Let's say I have two controller methods: Users.preInsert and Users.insert. The preInsert method is the one used to display the user entry form (GET), while the insert method is responsible for the actual insertion (POST) or calling the 'insert' service.
This is how the routes looks like:
GET /users/add controllers.Users.preInsert(...)
POST /users/add controllers.Users.insert(...)
So how do I redirect a request (POST to GET) without losing the parameters like error messages returned from the insert service and the values inputed by the client so that they can be accessed and displayed in the entry form. The parameters may involve some complex objects. I have implemented it using the Caching API but I would like to know if there are any better ways of doing it.
That's the exact purpose of the Form objects (http://www.playframework.com/documentation/2.1.1/ScalaForms).
And I think there is a an error in your routes, it could look like:
GET /users/add controllers.Users.preInsert(...)
POST /users/add controllers.Users.insert(...)
You should definitively take a look at the form sample.
You don't need to redirect it back to the preInsert action, instead at the beginning of the insert check if form has errors and it it has display your view containing form (the same which you used in preInsert). It's described in the doc mentioned by nico_ekito in section Handling binding failure
Related
I am currently programming a REST service and a website that mostly uses this REST service.
Model:
public class User {
private String realname;
private String username;
private String emailAddress;
private String password;
private Role role;
..
}
View:
One form to update
realname
email address
username
Another form to update the role
And a third form to change the password
.
Focussing on the first view, which pattern would be a good practice?
PUT /user/{userId}
imho not because the form contains only partial data (not role, not password). So it cannot send a whole user object.
PATCH /user/{userId}
may be ok. Is a good way to implement it like:
1) read current user entity
2)
if(source.getRealname() != null) // Check if field was set (partial update)
dest.setRealname(source.getRealname());
.. for all available fields
3) save dest
POST /user/{userId}/generalInformation
as summary for realname, email, username
.
Thank you!
One problem with this approach is that user cannot nullify optional fields since code is not applying the value if (input is empty and value) is null.
This might be ok for password or other required entity field but for example if you have an optional Note field then the user cannot "clean" the field.
Also, if you are using a plain FORM you cannot use PATCH method, only GET or POST.
If you are using Ajax you might be interested in JSON Merge Patch (easier) and/or JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) Patch (most complete); for an overview of the problems that one can find in partial updates and in using PATCH see also this page.
A point is that a form can only send empty or filled value, while a JSON object property can have three states: value (update), null (set null) and no-property (ignore).
An implementation I used with success is ZJSONPATCH
Focussing on the first view, which pattern would be a good practice?
My suggestion starts from a simple idea: how would you do this as web pages in HTML?
You probably start from a page that offers a view of the user, with hyperlinks like "Update profile", "Update role", "Change password". Clicking on update profile would load an html form, maybe with a bunch of default values already filled in. The operator would make changes, then submit the form, which would send a message to an endpoint that knows how to decode the message body and update the model.
The first two steps are "safe" -- the operator isn't proposing any changes. In the last step, the operator is proposing a change, so safe methods would not be appropriate.
HTML, as a hypermedia format, is limited to two methods (GET, POST), so we might see the browser do something like
GET /user/:id
GET /forms/updateGeneralInformation?:id
POST /updates/generalInformation/:id
There are lots of different spellings you can use, depending on how to prefer to organize your resources. The browser doesn't care, because it's just following links.
You have that same flexibility in your API. The first trick in the kit should always be "can I solve this with a new resource?".
Ian S Robinson observed: specialization and innovation depend on an open set. If you restrict yourself to a closed vocabulary of HTTP methods, then the open set you need to innovate needs to lie elsewhere: the RESTful approach is to use an open set of resources.
Update of a profile really does sound like an operation that should be idempotent, so you'd like to use PUT if you can. Is there anything wrong with:
GET /user/:id/generalInformation
PUT /user/:id/generalInformation
It's a write, it's idempotent, it's a complete replacement of the generalInformation resource, so the HTTP spec is happy.
Yes, changing the current representation of multiple resources with a single request is valid HTTP. In fact, this is one of the approaches described by RFC 7231
Partial content updates are possible by targeting a separately identified resource with state that overlaps a portion of the larger resource
If you don't like supporting multiple views of a resource and supporting PUT on each, you can apply the same heuristic ("add more resources") by introducing a command queue to handle changes to the underlying model.
GET /user/:id/generalInformation
PUT /changeRequests/:uuid
Up to you whether you want to represent all change requests as entries in the same collection, or having specialized collections of change requests for subsets of operations. Tomato, tomahto.
I'm currently working on ng-admin.
I'm having a problem retrieving user data from my REST API (connected to a MongoDB) and displaying it.
I have identified the problem as the following:
When I enter http://localhost:3000/users into my browser, I get a list of all users in my database.
When I enter http://localhost:3000/users?_page=1&_perPage=30&_sortDir=DESC&_sortField=id,
I get [] as a result.
I am quite new to this, I used both my browser and the POSTMAN Chrome extension to test this and get the same result.
http://localhost:3000/users_end=30&_order=DESC&_sort=id&_start=0
This (/users_end) is a different request than /users.
It should be:
http://localhost:3000/users?end=30&_order=DESC&_sort=id&_start=0
Or, by looking at the other parameters:
http://localhost:3000/users?_end=30&_order=DESC&_sort=id&_start=0
with end or _end being the first parameter (mark the ?).
Update (it is ? and before the _, I have edited.):
If adding parameters to the request returns an empty list, try adding only one at a time to narrow down the problem (there's probably an error in the usage of those parameters - are you sure you need those underscores?).
Your REST API must have a way to handle pagination, sorting, and filtering. But ng-admin cannot determine exactly how, because REST is a style and not a standard. So ng-admin makes assumptions about how your API does that by default, that's why it adds these _end and _sort query parameters.
In order to transform these parameters into those that your API understands, you'll have to add an interceptor. This is all thoroughly explained in the ng-admin documentation: http://ng-admin-book.marmelab.com/doc/API-mapping.html
I'm running into a problem with adding a query to the callback URL. I'm getting an invalid URI scheme error attempting to authorize the following string:
https://www.linkedin.com/uas/oauth2/authorization?response_type=code&client_id=75df1ocpxohk88&scope=rw_groups%20w_messages%20r_basicprofile%20r_contactinfo%20r_network&state=7a6c697d357e4921aeb1ba3793d7af5a&redirect_uri=http://marktest.clubexpress.com/basic_modules/club_admin/website/auth_callback.aspx?type=linkedin
I've read some conflicting information in forum posts here. Some say that it's possible to add query strings to callbacks, and others say that it results in error.
If I remove ?type=linkedin, I can authorize just fine and receive the token. It would make my life so much easier if I could use a query string on the callback url, as I need to do some additional processing in the callback.
In short, can I append a query string to the end of the callback url?
For fun, I tried encoding the callback url in the request (obviously this is a no-no according to their documentation):
https://www.linkedin.com/uas/oauth2/authorization?response_type=code&client_id=75df1ocpxohk88&scope=rw_groups%20w_messages%20r_basicprofile%20r_contactinfo%20r_network&state=5cabef71d89149d48df523558bd12121&redirect_uri=http%3a%2f%2fmarktest.clubexpress.com%2fbasic_modules%2fclub_admin%2fwebsite%2fauth_callback.aspx%3ftype%3dlinkedin
This also resulted in an error but was worth a shot.
The documetation here: https://developer.linkedin.com/forum/oauth-20-redirect-url-faq-invalid-redirecturi-error indicates that you CAN use query parameters. And in the first request, it appears that I'm doing it correctly. Post #25 on this page - https://developer.linkedin.com/forum/error-while-getting-access-token indicates that you have to remove the query parameters to make it work
Anyone have experience with successfully passing additional query paramaters in the callback url for the linkedin API using oAuth2.0? If so, what am I doing wrong?
I couldn't wait around for the Linkedin rep's to respond. After much experimentation, I can only surmise that the use of additional query parameters in the callback is not allowed (thanks for making my application more complicated). As it's been suggested in post #25 from the question, I've tucked away the things I need in the "state=" parameter of the request so that it's returned to my callback.
In my situation, I'm processing multiple API's from my callback and requests from multiple users, so I need to know the type and user number. As a solution, I'm attaching a random string to a prefix, so that I can extract the query parameter in my callback and process it. Each state= will therefore be unique as well as giving me a unique key to cache/get object from cache..
so state="Linkedin-5hnx5322d3-543"
so, on my callback page (for you c# folks)
_stateString=Request["state"];
_receivedUserId = _stateString.Split('-')[2];
_receivedCacheKeyPrefix = _stateString.Split('-')[0];
if(_receivedCacheKeyPrefix == "Linkedin") {
getUserDomain(_receivedUserId);
oLinkedIn.AccessTOkenGet(Request["code"],_userDomain);
if (oLinkedin.Token.Length > 0) {
_linkedinToken = oLinkedin.Token;
//now cache token using the entire _statestring and user id (removed for brevity)
}
You not allowed to do that.
Refer to the doc: https://developer.linkedin.com/docs/oauth2
Please note that:
We strongly recommend using HTTPS whenever possible
URLs must be absolute (e.g. "https://example.com/auth/callback", not "/auth/callback")
URL arguments are ignored (i.e. https://example.com/?id=1 is the same as https://example.com/)
URLs cannot include #'s (i.e. "https://example.com/auth/callback#linkedin" is invalid)
Lets say I have a form with method=POST on my page.
Now this form has some basic form elements like textbox, checkbox, etc
It has action URL as http://example.com/someAction.do?param=value
I do understand that this is actually a contradictory thing to do, but my question is will it work in practice.
So my questions are;
Since the form method is POST and I have a querystring as well in my URL (?param=value)
Will it work correctly? i.e. will I be able to retrieve param=value on my receiving page (someAction.do)
Lets say I use Java/JSP to access the values on server side. So what is the way to get the values on server side ? Is the syntax same to access value of param=value as well as for the form elements like textbox/radio button/checkbox, etc ?
1) YES, you will have access to POST and GET variables since your request will contain both. So you can use $_GET["param_name"] and $_POST["param_name"] accordingly.
2) Using JSP you can use the following code for both:
<%= request.getParameter("param_name") %>
If you're using EL (JSP Expression Language), you can also get them in the following way:
${param.param_name}
EDIT: if the param_name is present in both the request QueryString and POST data, both of them will be returned as an array of values, the first one being the QueryString.
In such scenarios, getParameter("param_name) would return the first one of them (as explained here), however both of them can be read using the getParameterValues("param_name") method in the following way:
String[] values = request.getParameterValues("param_name");
For further info, read here.
Yes. You can retrieve these parameters in your action class.
Just you have to make property of same name (param in your case) with there getters and setters.
Sample Code
private String param;
{... getters and setters ...}
when you will do this, the parameters value (passed via URL) will get saved into the getters of that particular property. and through this, you can do whatever you want with that value.
The POST method just hide the submitted form data from the user. He/she can't see what data has been sent to the server, unless a special tool is used.
The GET method allows anybody to see what data it has. You can easily see the data from the URL (ex. By seeing the key-value pairs in the query string).
In other words it is up to you to show the (maybe unimportant) data to the user by using query string in the form action. For example in a data table filter. To keep the current pagination state, you can use domain.com/path.do?page=3 as an action. And you can hide the other data within the form components, like input, textarea, etc.
Both methods can be catched in the server with the same way. For example in Java, by using request.getParameter("page").
I am a beginner and I am creating some forms to be posted into MySQL using Zend, and I am in the process of debugging but I don't really know how to debug anything using Zend. I want to submit the form and see if my custom forms are concatenating the data properly before it goes into MySQL, so I want to catch the post data to see a few things. How can I do this?
The Default route for zend framework application looks like the following
http://www.name.tld/$controller/$action/$param1/$value1/.../$paramX/$valueX
So all $_GET-Parameters simply get contenated onto the url in the above manner /param/value
Let's say you are within IndexController and indexAction() in here you call a form. Now there's possible two things happening:
You do not define a Form-Action, then you will send the form back to IndexController:indexAction()
You define a Form action via $form->setAction('/index/process') in that case you would end up at IndexController:processAction()
The way to access the Params is already defined above. Whereas $this->_getParam() equals $this->getRequest()->getParam() and $this->_getAllParams() equals $this->getRequest->getParams()
The right way yo check data of Zend Stuff is using Zend_Debug as #vascowhite has pointed out. If you want to see the final Query-String (in case you're manually building queries), then you can simply put in the insert variable into Zend_Debug::dump()
you can use $this->_getAllParams();.
For example: var_dump($this->_getAllParams()); die; will output all the parameters ZF received and halt the execution of the script. To be used in your receiving Action.
Also, $this->_getParam("param name"); will get a specific parameter from the request.
The easiest way to check variables in Zend Framework is to use Zend_Debug::dump($variable); so you can do this:-
Zend_Debug::dump($_POST);
Zend framework is built on the top of the PHP . so you can use var_dump($_POST) to check the post variables.
ZF has provided its own functions to get all the post variables.. Zend_Debug::dump($this->getRequest()->getPost())
or specifically for one variable.. you can use Zend_Debug::dump($this->getRequest()->getPost($key))
You can check post data by using zend
$request->isPost()
and for retrieving post data
$request->getPost()
For example
if ($request->isPost()) {
$postData = $request->getPost();
Zend_Debug::dump($postData );
}