Handling POST requests with Android Annotations

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?

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.