Handling POST requests with Android Annotations

Question

I am trying to consume a RESTful API using AA. My API receives email and password request parameters (not JSON!) and returns an APIKey (which I use Jackson2 to deserialize).

Ideally, I want to use a regular old Map<String, String> to send the email and password, but it appears AA requires me to use a MultiValueMap (which is a Map<K,List<V>>), or a custom class (Event, which has no source shown).

When using a MultiValueMap, an array is sent. I am not sending an array of email and passwords, I am sending a single email and password:

// LoginFragment.java            
MultiValueMap<String, String> credentials = new LinkedMultiValueMap<String, String>();
credentials.add("email", email);
credentials.add("password", password);
APIKey resp = userRest.login(credentials);


// UserRest.java
@Post("user/login")
public APIKey login(MultiValueMap credentials);

Which trips up my API, because it expects a String rather than an array of Strings.

So I'm thinking I have to create a custom Credentials object to hold my email and password, and somehow get it serialized to be sent to the server. Could someone help me out with this?

Answer 1

Have you not looked at using the built in Authentication mechanisms that Android Annotations provides? Like Basic Auth or OAuth? This might be a cleaner solution.

https://github.com/excilys/androidannotations/wiki/Authenticated-Rest-Client

I have used the Basic Auth options - https://github.com/excilys/androidannotations/wiki/Rest%20API

You just need to add a method to your interface:

void setHttpBasicAuth(String username, String password);

Then call that before making the API call. There should be a similar option for OAuth.

EDIT: You can create a Login POJO to POST to your API:

@JsonInclude(JsonInclude.Include.NON_NULL)
@Generated("org.jsonschema2pojo")
@JsonPropertyOrder({
        "name",
        "password"

})
public class Login{
    @JsonProperty("name")
    private String name;
    @JsonProperty("password")
    private String password;

}

and then in your API Interface you can do the following:

  @Post("user/login")
    public APIKey login(Login credentials);

This will then POST your data to the /user/login method. You might need to add an interceptor depending on what kind of data you wish to parse ie converters = { MappingJacksonHttpMessageConverter.class } etc.