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Get Http Request Body from cxf message

I am trying to write a cxf interceptor which will forward all the incoming requests from my app to another app. However for POST requests I am unable to get the body of the request.
The code I am using looks like :
String body = message.getContent(String.class);
However the body comes as null. I looked into cxf code & it looks like you have to specify the exact class (Ex : ArrayList) to get the body. My app has multiple such message classes. I wanted to know if there is a method by which I can avoid writing multiple checks for each of my POJO class & do it in a single if.

You could call message.getContent(InputStream.class) and use CXF IOUtils to read into String. Please refer javatips.net/blog/cxf-interceptor-example for more details

try:
XMLStreamReader body = message.getContent(XMLStreamReader.class);

Any simple way to test a #RequestBody method?

If I have a #Controller method whose parameter is a #RequestBody param, I usually have to write some jQuery script or something similar to perform an AJAX request with JSON object in order to call that method. If I tried calling that method via a web browser directly, it returns with a Error 415 Unsupported Media Type.
Is there any alternative to just quickly call such method using browser without having to write some jQuery code? Like perhaps a way to write the JSON object in the URL/address bar?
code:
#RequestMapping("testCall")
#ResponseBody
public List<TestObject> getTestCall (#RequestBody TestParams testParams) {
return stuff;
}
public class TestParams {
private Integer testNumber;
//getter/setter for testNumber
}
I thought maybe I could just do:
http://localhost/testCall?testNumber=1
maybe Spring would auto populate a new TestParams instance with that property set to 1 but that didnt work...
maybe I need to do something extra for that?

The whole point of a #RequestBody annotated parameters is for the Spring MVC stack to use the HTTP request body to produce an argument that will be bound to the parameter. As such, you need to provide a request body. Sending a request body is very atypical for a GET request. As such, browsers don't typically support it, at least not when simply entering an address in the address bar and submitting the request.
You'll need to use a different HTTP client, like jQuery. I typically have a small Java project in Eclipse that's setup with an Apache HTTP components client which can send HTTP requests to whatever server. It takes a few seconds/minutes to setup the correct request body and run.

I have spent the last year building a REST API, and by far the best way to exercise that API manually is using the Chrome Extension, Postman. I cannot recommend this tool enough.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/postman-rest-client/fdmmgilgnpjigdojojpjoooidkmcomcm?hl=en
To test your simple example you'll need to invoke a POST (I assume that as you have a request body, but your controller method doesn't define a HTTP Verb) using POSTMAN to your Url (like the following example):
POST /contextRoot/testCall
{
"testNumber": 1
}
If you want to test your API automatically (which I recommend), you can use the excellent Spring Mvc Test project. This allows your to call your API via a rest-like DSL and assert that the response is in the shape you want. More details can be found here:
http://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/3.2.x/spring-framework-reference/html/testing.html#spring-mvc-test-framework

you can add request params to the getTestCall method:
#RequestParam(value = "testNumber", required = false, defaultValue = "") String testNumber

There is a chrome app called Advanced REST client. You can pass the data in form of json to your controller using this chrome app. For eg. json data is
id:1,
name:"xyz"
whereas the controller can have #RequestBody Person form.
The Person class would be a POJO having id and name as instance variables. The Spring would automatically map the json data to the form.
I think this is the easiest and simplest way of checking your spring controller.
Check the extension Advanced REST client here

From what I know You can send JSON object to the webbrowser and it will be displayed without further need of AJAX.
useful tutorial:
http://www.mkyong.com/spring-mvc/spring-3-mvc-and-json-example/

Jersey web service proxy

I am trying to implement a web service that proxies another service that I want to hide from external users of the API. Basically I want to play the middle man to have ability to add functionality to the hidden api which is solr.
I have to following code:
#POST
#Path("/update/{collection}")
public Response update(#PathParam("collection") String collection,
#Context Request request) {
//extract URL params
//update URL to target internal web service
//put body from incoming request to outgoing request
//send request and relay response back to original requestor
}
I know that I need to rewrite the URL to point to the internally available service adding the parameters coming from either the URL or the body.
This is where I am confused how can I access the original request body and pass it to the internal web service without having to unmarshall the content? Request object does not seem to give me the methods to performs those actions.
I am looking for Objects I should be using with potential methods that would help me. I would also like to get some documentation if someone knows any I have not really found anything targeting similar or portable behaviour.

Per section 4.2.4 of the JSR-311 spec, all JAX-RS implementations must provide access to the request body as byte[], String, or InputStream.
You can use UriInfo to get information on the query parameters. It would look something like this:
#POST
#Path("/update/{collection}")
public Response update(#PathParam("collection") String collection, #Context UriInfo info, InputStream inputStream)
{
String fullPath = info.getAbsolutePath().toASCIIString();
System.out.println("full request path: " + fullPath);
// query params are also available from a map. query params can be repeated,
// so the Map values are actually Lists. getFirst is a convenience method
// to get the value of the first occurrence of a given query param
String foo = info.getQueryParameters().getFirst("bar");
// do the rewrite...
String newURL = SomeOtherClass.rewrite(fullPath);
// the InputStream will have the body of the request. use your favorite
// HTTP client to make the request to Solr.
String solrResponse = SomeHttpLibrary.post(newURL, inputStream);
// send the response back to the client
return Response.ok(solrResponse).build();
One other thought. It looks like you're simply rewriting the requests and passing through to Solr. There are a few others ways that you could do this.
If you happen to have a web server in front of your Java app server or Servlet container, you could potentially accomplish your task without writing any Java code. Unless the rewrite conditions were extremely complex, my personal preference would be to try doing this with Apache mod_proxy and mod_rewrite.
There are also libraries for Java available that will rewrite URLs after they hit the app server but before they reach your code. For instance, https://code.google.com/p/urlrewritefilter/. With something like that, you'd only need to write a very simple method that invoked Solr because the URL would be rewritten before it hits your REST resource. For the record, I haven't actually tried using that particular library with Jersey.

1/ for the question of the gateway taht will hide the database or index, I would rather use and endpoint that is configured with #Path({regex}) (instead of rebuilding a regexp analyser in your endpoint) .
Use this regex directly in the #path, this is a good practice.
Please take a look at another post that is close to this : #Path and regular expression (Jersey/REST)
for exemple you can have regexp like this one :
#Path("/user/{name : [a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z_0-9]}")
2/ Second point in order to process all the request from one endpoint, you will need to have a dynamic parameter. I would use a MultivaluedMap that gives you the possibility to add params to the request without modifying your endpoint :
#POST
#Path("/search")
#Consumes(MediaType.APPLICATION_FORM_URLENCODED)
#Produces({"application/json"})
public Response search( MultivaluedMap<String, String> params ) {
// perform search operations
return search( params);
}
3/ My 3rd advice is Reuse : make economy and economy make fewer bugs.
it's such a pitty to rewrite a rest api in order to perform solr search. You can hide the params and the endpoint, but could be great to keep the solr uri Rest formatting of the params in order to reuse all the search logic of solr directly in your api. This will make you perform a great economy in code even if you hide your solr instance behind you REST GATEWAY SERVER.
in this case you can imagine :
1. receive a query in search gateway endpoint
2. Transform the query to add your params, controls...
3. execute the REST query on solr (behind your gateway).

Why does getAttribute() in HttpServletRequest works for GET method but not for POST method?

I'was debugging a client-side AJAX problem that is making request to servlet. But the bug turned out to be at server side. You can refer to my original question here. From the discussion with more experienced people, I found out that servlet is using request.getAttribute() method to retrieve parameters from the request instead of getParameter(). So I thought to open a new question to clear my doubt.
Now my question is: If I use GET method to pass parameters from client to server, getAttribute() in Servlet works fine and I can get param values. But when I use POST method, getAttribute() returns null. Why does it work for GET and not for POST?

You should always use getParameter, when attribute come from GET or POST method. And use getAttribute when request is forwarded from another servlet/jsp. Such as :
ServletA:
request.setAttribute("test","value")
request.getRequestDispatcher("/ServletB").forward(request, response)
ServletB:
request.getAttribute("test") <-- you can get test attribute by using getAttribute

Now my question is: If I use GET method to pass parameters from client to server, getAttribute() in Servlet works fine and I can get param values. But when I use POST method, getAttribute() returns null. Why does it work for GET and not for POST?
Complete nonsense. You're apparently working on an existing project which has a lot of other existing servlets and filters. My cents that there's another filter in the request-response chain which maps request parameters to request attribtues for some unobvious reason.
Please create a blank playground project and create a playground servlet to familarize yourself better with servlets without all that noise in existing projects.
See also:
Our Servlets wiki page

How to utilize web service client generated from WSDL?

I'm trying to write a simple web service client to interact with my simple web service which only returns a user id that's passed in. So I created a web service client in eclipse and generated a few files for me; wsCall, wsCallBindingStub, wsCallProxy, wsCallService, wsCallServiceLocator. The stub is the conly class I found that has my web service methods in it, because my ws is simple at this stage?
So I want to invoke the call, what do I need to make the call?
I've seen all the examples online have the try-catch for a remote exception or Axis fault, then the classes are instantiated (including a response class, to deserialize?) and make the ws call via the stub class. Is that all I need to call for my case?
wsCallBindingStub stub = new wsCallBindingStub();
String retString = stub.sayHi(1); // 1: my user id
return retString;
Thank you!

Ahh I figured it out, I was getting an error because my wsdl uses the hostname and I needed to specify the ip.. as for the code needed it was pretty much identicle;
wsCall ws = new wsCallServiceLocator().getWsCallPort();
result = ws.sayHi(x);