What Sanitizes Data From REST/Web APIs? - vb.net

I have a REST Service built in vb.net running on IIS. I've noticed that the returned data is sanitized or escaped, e.g.:
<script>alert('testing1')</script>
is returned as:
<script>alert('testing1')</script>
Can anyone tell me what is doing the escaping, would it be .net or IIS and can it be switched on or off?

I'm pretty sure you could have a controller method like this..
Function ReturnJavascript() As Net.Http.HttpResponseMessage
Dim resp As New Net.Http.HttpResponseMessage(Net.HttpStatusCode.OK)
resp.Content = New Net.Http.StringContent("<script>alert('testing1')</script>", System.Text.Encoding.UTF8, "text/plain")
Return resp
End Function
Not sure what you are trying to accomplish. If you don't want to return as a response message, you might attempt returning as content set to text/plain.

Related

Format this GET request in VB.NET code behind?

I am trying a "GET" method to request a count of activities from the Accelo API here:
https://api.accelo.com/docs/?http#count-activities
And although i've used a very similar POST method to successfully get the access token using an authentication method, I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get the count of activities. The API says to use "GET" and past the access token as "bearer..." and I've also tried doing a post and getting the stream first, tried sending in some data and accessing the "list activities" endpoint instead...nothing is working. everything I do returns the error "400. Bad Request."
I've tried passing data in a query string format directly in the URI, and tried passing no data since its a GET function. It looks to me like I'm following the API exactly.
Dim data2 = Nothing ' Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(jsonstring)
Dim _list = GetListOfActivities(New Uri("https://example.api.accelo.com/api/v0/activities/count.xml"), data2, _AccessToken)
Dim reqa As WebRequest = WebRequest.Create(uri)
' reqa.Method = "GET"
reqa.Headers.Add("GET", "/api/v0/activities/count.xml HTTP/1.1")
reqa.Headers.Add("Authorization", "Bearer " & _AccessToken)
reqa.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"
'reqa.ContentLength = jsonDataBytes.Length
' Dim streama = reqa.GetRequestStream()
' streama.Write(jsonDataBytes, 0, jsonDataBytes.Length)
'streama.Close()
Dim responsea As WebResponse = reqa.GetResponse()
Console.WriteLine((CType(responsea, HttpWebResponse)).StatusDescription)
I must be formatting the request wrong - please help?
My problem turned out to be something stupid, and literally beyond the scope of what I posted here. I had specified a "scope" in my initial request to get the access token that was set to read-only "staff" data (I had copied-and-pasted their example online into my code, for other parameters like grant type, and I brought the scope along with it), and in this scenario here I was trying to access "activities" data and not "staff" data. I would have thought I'd get a permissions-related error, instead of "bad request" which confused me, but anyway it works now.
The above code - actually with this line:
reqa.Method = "GET"
instead of this line:
reqa.Headers.Add("GET", "/api/v0/activities/count.xml HTTP/1.1")
Works just fine since I changed my scope to read(all) in my initial web method getting the access token.

How to set http response code in Parse Server cloud function?

A parse server cloud function is defined via
Parse.Cloud.define("hello", function(request, response) {..});
on the response, I can call response.success(X) and response.error(Y), and that sets the http response code and the body of the response.
But how do I define a different code, like created (201)?
And how do I set the headers of the response?
thanks, Tim
You are allowed to return any valid JSON from response.success(). Therefore, you could create an object with fields such as code, message, and value, so you can set the code, give it a string descriptor, and pass back the value you normally would, if there is one. This seems to accomplish what you need, though you will have to keep track of those codes across your platforms. I recommend looking up standard http response codes and make sure you don't overlap with any standards.

Append URL Query Strings to request

I'm trying to send a POST request and format the query string in a specific format. Order doesn't matter aside from the first parameter, but I haven't been successful.
What I need:
localhost/someapp/api/dosomething/5335?save=false&userid=66462
What some of my attempts have spit out:
http://localhost/someapp/api/dosomething/?Id=29455&save=false&userId=797979
http://localhost/someapp/api/dosomething/?save=false&userId=797979
How I formatted the request:
request.AddQueryParameter("Id", "29455");
request.AddQueryParameter("save", "false");
request.AddQueryParameter("user", "4563533245");
If I try AddParameterfor Id it doesn't get appended on the query string (I'm thinking because it's a POST and not a GET), so that won't work. The API isn't expecting a form, it's expecting :
(string id, List<Dictionary<string,string>>)
I could use a StringBuilder, but that feels wrong. I'm not sure if UrlSegment is the best way to go either, since I would basically be hacking the query string. Is there a way to format my request in the format I need using RestSharp's API?
What I ended up using is UrlSegment and then kept the .AddQueryParameter methods, so the final code block looks like :
var url = new RestClient(localhost/someapp/api/dosomething/{id});
var request = new RestRequest(Method.POST);
request.AddParameter("Id", "5335", ParameterType.UrlSegment);
request.AddQueryParameter("save", "true");
request.AddQueryParameter("UserId", "5355234");
Which produced the URI I needed.
The easiest coding process for using RestSharp or any other API client library would be to use Postman to generate if you are unsure of how to code it. Download Postman, do a new request, enter the URL string to send to the API, click on Code, select C# (RestSharp) from the dropdown. Here is the code it generated.
var client = new RestClient("http://localhost/someapp/api/dosomething /5335?save=false&userid=66462");
var request = new RestRequest(Method.POST);
request.AddHeader("Postman-Token", "bd05aa45-f1b9-4665-a3e7-888ad16f2800");
request.AddHeader("cache-control", "no-cache");
IRestResponse response = client.Execute(request);

restsharp accept-encoding disabling compression

In a particular case I need to be able to disable compression in the requst/response.
Using Firefox RestClient I am able to post some xml to a web service and get some response xml successfully with a single header parameter "Accept-Encoding" : " "
which if I do not set this header, the response body would come back compressed with some binary data in the response body(that's why I want to disable gzip in response)
Now using the same header value in my app (using RestSharp in C#), I still get the binary data (gzip) in response.
Can someone please shed some light? Is it supported in RestSharp?
RestSharp does not support disabling compression.
If you look at the source code in Http.Sync.cs line 267 (assuming a sync request, async has the same code duplicated in Http.Async.cs line 424)
webRequest.AutomaticDecompression = DecompressionMethods.Deflate | DecompressionMethods.GZip | DecompressionMethods.None;
that is, the underlying WebRequest that Restsharp uses to make the http call has the compression options hardcoded. There is an open issue that documents this
The feature (only just) seems to have been added, but stealthily - without a note on the issue's status nor on the changelogs. Possibly as it hasn't been sufficiently tested?
Nevertheless I recently had a need for this functionality and tested it - and it works. Just set the RestClient instance's AutomaticDecompression property to false.
If you intend to keep your RestClient instance long-lived remember to do this before its first use - the setting seems to be 'locked in' after use and cannot change after. In my case I needed to make calls with and without AutomaticDecompression so i simply created two different RestClient instances.
Using RestSharp v106.11.4, I was unable to turn off automatic decompression as Bo Ngoh suggested. I set the AutomaticDecompression on the RestClient instance at the moment it gets instantiated, but still the Accept-Encoding header was added.
The way to set this & disable the decompression is through the ConfigureWebRequest method, which is exposed on the RestClient. Below snippet allowed me to turn off this feature:
var client = new RestClient();
client.ConfigureWebRequest(wr =>
{
wr.AutomaticDecompression = DecompressionMethods.None;
});
Not sure if this relevant anymore, but for maybe future references
RestRequest has IList<DecompressionMethods> AllowedDecompressionMethods, and when creating new RestRequest the list is empty. Only when calling the Execute method it fills with the default values (None, Deflate, and GZip) unless it's not empty
To update the wanted decompression method, simply use the method named AddDecompressionMethod and add the wanted decompression method - and that's that
Example:
var client = new RestClient();
var request = new RestRequest(URL, Method.GET, DataFormat.None);
request.AddDecompressionMethod(DecompressionMethods.GZip);
var response = client.Execute(request);
As of RestSharp version 107, the AddDecompressionMethod has been removed and most of the client options has been move to RestClientOptions. Posting here the solution that worked for me, in case anyone needs it.
var options = new RestClientOptions(url)
{
AutomaticDecompression = DecompressionMethods.None
};
_client = new RestClient(options);

wcf message response parameter

I've read this example http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee476510.aspx about dynamic responses in wcf.
The sample on the bottom fit my goal pretty well. This is what i did:
[OperationContract]
[WebGet(UriTemplate = "/salaries({queryString})")]
Message GetSalaryByQuery(string queryString);
and my GetSalaryByQuery-Method:
public Message GetSalaryByQuery(string querystring)
{
if (WebOperationContext.Current.IncomingRequest.Accept == "application/json")
return WebOperationContext.Current.CreateJsonResponse<Result>(Salary.GetSalaryByQueryJson(querystring));
else
return WebOperationContext.Current.CreateAtom10Response(Salary.GetSalaryByQuery(querystring));
}
It is pretty similiar to the example i found.
But its not working however. It says that there is another parameter besides the message. I googled the message-class and it seems to me that its not possible to add an parameter to a message-response.
Is there a way to pass a parameter with the request and get a response with a message object?
Is there another way to get the dynamic response?
Thanks in advance.
I got it to work. I just deleted the Metadata-Enpoint and the behavior. My Webservice provides metadata on its own and therefore doesnt need to have the mex-Metadata defined.