androidruby-on-railsjsonhttp-putacts-as-votable

Acts as votable JSON put


I have a working rails app, which is a blog with comments and upvoting/downvoting. The mobile component is for users to log in/log out, view articles and upvote/downvote, not add articles or comments at this stage.

I have implemented the json login with the simple token auth gem and I can get the articles and their upvotes/downvotes which is all working but here is my problem:

How do I post the json values back? I have my json code working in Android to post or push json values but how do I build the correct string to push back? What is the correct parameters to put back?

Thanks very much.

This is from rails server log:

The html upvote which works:

Started PUT "/articles/5/like" for 137.147.172.125 at 2016-03-12 09:34:43 +0000
Cannot render console from 137.147.172.125! Allowed networks: 127.0.0.1, ::1, 127.0.0.0/127.255.255.255
Processing by ArticlesController#upvote as HTML
  Parameters: {"authenticity_token"=>"4eC8xgC+1CBb51gKO7ZRzjL1BGOF6TYTnbqQcJ3evxvpmGcguYHBNYSn9v3LJMfoo3F29frntwzgyLoeI9oaLg==", "id"=>"5"}
  User Load (0.4ms)  SELECT  "users".* FROM "users" WHERE "users"."id" = ?  ORDER BY "users"."id" ASC LIMIT 1  [["id", 1]]
  Article Load (0.1ms)  SELECT  "articles".* FROM "articles" WHERE "articles"."id" = ?  ORDER BY "articles"."created_at" DESC LIMIT 1  [["id", 5]]
   (0.3ms)  SELECT COUNT(*) FROM "votes" WHERE "votes"."votable_id" = ? AND "votes"."votable_type" = ? AND "votes"."voter_id" = ? AND "votes"."voter_type" = ? AND "votes"."vote_scope" IS NULL  [["votable_id", 5], ["votable_type", "Article"], ["voter_id", 1], ["voter_type", "User"]]
   (0.2ms)  begin transaction
  SQL (0.6ms)  INSERT INTO "votes" ("votable_id", "votable_type", "voter_id", "voter_type", "vote_flag", "vote_weight", "created_at", "updated_at") VALUES (?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?)  [["votable_id", 5], ["votable_type", "Article"], ["voter_id", 1], ["voter_type", "User"], ["vote_flag", "t"], ["vote_weight", 1], ["created_at", "2016-03-12 09:34:43.393685"], ["updated_at", "2016-03-12 09:34:43.393685"]]
   (11.4ms)  commit transaction
Redirected to https://completerubyonrailscourse-adam1st.c9users.io/articles/5
Completed 302 Found in 187ms (ActiveRecord: 13.2ms)

This is when my android code attempts to push the json data back to the rails server:

Started PUT "/articles/5/like" for 49.199.131.149 at 2016-03-12 10:20:16 +0000
Cannot render console from 49.199.131.149! Allowed networks: 127.0.0.1, ::1, 127.0.0.0/127.255.255.255
Processing by ArticlesController#upvote as JSON
  Parameters: {"votes"=>{"votable_id"=>"5", "votable_type"=>"Article", "voter_id"=>"1", "voter_type"=>"User", "vote_flag"=>"t", "vote_weight"=>"1", "created_at"=>"2016-03-12 21:20:13.679000", "updated_at"=>"2016-03-12 21:20:13.679000"}, "id"=>"5", "article"=>{}}
Can't verify CSRF token authenticity
Completed 401 Unauthorized in 2ms (ActiveRecord: 0.0ms)

So how do I get this into the json data? Parameters:{"authenticity_token"=>"4eC8xgC+1CBb51gKO7ZRzjL1BGOF6TYTnbqQcJ3evxvpmGcguYHBNYSn9v3LJMfoo3F29frntwzgyLoeI9oaLg==", "id"=>"5"}

From the articles controller:

before_action :authenticate_user!, :except => [:index, :show]
before_filter :set_article, only: [:show, :edit, :update, :destroy, :upvote, :downvote]
.
.
.    
def upvote
        @article.upvote_by current_user
        flash[:success] = "Successfully liked"
        respond_to do |format|
          format.html {redirect_to :back }
          format.json { render json: { count: @article.liked_count } }
        end
      end
      def downvote
        @article.downvote_by current_user
        flash[:success] = "Successfully disliked"
        respond_to do |format|
          format.html {redirect_to :back }
          format.json { render json: { count: @article.disliked_count } }
        end
      end

From the show.html.erb that concerns the voting:

<%= link_to like_article_path(@article), method: :put, class: 'voting' do %>
  <i class="fa fa-thumbs-up"></i>
    <%= @article.get_upvotes.size %>
<% end %>
<%= link_to dislike_article_path(@article), method: :put, class: 'voting' do %>
  <i class="fa fa-thumbs-down"></i>
    <%= @article.get_downvotes.size %>
<% end %>

Android PUT code (some values hard coded for testing):

 private class VoteTask extends UrlJsonAsyncTask {
        public VoteTask(Context context) {
            super(context);
        }

        @Override
        protected JSONObject doInBackground(String... urls) {
            HttpClient client = new DefaultHttpClient();
            HttpPut put = new HttpPut(urls[0]);
            JSONObject holder = new JSONObject();
            JSONObject voteObj = new JSONObject();
            String response = null;
            JSONObject json = new JSONObject();

            try {
                try {
                    // setup the returned values in case
                    // something goes wrong
                    json.put("success", false);
                    json.put("info", "Something went wrong. Retry!");
                    // add the user email and password to
                    // the params
                    voteObj.put("votable_id",articleId);
                    voteObj.put("votable_type", "Article");
                    voteObj.put("voter_id", "1");
                    voteObj.put("voter_type", "User");
                    voteObj.put("vote_flag", "t");
                    voteObj.put("vote_weight", "1");
                    voteObj.put("created_at", strDate);
                    voteObj.put("updated_at", strDate);
                    holder.put("votes", voteObj);
                    StringEntity se = new StringEntity(holder.toString());
                    put.setEntity(se);

                    // setup the request headers
                    put.setHeader("Accept", "application/json");
                    put.setHeader("Content-Type", "application/json");

                    response = String.valueOf(client.execute(put));
                    json = new JSONObject(response);

                } catch (IOException e) {
                    e.printStackTrace();
                    Log.e("IO", "" + e);
                }
            } catch (JSONException e) {
                e.printStackTrace();
                Log.e("JSON", "" + e);
            }

            return json;
        }

Solution

  • I went to the git of Simple token authentication https://github.com/gonzalo-bulnes/simple_token_authentication and saw this.

    Authentication Method 2: Request Headers

    You can also use request headers (which may be simpler when authenticating against an API):

    X-User-Email alice@example.com

    X-User-Token 1G8_s7P-V-4MGojaKD7a

    so I put that in my vote task in the headers before performing my vote and it worked.

    private class VoteTask extends UrlJsonAsyncTask {
            public VoteTask(Context context) {
                super(context);
            }
    
            @Override
            protected JSONObject doInBackground(String... urls) {
                DefaultHttpClient webClient = new DefaultHttpClient();
                HttpPut put = new HttpPut(urls[0]);
                JSONObject holder = new JSONObject();
                JSONObject voteObj = new JSONObject();
                String response = null;
                JSONObject json = new JSONObject();
    
                try {
                    try {
                        // setup the returned values in case
                        // something goes wrong
                        json.put("success", false);
                        json.put("info", "Something went wrong. Retry!");
    
                        //get stored values to prove the user is authorised
                        SharedPreferences sharedPreferences = PreferenceManager.getDefaultSharedPreferences(getApplicationContext());
                        String id = sharedPreferences.getString("userId", "default value");
                        String authToken = sharedPreferences.getString("AuthToken", "default value");
                        String email = sharedPreferences.getString("email", "default value");
    
                        voteObj.put("votable_id",articleId);
                        voteObj.put("votable_type", "Article");
                        voteObj.put("voter_id", id);
                        voteObj.put("voter_type", "User");
                        voteObj.put("vote_flag", voteFlag);
                        voteObj.put("vote_weight", "1");
                        holder.put("votes", voteObj);
                        holder.put("article", articleId);
                        StringEntity se = new StringEntity(holder.toString());
                        put.setEntity(se);
    
                        // setup the request headers
                        put.setHeader("Accept", "application/json");
                        put.setHeader("Content-Type", "application/json");
                        // add email and auth token to validate
                        put.setHeader("X-User-Email", email);
                        put.setHeader("X-User-Token", authToken);
    
                        //response = webClient.execute(put);
                        //json = new JSONObject(response);
                        response = String.valueOf(webClient.execute(put));
                        json = new JSONObject(response);
    
    
                    } catch (HttpResponseException e) {
                        e.printStackTrace();
                        Log.e("ClientProtocol", "" + e);
                        json.put("info", "Email and/or password are invalid. Retry!");
                    } catch (IOException e) {
                        e.printStackTrace();
                        Log.e("IO", "" + e);
                    }
                } catch (JSONException e) {
                    e.printStackTrace();
                    Log.e("JSON", "" + e);
                }
    
                return json;
            }