Detect device/app on Rest call - android

I have a rails project whose API's are used by two different but related apps.
One app (Parent) is made using Unity, while other one (Child) is with native (iOS & Android).
In case of error response.
Unity app requires 2xx series status code,in case of any other status code they read it as success case.
While native (iOS & Android) apps need 4xx series status code, in case of any other status code they read it as success case.
Is there any way that from request I can know that which app sent request?
or any other solution to handle this?

Is there any way that from request I can know that which app sent
request?
Yes. Several ways.
1.Use form to send which device is making the request then access this fro your rail server.
WWWForm form = new WWWForm();
//From Unity
form.AddField("App", "Unity");
Or
//From Native
form.AddField("App", "Native");
Then send:
UnityWebRequest uwr = UnityWebRequest.Post(url, form);
yield return uwr.SendWebRequest();
2.Use a custom header to send which device is making the request then access this from your rail server.
//From Unity
UnityWebRequest.SetRequestHeader("App", "Unity");
Or
//From Native
UnityWebRequest.SetRequestHeader("App", "Native");
All you need to do is access "App" on rail for both of these.
3.Use json or xml to store which device the request is coming from the access this from the server.
The API used here is for Unity but you can do similar thing on iOS and Android too for the native app with Object-C and Java API. It's still the-same thing.

request method has parameter as
request.user_agent

Related

HTTP Request from Web to Android

How can I make an HTTP request from a web application (like node js) to an android app?
The goal is to read if the response is a success, for example, from Web to Web I make an HTTP request to the IP/URL and, if it returns 200, I have success. It would work as a "ping" to check if the android app is "alive".
Note: I don't know apps architecture
Thanks!
Using web sockets ( example here: https://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/websockets/basics/ ) will help u to achieve it

Res.redirect() vs res. Json(). Server for web and mobile

I am new to web development. I had a web project with EJS templating. It redirects directly from the server. Using res.redirect() . I want to create a server for web and mobile both.
Question is... When i use res.json() it sends JSON data to client side. Can work for both.
It is possible to use res.redirect() for both. Web and mobile.
Pros and cons of res.rediret and res.json
Please explain. I appreciate your suggestions in adv. Thanks.
It is possible to use res.redirect() for both. Web and mobile.
If you mean can you use res.redirect() as an alternative to res.json() then the answer is NO. res.redirect() is not an alternative to res.json. res.redirect() only sends a code and a URL back to the client, there is no data in the response. You will still need to use res.json or res.send to get the data you need. Every time you use res.redirect() you are sending a response to the client telling them to make a brand new request to another location. You're not sending any real data. The android app will not get any content till you use res.json or res.send. Redirects just tell the client go get the data from somewhere else.
Below are example responses to an android app when the server uses res.json and res.redirect
res.redirect("/user")
//Response to Android app
302 /user
The response above means what you want is located at "/user" so the mobile app will need to make a request to
res.json(user)
//Response to Android app
{
name: "Arpit Yadav",
phone: 555-555
}
res.redirect sends status code 302 (if not specified), and location (route) to browser, after which browser redirects the request to the specified location, whereas res.json sets Content-Type: application/json and sends data to the browser.
Redirection is generally meant for browser only, but, you can use it for mobile. In that case, you have to handle the logic to re-request with updated location received from server that is not recommended.
In nutshell, both have different purpose. res.redirect to move clients to different route and res.json to actually sends the data.

mobile and web api error case in nodejs

I need to develop an API for web as well as mobile with NodeJS as backend. Since, both have common endpoints --> I was wondering how to handle error cases like for e.g. --> if there is an error and user is on web I can do res.redirect and the user will be redirected whereas if the request was from mobile then I will have to set an 'action' variable which will guide the mobile app to take the next action for e.g. ask the user to login again.
app.get('/users/musicList', function(req, res){
// check with db.
// lets say there is some error --> the API token is not valid so user needs to
// login
if (req was from web) {
res.redirect('/signin');
} else {
var result = {action : 'SIGNIN'};
res.status(200).json(result);
}
});
Is this the correct way to go ? It makes code look a bit messy. Any suggestions.
An Easy way to do this is to have two different endpoints for mobile and web. (Wait I have two more solution).But this would result in code duplication.
web: domain/route
mobile: domain/api/route
Another way is to have only api/route which uses only json. And to handle the error and routing in front end. This works if you are using front-end frameworks like angular and using AJAX requests.
Third one is to check for the client need and acting as in your question. Check this link for how to determine what client needs.
NodeJS : Validating request type (checking for JSON or HTML)

Create a middle BackEnd for a Mobile app

I am developing a mobile app on Android.
I download a lot of information from the backend via REST API.
For example for obtain the information about a contract I use the api the following request:
GET /contracts/01212314.json
It return a json with many fields
{
"conto_contrattuale": "01212314",
"intestatario": "Dennis D'Amico",
"utilizzo": "COTTURA + PROD. ACQUA 7 GG",
"codice_settore_merceologico": "E1",
"settore_merceologico": "ELETTRICITA",
"codice_societa_vendita": "Z016",
"societa_vendita": "Estra Energie S.r.l.",
"fornitura_indirizzo": "Via Palermo",
"fornitura_civico": "20",
"fornitura_precisazione": "Rosso",
"fornitura_cap": "59100",
"fornitura_comune": "Prato"
"rid": false,
"fatt_elettronica": true,
"fatt_email": "andrea.bettarini#devise.it",
"fatture_scadute": 1,
}
But I am only interested to the field : "fornitura_indirizzo"
I can't modify the backend and the API.
So I think to create a new middle backend that fetch the info from the actual backend and exposes a call only for the field "fornitura_indirizzo".
How can I do?
Is it possible on google cloud platform? and is it free?
Thank you for your consideration.
You can put a file on your server that fetches the data en then recreates a partial array and echo that in json.
Example:
$contract = Json_decode("/contracts/xxxx.json", true);
$needed_info = $contract["fornitura_indirizzo"];
Echo json_encode($needed_info);
I can't access to the server and modify. I can only send request.
I apologise if I misunderstand your goals here, but why bother with creating this new back end for your app. You could simply call the existing back end and ignore the unneeded information. Either way, that existing back end has to send all that info somewhere for every request your mobile app performs. You're also adding more latency to the request since it has to go through your back end first.
I can see this being worth it though if your goal is to minimize the data downloaded by the mobile app when it does a request.

Can I use some Python in the backend for an Android app?

Most of the backend stuff is in PHP which handle JSON request and response flow of data from Android app to backend.
I'd like to start writing Python code to handle the extra features I'm going to add in my app. How can I do that? Do I need to install Django or something like it in the backend? Our webhost does show "Python support". I'm guessing just a couple of Python classes and some helper library files would suffice.
But here's where I'm conceptually stuck:
In Android, on the app, in the user's side, suppose I send all my queries to backend with this function:
//Pseudo code on Android app
getServerResponse()
{
url = " ??? ";
jsondata = {somedata[a:b]};
response = sendData_andGetResponse(jsondata); // suppose this function sens json data and expects a server response.
showResults(response);
//Pseudo code on backend - BackendProcessing.py
def processRequest():
# some processing done here
response = "some_processed_data"
return response
My problem is, what and how do I integrate the backend Python code and the client side Android app code to communicate with each other. What should the URL be in my Android code to pass data from user to backend? How do I link them?
Do I need to specially setup some third party Python API to handle calls from the Android app at the backend? Or can I just do it with simple Python functions and classes with HTTP request and responses coming in for a particular URI?
You can include URL of the backend server in the android code. Define a variable for the URL of your backend server and use Httppost method for communication between backend and frontend.
Details here http://developer.android.com/reference/org/apache/http/client/methods/HttpPost.html
You can do it with simple Python functions and classes with HTTP request and responses coming in for a particular URI. A third party Python API is not necessary.
You can also use Python based web frameworks like Django for the backend.

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