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:

<property as="xs:string" name="oxf.fr.detail.process.send.my-app.my-form" >
    send(
        uri        = "http://example.org/accept-form",
        method     = "PUT",
        content    = "metadata"
    )
</property>

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
- 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:
  headers = "Foo: value of foo"
- multiple headers can be separated with a newline escape sequence, as in:
  headers = "Foo: value of foo\nBar: value of bar"
- a value template may be used, with the caveat about character encodings below:
  headers = "Foo: {//my-control}"
- 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.

<property as="xs:string" name="oxf.fr.detail.process.send.my-app.my-form" >
    send("oxf.fr.detail.process.send.my-app.my-form")
</property>
<property
    as="xs:string"
    name="oxf.fr.detail.process.send.my-app.my-form.uri"
    value="http://example.org/accept-form"
    />
<property
    as="xs:string"
    name="oxf.fr.detail.process.send.my-app.my-form.method"
    value="PUT"
    />
<property
    as="xs:string"
    name="oxf.fr.detail.process.send.my-app.my-form.content"
    value="metadata"
    />

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

<property as="xs:string" name="oxf.fr.detail.send.success.uri.my-app.my-form">
    /fr/service/custom/orbeon/echo?action=submit&amp;foo={
        encode-for-uri(xxf:instance("fr-form-instance")//foo)
    }&amp;bar={
        encode-for-uri(xxf:instance("fr-form-instance")//bar)
    }
</property>

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:

send(property = "oxf.fr.detail.send.success", uri = "http://acme.org/orbeon")

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:

http://example.org/service?
    document=7520171020e65a1585e72574ae1fbe138c415bee&
    process=139ceb515f918d6d17030b81255d8a3dfa0501cc&
    valid=true&
    app=acme&
    form=invoice&
    form-version=1&
    language=en

[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.

The following parameters allow controlling hints, alerts, and required controls in the PDF:

show-hints
- defaults to the oxf.fr.detail.static-readonly-hint property, which itself defaults to false
- when true, shows hints in the PDF
show-alerts
- defaults to the oxf.fr.detail.static-readonly-alert property, which itself defaults to false
- when true, shows alerts in the PDF
show-required
- defaults to the oxf.fr.detail.static-readonly-required property, which itself defaults to false
- when true, style required controls in the PDF

The following parameters allow controlling the use of PDF templates:

use-pdf-template
- This defaults to true if there is at least one PDF template attached to the form, false otherwise.
- 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
- This contributes to selecting a specific PDF template.
- 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
- This contributes to selecting a specific PDF template.
- 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.

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:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<url>/xforms-server/dynamic/567f14ee46c6b21640c1a5a7374d5ad8</url>

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, send the PDF binary directly with 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:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<url>/xforms-server/dynamic/567f14ee46c6b21640c1a5a7374d5ad8</url>

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, send the TIFF binary directly with content = "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:

<property as="xs:string"  name="oxf.fr.detail.process.send.my-app.my-form">
    require-uploads
    then validate-all
    then send(
        uri      = "http://localhost:8080/orbeon/xforms-sandbox/service/echo-xml",
        replace  = "none",
        method   = "post",
        content  = "xml",
        annotate = "id"
    )
    then send(
        uri      = "http://localhost:8080/orbeon/xforms-sandbox/service/echo-xml",
        replace  = "none",
        method   = "post",
        content  = "metadata"
    )
</property>

Sending attachments and multiple items

[SINCE Orbeon Forms 2022.1]

You can send multiple items in a single send request. In this case, the items are sent using a multipart request (with a Content-Type: multipart/related header). This allows the recipient of the request to access all the items without performing multiple requests.

In order to generate a multipart request, you pass the content parameter one or more of the following tokens:

xml: form data in XML format
metadata: form metadata in XML format
attachments: all attachments associated with the form data (but not those associated with the form definition)
pdf: PDF binary
tiff: TIFF binary
excel-with-named-ranges: Excel export
xml-form-structure-and-data: XML form structure and data export (not yet documented)

For example, to send form data with its attachments:

<property as="xs:string" name="oxf.fr.detail.process.send.my-app.my-form" >
    send(
        uri     = "http://example.org/accept-form",
        method  = "POST",
        content = "xml attachments"
    )
</property>

To send form data, attachments, and the PDF file:

<property as="xs:string" name="oxf.fr.detail.process.send.my-app.my-form" >
    send(
        uri     = "http://example.org/accept-form",
        method  = "POST",
        content = "xml attachments pdf"
    )
</property>

The recipient will need the ability to decode a multipart request. This is usually done with a utility library. For example Apache Commons FileUpload.

When sending XML data and attachments in the same request, paths to attachments in the XML data are replaced with cid: URIs. Each attachment part is given a Content-ID header with the corresponding id.

The Content-Type header sent by Orbeon Forms looks like this (the boundary parameter will change for each request):

Content-Type: multipart/related; boundary=CHZ6Pogx-A1VVuDgU22pcJASumg8S0CrOZhooqlw

The content body looks like this:

--CHZ6Pogx-A1VVuDgU22pcJASumg8S0CrOZhooqlw
Content-Disposition: form-data
Content-Type: application/xml; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<form xmlns:fr="http://orbeon.org/oxf/xml/form-runner" fr:data-format-version="4.0.0">
    <my-main-section>
        <first-name>Bob</first-name>
        <pet-picture filename="cat.jpg" mediatype="image/jpeg" size="56803">cid:94b0e57e87fa8f42cb494fdc2808f58c5b31be41</pet-picture>
    </my-main-section>
</form>
--CHZ6Pogx-A1VVuDgU22pcJASumg8S0CrOZhooqlw
Content-ID: <94b0e57e87fa8f42cb494fdc2808f58c5b31be41>
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename*=UTF-8''cat.jpg
Content-Type: image/jpeg
Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary

...binary image content here...
--CHZ6Pogx-A1VVuDgU22pcJASumg8S0CrOZhooqlw
Content-ID: <7a361b305064d3a95511da35a8c53edbabe3af8b>
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename*=UTF-8''My%20demo%20multipart%20form%20-%20ce85cc4b7be9975d.pdf
Content-Type: application/pdf
Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary

...binary PDF content here...

--CHZ6Pogx-A1VVuDgU22pcJASumg8S0CrOZhooqlw--

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:

<property
  as="xs:string"
  name="oxf.fr.detail.send.success.annotate.my-app.my-form"
  value="warning info"/>

<form xmlns:xxf="http://orbeon.org/oxf/xml/xforms">
    <my-section>
        <number xxf:info="Nice, greater than 1000!">2001</number>
        <text xxf:warning="Should be shorter than 10 characters">This is a bit too long!</text>
    </my-section>
</form>

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:

Setup the service you are calling to log requests, if it can do that.

Use the built-in echo service, and modify your send process to look like this:

<property as="xs:string" name="oxf.fr.detail.process.send.my-app.my-form">
    send(
        uri = "/fr/service/custom/orbeon/echo",
        method="POST",
        content="xml",
        replace="all"
    )
</property>

This will send the payload to your browser window.

Enable XForms logging and the submission-details token. The payloads will be logged to orbeon.log. This will log all Orbeon Forms submissions, however.
Enable logging of http wire in log4j.xml with:
```
<category name="org.apache.http.wire">
    <priority value="debug"/>
</category>
```
The information will be logged to orbeon.log. This will log all HTTP requests, however, and can be very verbose.
Use an HTTP proxy like Charles.

The easiest ways are probably options 1 and 2 above.