XRequest

Metamug XRequest

XRequest allows the developer to make an HTTP request to external (3^rd party) APIs. The <XRequest> tag can be placed anywhere inside the <Request> tag.

<Request method="GET">
    <Sql id="allMovies" when="$q eq 1">
        SELECT * FROM movie
    </Sql>
    <XRequest id="testReq1" when="$q eq 2" url="http://localhost:7000/testx/v1.1/movies"
                      method="GET" output="true">
        <Header name="Accept" value="application/json" />                
    </XRequest>
</Request>

Attributes

id Used for uniquely identifying the XRequest
url Represents the url endpoint to which the HTTP request is to be made
method The HTTP method (GET/POST/PUT/DELETE)
output Boolean determining whether the response is to be returned (true/false/headers)
classname Name of post processable class

By default output is set to false. This is to protect the output being printed in the response.

Header and Param tags

<Header> tags represent the headers to be sent in the request. <Param> tags are used for sending query params in the request. Both of these tags are to be used inside the <XRequest> tag and have only two attributes

name Represents name of the Header/Param

value Represents its value

<XRequest id="testReq2" url="http://localhost:7000/testx/v1.1/movies"
                method="POST" output="true" >
    <Header name="Content-Type" value="application/x-www-urlencoded"/>
    <Param name="movie" value="The Godfather" />
    <Param name="rating" value="4" />
</XRequest>

When making post request with params, it is necessary to use Header Content-Type: application/x-www-urlencoded.

Body tag

<Body> can also be used inside <XRequest> representing the exact request body to be sent. This is helpful when making requests with json body.

Example POST request with JSON

<XRequest id="testReq2" url="http://localhost:7000/testx/v1.1/movies"
                method="POST" output="true" >
    <Header name="Content-Type" value="application/json"/>
    <Body>
        {  
            "p": "The Godfather",
            "q": "4"   
        }
    </Body>
</XRequest>

Example PUT Request with JSON body

<XRequest when="$q eq 5" id="testReq4" url="http://localhost:7000/testx/v1.1/movies/20"
                 method="PUT" output="true" >  
    <Header name="Content-Type" value="application/json"/>
    <Body>
        {  
            "rating": "3"   
        }
    </Body>            
</XRequest>

Example DELETE Request

<XRequest id="testReq3" url="http://localhost:7000/testx/v1.1/movies/3"
                 method="DELETE" output="true" >               
</XRequest>

Note The HTTP methods used for <Request> and <XRequest> are independent of each other.

Request Parameters in XRequest

Request parameters can be accessed inside XRequest by using the $ symbol. The following example shows the parameters title and body being used inside the XRequest body.

<Request method="POST">
    <XRequest id="ExampleRequest" url="https://fcm.googleapis.com/fcm/send"
                  method="POST" output="true">
        <Header name="Content-Type" value="application/json"/>
        <Body>
            {
                "notification": {
                    "title": "$title",
                    "body": "$body"
                }
            }
        </Body>
    </XRequest>
</Request>

XRequest Output

Let's make XRequest to https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/todos/1

<Request method="GET">
    <Desc> Example XRequest persist </Desc>
    <XRequest id="testXReq" url="https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/todos/1"
                  method="GET" output="true">
    </XRequest>
</Request>

The output of the above Request looks as follows

{
    "testXReq": {
        "id": 1,
        "completed": false,
        "title": "delectus aut autem",
        "userId": 1
    }
}

statusCode holds the HTTP status code received from the API and body consists of the actual payload.

Response Headers in Output

The response headers can be obtained by setting output attribute as headers.

<Request method="GET">
    <XRequest id="testXReq" url="https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/todos/1"
            method="GET" output="headers">
    </XRequest>
</Request>

This will return the response headers along with the response body as shown

{
    "testXReq": {
        "headers": {
            "Transfer-Encoding": "chunked",
            "Server": "cloudflare",    
            "Date": "Mon, 11 Nov 2019 21:05:56 GMT",
            "Cache-Control": "private, max-age=14400",
            "Etag": "W/\"53-hfEnumeNh6YirfjyjaujcOPPT+s\"",
            "Access-Control-Allow-Credentials": "true",
            "Expires": "-1",
            "Age": "2745",
            "Content-Type": "application/json; charset=utf-8",
            "X-Powered-By": "Express"
        },
        "body": {
            "id": 1,
            "completed": false,
            "title": "delectus aut autem",
            "userId": 1
        },
        "statusCode": 200
    }
}

Response processing

The response returned by XRequest can be given to a post processable class using the classname attribute.

<XRequest id="testReq" url="http://localhost:7000/testx/v1.1/movies"
    method="GET" classname="com.metamug.plugin.ResponseExample" output="true">

The post processable class should implement the ResponseProcessable interface.

public class ResponseExample implements ResponseProcessable {

    @Override
    public Response process(Response response) throws Exception {
        JSONObject responseBody = (JSONObject)response.getPayload();
        // process response here

        return response;
    }    
}

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