How do I read HTTP POST XML sent to CGI?

ruby-talk
1

Hello Ruby Masters,

I am a ruby newbie and tried to use a http client to send the XML HTTP
POST request to my cgi,
I thought I can get the text I input in the HTTP POST directly from the
$stdin as a string in cgi and extract the data out. but it didn't seem
to work.

I tried to do $stdin.realines to parse every line of the $stdin but I
got nothing out of it.

Could anyone please advise ?

Thanks,
Erick

···

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

2

Post a ruby program that is 10 lines or less for which you have the same
problem.

···

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

3

Are you using the cgi library from the stdlib?
If so, it reads the params from $stdin and gives you access to them
as a hash. Take a look at this example:

[http://www.tutorialspoint.com/ruby/ruby_web_applications.htm\]

#!/usr/bin/ruby

require 'cgi'
cgi = CGI.new
h = cgi.params # => {"FirstName"=>["Zara"],"LastName"=>["Ali"]}
h['FirstName'] # => ["Zara"]
h['LastName'] # => ["Ali"]

It takes care of GET and POST parsing either the query string or the
POST body for you.

Hope this helps,

Jesus.

···

On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 10:46 PM, Ting Chang <aumart@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello Ruby Masters,

I am a ruby newbie and tried to use a http client to send the XML HTTP
POST request to my cgi,
I thought I can get the text I input in the HTTP POST directly from the
$stdin as a string in cgi and extract the data out. but it didn't seem
to work.

I tried to do $stdin.realines to parse every line of the $stdin but I
got nothing out of it.

Could anyone please advise ?

4

Thanks all, does that mean if I POST

<customer>apple</customer>
<product>ipad</product>

in the HTTP Client then I can read it in my cgi as:

#!/usr/bin/ruby

require 'cgi'
cgi = CGI.new
h = cgi.params # => {"customer"=>["apple"],"product"=>["ipad"]}
h['customer'] # => ["apple"]
h['product'] # => ["ipad"]

Thanks!

···

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

5

Use the CGI library.

    require 'cgi'
    cgi = CGI.new
    cgi['parameter_name']

Note: This is from memory. I have not tested it.

···

On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 05:46:50AM +0900, Ting Chang wrote:

Hello Ruby Masters,

I am a ruby newbie and tried to use a http client to send the XML HTTP
POST request to my cgi,
I thought I can get the text I input in the HTTP POST directly from the
$stdin as a string in cgi and extract the data out. but it didn't seem
to work.

I tried to do $stdin.realines to parse every line of the $stdin but I
got nothing out of it.

Could anyone please advise ?

--
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]

6

I am using this tool:
http://soft-net.net/SendHTTPTool.aspx
and simply post Text input with the Method and URL specified only.
And the text content I input is:.

<QUERY CMD="LOOKUP">
  <URL>www.xxxurl.com</URL>
  <OPTION>
    <PARAMETER>DATA_TYPE</PARAMETER>
    <VALUE>IMAGE</VALUE>
  </OPTION>
</QUERY>

I wish in the cgi code to extract the URL and the option values out but
by following the reference above I cannot get it work.

···

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

7

well... i only followed the instruction. trying to see if those
parameters came in

#!/usr/local/bin/ruby
require "cgi"

cgi = CGI.new

h = cgi.params
puts h['URL']
puts h['VALUE']

puts cgi['PARAMETER']

···

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

8

Sorry about misleading, I think my problem is that I cannot get any POST
data in my CGI, I tried your suggestion above and looks like the POST
data did not come through.

do you know what's possibly the reason?
or do you have any format recommend in the POST data? the only thing
that matter to me is to get the url data so my cgi script can take that
url to do the rest of the work.

Thanks!

···

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

9

Show us an example of how you're posting the data.

···

On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 06:54:36AM +0900, Ting Chang wrote:

Thanks all, does that mean if I POST

<customer>apple</customer>
<product>ipad</product>

in the HTTP Client then I can read it in my cgi as:

#!/usr/bin/ruby

require 'cgi'
cgi = CGI.new
h = cgi.params # => {"customer"=>["apple"],"product"=>["ipad"]}
h['customer'] # => ["apple"]
h['product'] # => ["ipad"]

--
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]

10

Ting Chang wrote in post #995885:

I am using this tool:
http://soft-net.net/SendHTTPTool.aspx
and simply post Text input with the Method and URL specified only.
And the text content I input is:.

<QUERY CMD="LOOKUP">
  <URL>www.xxxurl.com</URL>
  <OPTION>
    <PARAMETER>DATA_TYPE</PARAMETER>
    <VALUE>IMAGE</VALUE>
  </OPTION>
</QUERY>

I wish in the cgi code to extract the URL and the option values out but
by following the reference above I cannot get it work.

Post your ruby code.

···

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.

11

Ting Chang wrote in post #995889:

well... i only followed the instruction. trying to see if those
parameters came in

Nobody on the ruby forum has any idea what your software does with this:

<QUERY CMD="LOOKUP">
  <URL>www.xxxurl.com</URL>
  <OPTION>
    <PARAMETER>DATA_TYPE</PARAMETER>
    <VALUE>IMAGE</VALUE>
  </OPTION>
</QUERY>

Post data is sent to the server as name/value pairs. Maybe your
software interpretes that xml as an instruction to send a request to
www.xxxurl.com, with the name/value pairs of DATA_TYPE=IMAGE.

···

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.

12

Did you read this:

···

On Sat, 30 Apr 2011, Ting Chang wrote:

Sorry about misleading, I think my problem is that I cannot get any POST
data in my CGI, I tried your suggestion above and looks like the POST
data did not come through.

do you know what's possibly the reason?
or do you have any format recommend in the POST data? the only thing
that matter to me is to get the url data so my cgi script can take that
url to do the rest of the work.

--
Duke

13

Try this as a way to diagnose the issue:

    require 'cgi'
    cgi = CGI.new
    cgi.params.each_pair {|k,v| puts k + ' => ' + v }

That should tell you exactly what parameter keys and values are being
sent to your Ruby script. If you're actually viewing the output in the
browser, you might want to try adding some markup:

    require 'cgi'
    cgi = CGI.new
    puts "<ul>"
    cgi.params.each_pair {|k,v| puts "<li>#{k} => #{v}</li>" }
    puts "</ul>"

···

On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 09:21:55AM +0900, Ting Chang wrote:

Sorry about misleading, I think my problem is that I cannot get any POST
data in my CGI, I tried your suggestion above and looks like the POST
data did not come through.

do you know what's possibly the reason?
or do you have any format recommend in the POST data? the only thing
that matter to me is to get the url data so my cgi script can take that
url to do the rest of the work.

--
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]

14

Ting Chang wrote in post #995897:

Sorry about misleading, I think my problem is that I cannot get any POST
data in my CGI, I tried your suggestion above and looks like the POST
data did not come through.

do you know what's possibly the reason?

Do you have to use that request software? You can easily test whether
your server's cgi gateway is working by using a ruby script to send the
post request to your cgi script:

require 'net/http'
require 'uri'

url = URI.parse('http://www.somehost.com/some_page&#39;\)

data = {
  'url' = 'http://www.some_site.com'
}

response = Net::HTTP.post_form(url, data)

puts response.body

···

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.