Standardized way to serialize JSON to query string? - json

I'm trying to build a restful API and I'm struggling on how to serialize JSON data to a HTTP query string.
There are a number of mandatory and optional arguments that need to be passed in the request, e.g (represented as a JSON object below):
{
"-columns" : [
"name",
"column"
],
"-where" : {
"-or" : {
"customer_id" : 1,
"services" : "schedule"
}
},
"-limit" : 5,
"return" : "table"
}
I need to support a various number of different clients so I'm looking for a standardized way to convert this json object to a query string. Is there one, and how does it look?
Another alternative is to allow users to just pass along the json object in a message body, but I read that I should avoid it (HTTP GET with request body).
Any thoughts?
Edit for clarification:
Listing how some different languages encodes the given json object above:
jQuery using $.param: -columns[]=name&-columns[]=column&-where[-or][customer_id]=1&-where[-or][services]=schedule&-limit=5&return=column
PHP using http_build_query: -columns[0]=name&-columns[1]=column&-where[-or][customer_id]=1&-where[-or][services]=schedule&-limit=5&return=column
Perl using URI::query_form: -columns=name&-columns=column&-where=HASH(0x59d6eb8)&-limit=5&return=column
Perl using complex_to_query: -columns:0=name&-columns:1=column&-limit=5&-where.-or.customer_id=1&-where.-or.services=schedule&return=column
jQuery and PHP is very similar. Perl using complex_to_query is also pretty similar to them. But none look exactly the same.

URL-encode (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percent-encoding) your JSON text and put it into a single query string parameter. for example, if you want to pass {"val": 1}:
mysite.com/path?json=%7B%22val%22%3A%201%7D
Note that if your JSON gets too long then you will run into a URL length limitation problem. In which case I would use POST with a body (yes, I know, sending a POST when you want to fetch something is not "pure" and does not fit well into the REST paradigm, but neither is your domain specific JSON-based query language).

There is no single standard for JSON to query string serialization, so I made a comparison of some JSON serializers and the results are as follows:
JSON: {"_id":"5973782bdb9a930533b05cb2","isActive":true,"balance":"$1,446.35","age":32,"name":"Logan Keller","email":"logankeller#artiq.com","phone":"+1 (952) 533-2258","friends":[{"id":0,"name":"Colon Salazar"},{"id":1,"name":"French Mcneil"},{"id":2,"name":"Carol Martin"}],"favoriteFruit":"banana"}
Rison: (_id:'5973782bdb9a930533b05cb2',age:32,balance:'$1,446.35',email:'logankeller#artiq.com',favoriteFruit:banana,friends:!((id:0,name:'Colon Salazar'),(id:1,name:'French Mcneil'),(id:2,name:'Carol Martin')),isActive:!t,name:'Logan Keller',phone:'+1 (952) 533-2258')
O-Rison: _id:'5973782bdb9a930533b05cb2',age:32,balance:'$1,446.35',email:'logankeller#artiq.com',favoriteFruit:banana,friends:!((id:0,name:'Colon Salazar'),(id:1,name:'French Mcneil'),(id:2,name:'Carol Martin')),isActive:!t,name:'Logan Keller',phone:'+1 (952) 533-2258'
JSURL: ~(_id~'5973782bdb9a930533b05cb2~isActive~true~balance~'!1*2c446.35~age~32~name~'Logan*20Keller~email~'logankeller*40artiq.com~phone~'*2b1*20*28952*29*20533-2258~friends~(~(id~0~name~'Colon*20Salazar)~(id~1~name~'French*20Mcneil)~(id~2~name~'Carol*20Martin))~favoriteFruit~'banana)
QS: _id=5973782bdb9a930533b05cb2&isActive=true&balance=$1,446.35&age=32&name=Logan Keller&email=logankeller#artiq.com&phone=+1 (952) 533-2258&friends[0][id]=0&friends[0][name]=Colon Salazar&friends[1][id]=1&friends[1][name]=French Mcneil&friends[2][id]=2&friends[2][name]=Carol Martin&favoriteFruit=banana
URLON: $_id=5973782bdb9a930533b05cb2&isActive:true&balance=$1,446.35&age:32&name=Logan%20Keller&email=logankeller#artiq.com&phone=+1%20(952)%20533-2258&friends#$id:0&name=Colon%20Salazar;&$id:1&name=French%20Mcneil;&$id:2&name=Carol%20Martin;;&favoriteFruit=banana
QS-JSON: isActive=true&balance=%241%2C446.35&age=32&name=Logan+Keller&email=logankeller%40artiq.com&phone=%2B1+(952)+533-2258&friends(0).id=0&friends(0).name=Colon+Salazar&friends(1).id=1&friends(1).name=French+Mcneil&friends(2).id=2&friends(2).name=Carol+Martin&favoriteFruit=banana
The shortest among them is URL Object Notation.

How about you try this sending them as follows:
http://example.com/api/wtf?
[-columns][]=name&
[-columns][]=column&
[-where][-or][customer_id]=1&
[-where][-or][services]=schedule&
[-limit]=5&
[return]=table&
I tried with a REST Client
And on the server side (Ruby with Sinatra) I checked the params, it gives me exactly what you want. :-)

Another option might be node-querystring. It also uses a similar scheme to the ones you've so far listed.
It's available in both npm and bower, which is why I have been using it.

Works well for nested objects.
Passing complex objects as query parameters of a url.
In the example below, obj is the JSON object to pass into query parameters.
Injecting JSON object as query parameters:
value = JSON.stringify(obj);
URLSearchParams to convert a string to an object representing search params. toString to retain string type for appending to url:
queryParams = new URLSearchParams(value).toString();
Pass the query parameters using template literals:
url = `https://some-url.com?key=${queryParams}`;
Now url will contain the JSON object as query parameters under key (user-defined name)
Extracing JSON from url:
This is assuming you have access to the url (either as string or URL object)
url_obj = new URL(url); (only if url is NOT a URL object, otherwise ignore this step)
Extract all query parameters in the url:
queryParams = new URLSearchParams(url_obj.search);
Use the key to extract the specific value:
obj = JSON.parse(queryParams.get('key').slice(0, -1));
slice() is used to extract a tailing = in the query params which is not required.
Here obj will be the same object passed in the query params.
I recommend to try these steps in the web console to understand better.
You can test with JSON examples here: https://json.org/example.html

Related

Passing json string as an input to one of the parameters of a POST request body

I need to pass a json string as a value to one parameter of a POST request body. My request body looks like this:
"parameter1":"abc",
"parameter2":"def",
"parameter3": "{\"id\":\"\",\"key1\":\"test123\",\"prod1\":{\"id\":\"\",\"key3\":\"test123\",\"key4\":\"12334\",\"key5\":\"3\",\"key6\":\"234334\"},\"prod2\":{\"id\":\"\",\"key7\":\"test234\",\"key8\":1,\"key9\":true}}\"",
"parameter4":false,
"parameter5":"ghi"
}
For parameter3 I need to be pass a string value in json format. The json file is located in my local system and is a huge file, so it would make sense if I can pass it as a jmeter variable. I tried as below:
{
"parameter1":"abc",
"parameter2":"def",
"parameter3": "${jsonObj}",
"parameter4":false,
"parameter5":"ghi"
}
after adding a JSR223 preprocessor with the code below:
import org.apache.jmeter.util.JMeterUtils;
String fileContents = new File("path to json//myJson.json").getText('UTF-8');
vars.put("fileContents",fileContents);
var deltaJson = vars.get("fileContents");
var jsonObj = JSON.parse(deltaJson);
vars.put("jsonObj", JSON.stringify(jsonObj));
But I get below error:
exceptions":{"exceptionType":"System.JSONException","exceptionMessage":"Unexpected character ('$' (code 36)): expected a valid value (number, String, array, object, 'true', 'false' or 'null') at input location [1,2]"}
Can anyone help me in resolving this issue?
There is an easier way of doing this, JMeter comes with __FileToString() function so you can achieve the same much faster and without having to do any scripting
Something like:
{
"parameter1": "abc",
"parameter2": "def",
"parameter3": ${__FileToString(path to json//myJson.json,UTF-8,jsonObj)},
"parameter4": false,
"parameter5": "ghi"
}
Also be aware of the following facts:
the recommended language for using in JSR223 Test Elements is Groovy as it provides the maximum performance
you seem to be using JSON object which cannot be used outside of the browser context therefore your code fails to generate proper JSON hence your request fails as you're passing ${jsonObj} as it is, the substitution doesn't happen, you can look to jmeter.log file yourself and see the exact reason of your script failure

How to print an object as JSON to console in Angular2?

I'm using a service to load my form data into an array in my angular2 app.
The data is stored like this:
arr = []
arr.push({title:name})
When I do a console.log(arr), it is shown as Object. What I need is to see it
as [ { 'title':name } ]. How can I achieve that?
you may use below,
JSON.stringify({ data: arr}, null, 4);
this will nicely format your data with indentation.
To print out readable information. You can use console.table() which is much easier to read than JSON:
console.table(data);
This function takes one mandatory argument data, which must be an array or an object, and one additional optional parameter columns.
It logs data as a table. Each element in the array (or enumerable property if data is an object) will be a row in the table
Example:
first convert your JSON string to Object using .parse() method and then you can print it in console using console.table('parsed sring goes here').
e.g.
const data = JSON.parse(jsonString);
console.table(data);
Please try using the JSON Pipe operator in the HTML file. As the JSON info was needed only for debugging purposes, this method was suitable for me. Sample given below:
<p>{{arr | json}}</p>
You could log each element of the array separately
arr.forEach(function(e){console.log(e)});
Since your array has just one element, this is the same as logging {'title':name}
you can print any object
console.log(this.anyObject);
when you write
console.log('any object' + this.anyObject);
this will print
any object [object Object]

I can't read the _id property of a JSON object stored in MongoDB (MongoLab service)

I have a document on a mongodb on Heroku. Each object in the document has a system generated object id in the form of
"_id": {
"$oid": "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
}
When I make a query and get the response from the server, I stringify the response using JSON.stringify and I log the object on the server console. When I do this the following gets logged:
this is the response: [{"creator":"al","what[place]":"home","what[time [start]":"22:00","what[time][end]":"","what[details]":"","who[]":["joe","kay","mau"],"_id":"xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"}]
Right after the full object gets logged, I try to log the id to make sure I can access it... I want to then pass the id to a different object so that I can have a reference to the logged object.
I have this right now:
var stringyfied = JSON.stringify(res);
console.log("this is the response: " + stringyfied);
console.log("id: " + stringyfied._id);
but when the item is logged I get
id: undefined
instead of
id: "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
No matter how I try to access the _id property, I keep getting undefined even though it get printed with the console.log for the full object
I've tried:
stringyfied.id
stringyfied["_id"]
stringyfied["id"]
stringyfied._id.$oid
stringyfied.$oid
you need to use JSON.parse(), cause JSON.stringify() is to convert to string, parse is to get the object. stringifiedid is a string
What is being returned is an array with one object in it.
The way to access the _id is with stringyfied[0]._id. However, it would be cleaner to pull the object out of the array instead.
There are a few ways you can do that. If this query will only ever return one result and that's all you'll want, you can use the findOne method instead. If the query may return more than a single document, then you will want to loop through the returned results.
I also agree with #dariogriffo that you'll need to use JSON.parse() on the stringified JSON variable.

How can I define a ReST endpoint that allows json input and maps it to a JsonSlurper

I want to write an API ReST endpoint, using Spring 4.0 and Groovy, such that the #RequestBody parameter can be any generic JSON input, and it will be mapped to a Groovy JsonSlurper so that I can simply access the data via the slurper.
The benefit here being that I can send various JSON documents to my endpoint without having to define a DTO object for every format that I might send.
Currently my method looks like this (and works):
#RequestMapping(value = "/{id}", method = RequestMethod.PUT, consumes = MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON_VALUE)
ResponseEntity<String> putTest(#RequestBody ExampleDTO dto) {
def json = new groovy.json.JsonBuilder()
json(
id: dto.id,
name: dto.name
);
return new ResponseEntity(json.content, HttpStatus.OK);
}
But what I want, is to get rid of the "ExampleDTO" object, and just have any JSON that is passed in get mapped straight into a JsonSlurper, or something that I can input into a JsonSlurper, so that I can access the fields of the input object like so:
def json = new JsonSlurper().parseText(input);
String exampleName = json.name;
I initially thought I could just accept a String instead of ExampleDTO, and then slurp the String, but then I have been running into a plethora of issues in my AngularJS client, trying to send my JSON objects as strings to the API endpoint. I'm met with an annoying need to escape all of the double quotes and surround the entire JSON string with double quotes. Then I run into issues if any of my data has quotes or various special characters in it. It just doesn't seem like a clean or reliable solution.
I open to anything that will cleanly translate my AngularJS JSON objects into valid Strings, or anything I can do in the ReST method that will allow JSON input without mapping it to a specific object.
Thanks in advance!
Tonya

Getting data from JSON Array

my JSON response is as given below
JSON response is
{"code":201,"message":[["TEST Action","NA","30-11--2011"],["TEST Action 2","NA","30-11--2011"]]}.
i want to take the data correspond to 'message'.i used JSON Array.and got response as
JSON array response is
[["TEST Action","NA","30-11--2011"],["TEST Action 2","NA","30-11--2011"]].
Now how can i access each array in that?
You should expand on what you have done, what language you are using, etc. Normally, you should be able to index into the array with the standard notation. In python for example you can do something along the lines of json_data["message"][0] to access the first array and json_data["message"][1] to access the second.
something like :
var d = JSON.parse('{"code":201,"message":[["TEST Action","NA","30-11--2011"],["TEST Action 2","NA","30-11--2011"]]}')
and then you can access each array in message part as :
d.message.forEach(function(obj) { console.log(obj); });