name] (not all Product's
properties)
Second Question: How could I do that without the client sending a
request to the server for each product, but still provide the link to
get the product's detailed information,(or even here having four link
: one for getting the detailed information, one for Delete and one for
sharing it with a friend and a last one to add it to a Basket) ?
You can add as much information (including links) as you want directly in the collection.
....
{
"#id": "/api/products/123",
"#type": "vocab:Product",
"name": "Product 123",
"price": "9.99"
},
{
"#id": "/api/products/124",
"#type": "vocab:Product",
"name": "Product 124",
"price": "19.99"
},
....
That way, a client only needs to dereference an item if the collection doesn't contain that required information.
In fact I have difficulties to figure out how hydra is coming into
play by not having Links in the document itself?
Of course you do have links in the document as well. Links are just properties whose values happen to be URLs (objects with an #id property unless you set the property's type to #id in the context to get rid of that) instead of treating them specially.
note: The Hydra part of the answers I am not so sure, the JSON-LD and REST are okay I think.
You can use #base and relative IRIs by JSON-LD, or you can define namespaces in the #context, so after that you can use relative IRIs as ns:relativeIRI. Each one is better than returning the full IRI. (It is easier to parse the results with a general JSON-LD parser on client side, instead of a simple JSON parser.)
You can define your own #vocab using the Hydra vocab, or you can add "action" definitions in the #context. If you want to "add actions" you have to use hydra:Operation sub-classes in your vocab. Something like this (but I am not a Hydra expert):
{
"#id": "vocab:ProductList",
//...
"hydra:supportedOperations": [
{
"#type": "hydra:CreateResourceOperation",
"method": "POST",
"expects": "vocab:Product"
}
//...
]
}
In general by REST, if you need the same resource with fewer properties, then you have to add a new IRI for that resource, e.g.: /myresource?fewer=1. For example in your case: /api/products/?fields="id, price, name" is okay.
By Hydra you have 2 choices if you want multiple links; you can add a new hydra:Link as a property, or you can add a new hydra:Operation as a supportedOperation with method: GET. I guess get operations are for something like search which has an user input, but if you don't want to add a new property for each link, I think you have no other option.
Actually Hydra does have link and operation support. Maybe it is not clear, but JSON-LD is an RDF format, you can define RDF triples in that. So the IRIs you used for example by "customers":"www.myshop.com/api/customers" are just resource identifiers and not links. A link should have IRI, title, method(GET), language, content-type, iana:relation, etc... so it is not possible to describe a link you can follow with just a single IRI (resource identifier). By processing a REST resource a client should never check the IRI structure to know how to display what it got from you. You have to check the other properties of the links, especially iana:relations or by Hydra maybe operation type to do that. So for example in your case www.myshop.com/api/dav8ufg723udvbquacvd723fudvg is a perfectly valid IRI for the list of the customers. We use nice IRIs only because it is easier to configure generate them on server side, and configure a router for them.
Please check the Hydra vocab before further questions. As you can see a Class can have supportedOperations and supportedProperties which are both collections. A Link is a Property sub-class which can have a single Operation. By collections I think you have to use the Collection class, in which member contains the items of the collection... Be aware that by JSON-LD there is no difference by defining a single item or multiple items with the same type. In the context you have to define only the type, and the value of the property can contain both a single item or an array of items... If you want some constraints about that I guess you have to add some OWL triples, and a validator which checks the values using them.