Rails API and Strong PARAMS - ruby-on-rails

I am trying to create an api to create record Foo using the rails-api gem.
I initially ran the generator command to tell rails to create a controller for me and it created this:
def create
#foo = Foo.new(foo_params)
#foo.save
respond_with(#foo)
end
And this (Strong params):
def foo_params
params.require(:foo).permit(:bar)
end
This is pretty standard stuff and will work when using form_for to submit data to the create method.
In my case, I'm creating a stand-alone API web service that will only interact via external API calls.
So the issue that I'm experiencing, is I don't know how to post the :bar param via API. I tried posting a :bar param, but this leads to a 'param is missing or the value is empty: foo' error. I understand why this is happening, but I have no idea how to get around this...
Is there a better way to do this or should I provide the api param in a different way?
PS. Currently my api POST call looks like this:
http://localhost:3000/api/v1/foo.json?bar=test#mail.com

you cannot use the ?+argument at the end of the url for a POST HTTP request, it's only for a GET request.
You must use the data component of the HTTP call, that is not embedded in the URL
therefore, you cannot just make this from your browser address bar and must use curl or a great tool as Postman (free on the chrome App Store)
and in this data field, you can include the object you want to post (postman gives you a neat key value interface to do so)
let me know if you need more details on the curl function for command line calls, but I recommend that you use a nice tool as Postman, so useful if you're not used to these calls
EDIT : this is the URL to get Postman : https://www.getpostman.com

Related

Ruby on rails api post request issue

i am trying to post using postman to a rails api that i made, the actual request goes in and creates an entry, but nothing but the ID gets recorded. attached are the files for that.
You need to pass the post params and not just the id into the list.new call and make sure you're sending up the correctly namespaced values in the post request.
Step 1.
In create you need to do
#list = List.new(list_params)
Step 2.
Postman needs to be putting all the params into the list[] namespace
ie. list[title] rather than just title.

Is there any gem to send request to some service in xml format

I want to send request to some third party service in xml and also expecting response in xml. I'm searching for some gem or any idea how to do this.
Thing which is in my mind is to
make some partail _example.xml.builder
onclick from my view to some button send ajax request to controller action and use render_to_string to render that xml doc and then
Save it in some variable
and then call to that service method in same action
But it is not proper thing as I expect there should be some thing more efficient than my suggested thing
RoR doesn't natively use XML so some degree of conversion is required.
Having said that, XML generation is very simple in RoR applications. There are several ways of doing this, my favourite being constructing the required data as a Hash (which is native to Ruby) then the_hash.to_xml.
The XML conversion can also be defined in a model Class if you wish a consistent result:
class Example < ActiveRecord::Base
# ensure that only column1, column2, etc are output as XML
def to_xml(options = {})
super( options.merge( select(:column1, :column2, etc) ) )
end
end
Then in your controller:
poster = Example.find(123)
request = Net::HTTP.new('www.example.com', 80)
request.post('/path', poster.to_xml)
Hopefully the above demonstrates a simple example of posting XML data to a remote host. As you mentioned, a more complicated XML can be constructed using xml.builder
HTH and good luck.

Make Rails return response from other local URL

I want a /plan method to return a json object that's itself returned by another local (but belonging to another web app in java) URL (let's call it /plan2 for the sake of this question).
What I want is not a redirect but really to have /plan return the data as it is returned by /plan2, to which I'm appending a bunch of other keys. Since the request is local, would using Net::HTTP be overkill? What are my options, considering I'd also like to send an HTTP Accept header along.
Shooting in the dark here, but I am assuming that /plan belongs to public Rails app and the /plan2 is the url from another web app (maybe not even Rails) on the same server accessible by Rails app but not publicly available. If this is the case, then yes, you can get the response, but I would suggest rather OpenURI or Mechanize than Net::HTTP. If you put it in respond_to JSON format block then everything should be fine with Accept header also.
are you speaking of re-using functionality of another controller-method?
there is no standard way of doing this in rails. you could either put the common functionality into a module and include it this way, or use inheritance if the functionality is in another controller. if it's the same controller class, you could just call the method.
if it's a "private" url, how are you going to call it via http?!
I would suggest encapsulating whatever functionality /plan2 uses and simply re-use that in /plan1
But if you just want to get it to work...
class PlanController < ApplicationController
def plan1
plan2(extra_parameter_1: true, extra_parameter_2: 'hello')
end
def plan2(extra = {})
params.merge!(extra)
# Whatever your code was before...
end
end

Rails: Sending POST data to both local and remote server

I have a form which I'd like to save through a standard RESTful rails pattern, but I also need to insert a lead into SalesForce via post. Admittedly I'm quite a newbie on this - any suggestions on the most elegant way to do this?
Cheers...
You receive the form and then, inside your controller, you make a call to Salesforce, possibly using something like RestClient
def create
#your_object = MyObject.new(params[:my_object])
#your_object.save
SalesforceService.post( #your_object )
redirect_to home_path
end
You could also use Resque to make this call in a background worker to make your requests faster.
You can do something like the following after your model save is successful.
res = Net::HTTP.post_form(URI.parse(SALESFORCE_URL),
{'param_name1' => param_value1})
result = res.body
Or use a salesforce gem to do that update. Something like http://rubygems.org/gems/activesalesforce

Encrypting Parameters across controllers

I need to pass a parameter from one method in a controller to another.
From my understanding I have to pass the parameters as a GET exposing it in the url string.
What is the best way to encrypt the data so no one can see what is actually getting passed in the string? Also, is there a way to pass it via POST or is my original understanding correct?
I haven't used RoR, but in the web world, this problem is solved with sessions. Using sessions you can store the parameters on the server and avoid sending sensitive data with GET or POST (both are insecure).
The Ruby on Rails Security Guide looks like a great read related to this.
I suggest you abstract your code into lib/ so that you don't have to call additional methods. Instead of making a new HTTP request, just put the code in a central place and call it from there.
class MyController < ApplicationController
def index
MyLibrary::Thing.do_stuff
end
def show
MyLibrary::Thing.do_stuff
end
end
# lib/my_library/thing.rb
module MyLibrary
module Thing
def self.do_stuff
# do stuff!
end
end
end
That way you can access the same code in multiple actions, without doing extra HTTP requests.

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