HTTP Client

Description

The HTTP client step performs a simple call to a base URL with options appended as shown below:

http://<URL>?param1=value1&param2=value2&..

The result is stored in a String field with the specified name.

Options

The following table describes the options available for the HTTP client step:

Option

Description

Step name

Name of the step; this name has to be unique in a single transformation

URL

The base URL string

Accept URL from field?

Enable this option if you want to get the URL from a previous step.
Enabling this will also allow you to specify the name of the input field.

URL field name

The name of the incoming field that contains the URL

Connection timeout

 

Socket timeout

The number of seconds to wait if no data is returned from the server.

Connection close wait time

 

Result fieldname

The name of the field to store results

HTTP status code field name

The name of the field to store the HTTP response code (e.g. 200, 404)

Response time (milliseconds) field name

The name of the field to store the response time

Http Login

The username to be passed during HTTP (Basic) authentication

HTTP Password

The password to be passed during HTTP (Basic) authentication

Proxy Host

The hostname of the Proxy Server to be used

Proxy Port

The port number of the Proxy Server to be used

Parameters

Area where you define the parameter name-value pairs to pass on the URL

Custom HTTP Headers

Area where you define optional HTTP headers

Note: The data of the input fields can be escaped by the Calculator step and the function "Mask XML content from string A" or "Escape HTML content"

FAQ

The HTTP client step doesn't do anything

Q: The HTTP client step doesn't do anything, how do I make it work?

A: The HTTP client step needs to be triggered. Use a Row generator step generating e.g. 1 empty row and link that with a hop to the HTTP client step.

The HTTP client step and SOAP

Q: Does the HTTP client support SOAP?

A: No, it just calls an URL with arguments. Future steps may provide SOAP functionality, Work is underway on a WebService step supporting WSDL. The first experimental version appeared in PDI v2.5.0

Example

samples/transformations/HTTP Client - simple retrieval example.ktr