How to handle custom data creation in Strapi

Question

I have an external API POSTing data to my project. I want to move my project to Strapi. But ofcourse, the shape of that external POST does not match the data creation endpoint of my Strapi model. Also it's in XML so I need to parse it fist and need to mutate the incoming data to match the model better. How should one go about.

My thoughts include:

1. create middleware that checks for the incoming data and remodels it to match my model
2. create a route that points to a controller that handles the data and creates the model from code. This I have trouble in finding howto in the docs, but I guess it would be: strapi.query('myModel').create({})

I would love to hear some ideas and concepts from people familiar with Strapi.

Answer 1

So for the answer to this question.

You will have to use this concept - https://strapi.io/documentation/3.0.0-beta.x/concepts/controllers.html#core-controllers

Customizing your create controller function.

And at the beginning of the function, you will have to check the format of ctx.request.body.

If the content has an XML format, in this case, you will have to convert it in JSON.

Path — api/**/controllers/**.js

const { parseMultipartData, sanitizeEntity } = require('strapi-utils');

module.exports = {
  /**
   * Create a record.
   *
   * @return {Object}
   */

  async create(ctx) {
    // if ctx.request.body is XML
    // ctx.request.body = convertXMLtoJSON(ctx.request.body);
    // you will have to find a code that convert XML to JSON
    // and simply add id in this function

    let entity;
    if (ctx.is('multipart')) {
      const { data, files } = parseMultipartData(ctx);
      entity = await strapi.services.restaurant.create(data, { files });
    } else {
      entity = await strapi.services.restaurant.create(ctx.request.body);
    }
    return sanitizeEntity(entity, { model: strapi.models.restaurant });
  },
};