Thanks Kyle and Javier for their thoughts.
I was eventually able to do this using the lower level APIs of
URLRequest and URLLoader. I also had to manually create the parameter
string. Generically, the code is like this:
var parameters : String = '';
parameters += "firstParameter=firstOne&";
parameters += "amount=100&";
parameters += "otherParameters=Other Random Misc Data&";
parameters+= "lastParameter=LastOne";
var r:URLRequest = new URLRequest(yourURLHere);
r.data = parameters;
r.method = URLRequestMethod.POST;
r.contentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
var l:URLLoader = new URLLoader();
l.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, myResultMethod);
l.addEventListener(IOErrorEvent.IO_ERROR, myFailureMethod );
l.addEventListener(SecurityErrorEvent.SECURITY_ERROR, myFailureMethod );
l.load(r);
Not as easy as using HTTPService, but functional and resolves this as
possible error cause when dealing with the vendor who built this API.
Updated Stack Overflow Post:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/44924870/can-i-control-the-parameter-order-in-an-httpservice-post
My blog post on the issue:
https://www.jeffryhouser.com/index.cfm/2017/7/11/How-can-I-control-the-parameter-order-when-doing-a-HTTP-POST-call-from-Flex
Thanks again!
On 7/5/2017 1:21 PM, Javier Guerrero García wrote:
Hi Jeffrey!
My 4 cents :)
1. Maybe defining the <mx:request> inside the <mx:HTTPservice>
declaration (and just binding the contents) helps somewhat. Maybe not,
but at least it's prettier :)
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Flex/4.0/AccessingData/WS2db454920e96a9e51e63e3d11c0bf69084-7fdc.html
2. Stupid one: try method="POST" (uppercase), just in case :)
3. According to the mx.rpc.httpAbstractOperation code, if
typeof(parameters) == "object" it iterates and messes up with the
order, but if it's not, it should just copy it to "paramsToSend"
("else paramsToSend=parameters;"). BUT, on some HTTP request
implementations (for instance jQuery, not sure about flex), if you
pass a string instead of a proper object as data, it "assumes" you
want to make a GET instead of a POST. Are you 100% sure that, when you
pass "parameters" as a string, you are issuing an empty *_POST_* request?
4. Instead of Flash network monitor, just get a quick PHP somewhere
and monitor exactly what is arriving (and how) in your HTTP call (a
simple <?php var_dump($_REQUEST); ?> would do). I'm not really sure if
the sorting is done by the monitor itself, and I'm really perplexed
about ObjectUtil.getClassInfo(parameters) does sort the object
properties alphabetically (what a waste of CPU cycles!).
P.S. And please, fire/kill the intern who programmed the server side
trusting the order of the parameters.... I'm sure there is an RFC
somewhere that you can throw at his face explicitly stating that
params order should NOT be relevant when parsing an HTTP query string.
On Tue, Jul 4, 2017 at 4:55 PM, Jeffry Houser <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Hi Everyone,
I'm updating a Point of Sale system that was built with Flex and
AIR using the Cairngorm framework.
The code integrates with a custom server provided by my client's
payment processor vendor. Part of their requirement is that
parameters be form posted to their server in a specific order. The
Apache Flex framework does not appear to retain the parameter
order of the object's parameters. Has anyone run into this before?
More specifics, with code:
1) Service object set up in the Cairngorm Services.mxml:
<mx:HTTPService id="service"
showBusyCursor="false"
requestTimeout="240"
method="post"
contentType="application/x-www-form-urlencoded"
url="http://localhost.:16448/"; resultFormat="e4x"
/>
2) Create Parameter object and call service method; this is done
in a Cairngorm Delegate:
var parameters : Object = new Object();
parameters.firstParameter = "firstOne";
parameters .amount = 100;
parameters .otherParameters = "Other Random Misc Data";
parameters.lastParameter = "LastOne";
Then make the call:
var call : Object = this.service.send(parameters);
call.addResponder( this.responder );
3) Flex Framework class mx.rpc.httpAbstractOperation, starting
around line 862. This appears to loop over properties using
classinfo.properties . This seems to get an alphabetical list of
properties from my object and add them to the paramsToSend object:
else if (ctype == CONTENT_TYPE_FORM)
{
paramsToSend = {};
var val:Object;
if (typeof(parameters) == "object")
{
//get all dynamic and all concrete properties from
the parameters object
var classinfo:Object =
ObjectUtil.getClassInfo(parameters);
for each (var p:* in classinfo.properties)
{
val = parameters[p];
if (val != null)
{
if (val is Array)
paramsToSend[p] = val;
else
paramsToSend[p] = val.toString();
}
}
}
else
{
paramsToSend = parameters;
}
}
4) Looking at the raw data in the Flash Builder Network Monitor;
the final request doesn't have the parameters in alphabetical order.
otherParameters=Other%20Random%20Misc%20Data&lastParameter=LastOne&firstParameter=firstOne&amount=100
With this small sample it appears that the parameters are in
reverse alphabetical order, but with the actual request data they
are in a seemingly random--but always consistent--order.
-------
Thanks for reading this far. My first attempt at a solution was
to create the POST parameter string manually and use that as the
parameter object. However in that case the body of the POST
request was blank when reviewing it in the service monitor.
So, has anyone run into this before? What was your solution?
--
Jeffry Houser
Technical Entrepreneur
http://www.dot-com-it.com
http://www.jeffryhouser.com
203-379-0773 <tel:203-379-0773>
--
Jeffry Houser
Technical Entrepreneur
http://www.dot-com-it.com
http://www.jeffryhouser.com
203-379-0773
