Send action

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Send action
Introduction
The send action is one of the most important actions that Orbeon Forms can perform with form data: it sends data to an HTTP (or HTTPS) service. The following sections detail the possible configuration parameters of this action.
Configuration
Using parameters
[SINCE Orbeon Forms 4.4 except property]
The following example uses three parameters in the send action for the form my-app/my-form:
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<property as="xs:string" name="oxf.fr.detail.process.send.my-app.my-form" >
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    send(
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        uri        = "http://example.org/accept-form",
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        method     = "PUT",
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        content    = "metadata"
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    )
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</property>
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The following parameters can be used:
property: specifies an optional property prefix
uri: URL to which to send the data
method: GET, POST(default), or PUT
nonrelevant
[SINCE Orbeon Forms 2017.1]
values
keep: all values are serialized,
remove: non-relevant values are not serialised
empty: non-relevant nodes are serialized as empty values
default: remove
prune
[DEPRECATED SINCE Orbeon Forms 2017.1]
use nonrelevant instead
whether to prune non-relevant nodes (true by default)
annotate: space-separated list of levels to annotate elements (the empty string by default)
replace: all to load the resulting response in the browser, or none (default)
[SINCE Orbeon Forms 4.5]
If replace is set to all and the service issues a redirection via an HTTP status code, the redirection is propagated to the client. This also works with portlets.
SECURITY NOTE: If replace is set to all, the content of resources or redirection URLs accessible by the Orbeon Forms server are forwarded to the web browser. Care must be taken to forward only resources that users of the application are allowed to see.
content:
xml to send the XML data (default)
metadata to send form metadata, see details [SINCE Orbeon Forms 4.7]
pdf to send the PDF binary, see details [SINCE Orbeon Forms 2016.2]
tiff to send the TIFF binary, see details [SINCE Orbeon Forms 2016.2]
pdf-url to send the PDF URL, see details​
tiff-url to send the TIFF URL, see details [SINCE Orbeon Forms 2016.1]
data-format-version [SINCE Orbeon Forms 4.8]:
edge: send the data in the latest internal format
2019.1.0: send the data in the Orbeon Forms 2019.1-compatible format [SINCE Orbeon Forms 2019.1]
4.8.0: send the data in the Orbeon Forms 4.8-compatible format
4.0.0: send the data in the Orbeon Forms 4.0-compatible format (the default)
parameters: name of parameters sent to the service end point, in addition to the form content
space-separated list of standard parameters to automatically add to the URL (see below)
default: app form form-version document valid language process data-format-version
form-version added to defaults in Orbeon Forms 4.7
process added to defaults in Orbeon Forms 4.7
serialization:
[SINCE Orbeon Forms 4.7]
determine the serialization of the XML data
values
application/xml: XML serialization
none: no serialization
default
application/xml when method is set to post or put
none otherwise
prune-metadata:
[SINCE Orbeon Forms 2016.1]
this is applied when content is set to xml only
true to remove all occurrences of fr:-prefixed elements and attributes
false to leave such occurrences
default
false when data-format-version is set to edge
true otherwise
content-type:
[SINCE Orbeon Forms 2016.2]
specify the Content-Type header to set when method is set to post or put
it is usually not necessary to specify content-type explicitly
default
application/xml when content is set to xml, metadata, pdf-url or tiff-url
application/pdf when content is set to pdf
image/tiff when content is set to tiff
show-progress:
[SINCE Orbeon Forms 2017.1]
if replace is set to all, whether to continue showing the loading the indicator while the browser navigates away from the current page
typically, you'll only want to set this parameter to false if you know that URL the browser navigates to won't replace the current page, say because the page will be opened in another window, or be downloaded by the browser
default: true
target:
[SINCE Orbeon Forms 2017.1]
if replace is set to all, specifies the name of the window where to display the result from the send(), with same semantic as the HTML target attribute on <a>​
typically, if setting a target, you'll also want to add a replace = "false" attribute, so the loading indicator on the current page doesn't stay after the content in the target page has been loaded
default: none
headers:
[SINCE Orbeon Forms 2019.2]
specifies one or more custom HTTP headers to add to the HTTP request
a single header has the usual HTTP format:
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headers = "Foo: value of foo"
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multiple headers can be separated with a  newline escape sequence, as in:
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headers = "Foo: value of foo\nBar: value of bar"
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a value template may be used, with the caveat about character encodings below:
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headers = "Foo: {//my-control}"
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NOTE: HTTP headers typically do not support all Unicode characters as header values.
Using properties
The following example refers in the send action to the properties with the common prefix oxf.fr.detail.process.send.my-app.my-form. It configures the URL, the method, and the type of content using three additional sub-properties.
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<property as="xs:string" name="oxf.fr.detail.process.send.my-app.my-form" >
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    send("oxf.fr.detail.process.send.my-app.my-form")
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</property>
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<property
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    as="xs:string"
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    name="oxf.fr.detail.process.send.my-app.my-form.uri"
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    value="http://example.org/accept-form"
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    />
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<property
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    as="xs:string"
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    name="oxf.fr.detail.process.send.my-app.my-form.method"
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    value="PUT"
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    />
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<property
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    as="xs:string"
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    name="oxf.fr.detail.process.send.my-app.my-form.content"
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    value="metadata"
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    />
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The following properties can be used to configure a send action with properties:
property prefix + .uri: see uri parameter​
property prefix + .method: see method parameter​
property prefix + .nonrelevant: see prune parameter​
property prefix + .prune: see prune parameter​
property prefix + .annotate: see annotate parameter​
property prefix + .replace: see replace parameter​
property prefix + .content: see content parameter​
property prefix + .parameters: see parameters parameter​
property prefix + .serialization: see serialization parameter​
property prefix + .prune-metadata: see prune-metadata parameter​
property prefix + .content-type: see content-type parameter​
property prefix + .show-progress: see show-progress parameter​
property prefix + .target: see target parameter​
property prefix + .headers: see headers parameter​
Properties and XPath Value Templates
[SINCE Orbeon Forms 4.4]
The following properties are XPath Value Templates evaluating in the context of the root element of the form data instance:
uri
method
headers
prune
annotate
content
parameters
replace [SINCE Orbeon Forms 4.7]
Example
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<property as="xs:string" name="oxf.fr.detail.send.success.uri.my-app.my-form">
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    /fr/service/custom/orbeon/echo?action=submit&amp;foo={
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        encode-for-uri(xxf:instance("fr-form-instance")//foo)
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    }&amp;bar={
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        encode-for-uri(xxf:instance("fr-form-instance")//bar)
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    }
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</property>
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Note the use of the encode-for-uri() function which escapes the value to place after the = sign.
Precedence of parameters over properties
Parameters have a higher precedence. In this example, the uri parameter is used, even if a oxf.fr.detail.send.success.uri property is present:
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send(property = "oxf.fr.detail.send.success", uri = "http://acme.org/orbeon")
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URL format
The full URL is composed of:
the URL specified by the uri property
the following URL parameters (when present in parameters)
app: the current form's app name
form: the current form's form name
form-version: the form definition version in use [SINCE Orbeon Forms 4.5]
document: the current document id
valid: whether the data sent satisfies validation rules
language: the language of the form at the time it was submitted [SINCE Orbeon Forms 4.5]
noscript: whether the noscript mode was in use [SINCE Orbeon Forms 4.6]
NOTE: Starting with Orbeon Forms 2018.1, this always returns false.
process: unique process id for the currently running process [SINCE Orbeon Forms 4.7]
workflow-stage: the current workflow stage associated with the data, as returned by the fr:workflow-stage-value() function [SINCE Orbeon Forms 2021.1]
Example:
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http://example.org/service?
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    document=7520171020e65a1585e72574ae1fbe138c415bee&
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    process=139ceb515f918d6d17030b81255d8a3dfa0501cc&
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    valid=true&
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    app=acme&
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    form=invoice&
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    form-version=1&
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    language=en
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[SINCE Orbeon Forms 2018.2]
If a parameter name is already present on the URL, the parameter initially on the URL takes precedence.
Sending PDF and TIFF content
Controlling the format
[SINCE Orbeon Forms 2018.1]
When using PDF templates and content = "pdf" or content = "tiff", you can control the PDF processing with the following:
use-pdf-template
default: true
If at least one PDF template is available, the default is to use one of the PDF templates. But if use-pdf-template = "false", then use of any PDF template is disabled and the automatic PDF is produced.
pdf-template-name
If pdf-template-name specifies a name, such as with pdf-template-name = "archive", the list of available PDF templates is reduced to those having an exactly matching name. If no matching name is found, an error is raised.
pdf-template-lang
If pdf-template-lang specifies a language, such as with pdf-template-lang = "fr", the list of available PDF templates as reduced by pdf-template-name is used to find a PDF template with a matching language. If no matching language is found, an error is raised.
If pdf-template-lang is empty or missing:
The PDF template with the current form language is used, if there is a match.
If there is no match, the first available PDF template is used.
See also PDF templates​
Sending a PDF binary
[SINCE Orbeon Forms 2016.2]
When content = "pdf" is specified, the PDF binary is sent with a Content-Type set to application/pdf.
Sending a TIFF binary
[SINCE Orbeon Forms 2016.2]
When content = "tiff" is specified, the TIFF binary is sent with a Content-Type set to image/tiff.
Sending a PDF URL
When content = "pdf-url" is specified, the XML document sent has the following format:
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
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<url>/xforms-server/dynamic/567f14ee46c6b21640c1a5a7374d5ad8</url>
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The PDF can be retrieved by accessing that path with the proper session cookie.
A use case for this is to submit the URL to a local confirmation page. The page can then link to the URL provided, and the user can download the PDF.
NOTE: When the PDF must be sent to a remote service, it is better to send the PDF binary directly using content = "pdf" .
Sending a TIFF URL
[SINCE Orbeon Forms 2016.1]
When content = "tiff-url" is specified, the XML document sent has the following format:
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
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<url>/xforms-server/dynamic/567f14ee46c6b21640c1a5a7374d5ad8</url>
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The TIFF can be retrieved by accessing that path with the proper session cookie.
A use case for this is to submit the URL to a local confirmation page. The page can then link to the URL provided, and the user can download the TIFF file.
NOTE: When the TIFF must be sent to a remote service, it is better to send the TIFF binary directly using tiff.
Sending form metadata
[SINCE Orbeon Forms 4.7]
When content = "metadata" is specified, the XML document sent contains metadata per control. This page shows examples based on the Orbeon Forms sample forms.
NOTE: The <value> element is present only since Orbeon Forms 4.7.1.
The metadata is linked to the data with the for attribute:
The value of the for attribute can contain multiple ids separated by a space. This associates the given piece of metadata with multiple values in the form data. This typically happens where there are repeated fields in the form, so that there is no duplication of identical metadata.
Ids in the for attribute match the ids you get on the data when asking send() to annotate the data with ids using the edge format, that is with a send(annotate = "id", data-format-version = "edge").
Here is an example of send process which sends XML data to a service, followed by sending metadata:
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<property as="xs:string"  name="oxf.fr.detail.process.send.my-app.my-form">
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    require-uploads
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    then validate-all
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    then send(
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        uri      = "http://localhost:8080/orbeon/xforms-sandbox/service/echo-xml",
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        replace  = "none",
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        method   = "post",
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        content  = "xml",
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        annotate = "id"
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    )
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    then send(
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        uri      = "http://localhost:8080/orbeon/xforms-sandbox/service/echo-xml",
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        replace  = "none",
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        method   = "post",
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        content  = "metadata"
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    )
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</property>
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Annotating XML data
annotate can contain the following tokens:
error, warning, info: XML elements are annotated with information associated with the given level or levels.
id: XML elements are annotated with a unique id. [SINCE Orbeon Forms 4.7]
If the property is missing or empty, no annotation takes place. For example:
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    <property
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      as="xs:string"
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      name="oxf.fr.detail.send.success.annotate.my-app.my-form"
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      value="warning info"/>
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    <form xmlns:xxf="http://orbeon.org/oxf/xml/xforms">
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        <my-section>
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            <number xxf:info="Nice, greater than 1000!">2001</number>
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            <text xxf:warning="Should be shorter than 10 characters">This is a bit too long!</text>
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        </my-section>
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    </form>
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Debugging the send action
The send action operates on the server, so you won't see the data submitted in your browser's dev tools, in particular.
There are a few ways to debug those requests:
1.Setup the service you are calling to log requests, if it can do that.
2.Use the built-in echo service, and modify your send process to look like this:
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<property as="xs:string" name="oxf.fr.detail.process.send.my-app.my-form">
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    send(
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        uri = "/fr/service/custom/orbeon/echo",
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        method="POST",
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        content="xml",
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        replace="all"
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    )
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</property>
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This will send the payload to your browser window.
3.Enable XForms logging and the submission-details token. The payloads will be logged to orbeon.log. This will log all Orbeon Forms submissions, however.
4.Enable logging of http wire in log4j.xml with:
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<category name="org.apache.http.wire">
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    <priority value="debug"/>
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</category>
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The information will be logged to orbeon.log. This will log all HTTP requests, however, and can be very verbose.
5.Use an HTTP proxy like Charles.
The easiest ways are probably options 1 and 2 above.
See also
​Form Runner actions​
​Form Runner save action​
​PDF templates​