receiving and sending multipart/form-data in mule 3.2 - http

Question

I have problem in configuring Mule 3.2 which basically receive HTTP POST (multipart/form-data) and routing the payload and then send the payload by HTTP POST (multipart/form-data). How exactly to do that kind of task in Mule ?
Below are parts of my configuration
<flow name="UserBridgeFlow" doc:name="UserBridgeFlow">
<inbound-endpoint address="http://${local.server}/${user.context}/" exchange-pattern="request-response" connector-ref="STD_HTTP_CONNECTOR" doc:name="User Endpoint"/>
<echo-component doc:name="Echo"/>
<transformer ref="RouteTransformer" doc:name="Transformer Reference"/>
<response>
<message-properties-transformer overwrite="true" doc:name="Message Properties">
<add-message-property key="Access-Control-Allow-Origin" value="*"/>
</message-properties-transformer>
</response>
<response>
<echo-component doc:name="Echo"/>
</response>
<http:outbound-endpoint exchange-pattern="request-response" address="http://${user.server}/#[header:OUTBOUND:real.path]" doc:name="HTTP User"/>
<default-exception-strategy>
<processor-chain>
<logger level="INFO" doc:name="Logger"/>
</processor-chain>
</default-exception-strategy>
</flow>
With above configuration, my binary data is always corrupted when reaching the other endpoint and also I get this error in the browser (caller endpoint) "The character encoding of the plain text document was not declared. The document will render with garbled text in some browser configurations if the document contains characters from outside the US-ASCII range. The character encoding of the file needs to be declared in the transfer protocol or file needs to use a byte order mark as an encoding signature."
-- UPDATED CONFIGURATION --
<context:property-placeholder location="classpath:/mule.properties"/>
<custom-transformer class="id.co.zire.ebs.mule.transformer.RouteTransformer" name="RouteTransformer" doc:name="RouteTransformer"/>
<http:connector name="STD_HTTP_CONNECTOR" enableCookies="true" validateConnections="true" clientSoTimeout="20000" serverSoTimeout="10000" doc:name="HTTP\HTTPS">
<dispatcher-threading-profile maxThreadsActive="50" maxBufferSize="150"/>
<reconnect count="3" frequency="2000"/>
</http:connector>
<flow name="HTTPBridgeFlow" doc:name="HTTPBridgeFlow">
<composite-source>
<inbound-endpoint exchange-pattern="request-response" address="http://${local.server}/${user.context}/" encoding="ISO-8859-1" connector-ref="STD_HTTP_CONNECTOR" doc:name="User Endpoint"/>
<inbound-endpoint exchange-pattern="request-response" address="http://${local.server}/${cms.context}/" encoding="ISO-8859-1" connector-ref="STD_HTTP_CONNECTOR" doc:name="CMS Endpoint"/>
<inbound-endpoint exchange-pattern="request-response" address="http://${local.server}/${ads.context}/" encoding="ISO-8859-1" connector-ref="STD_HTTP_CONNECTOR" doc:name="Ads Endpoint"/>
</composite-source>
<echo-component doc:name="Echo"/>
<transformer ref="RouteTransformer" doc:name="Transform Header"/>
<set-property propertyName="http.method" value="#[header:INBOUND:http.method]" doc:name="Copy HTTP method"/>
<flow-ref name="HTTPResponseFlow" doc:name="HTTP Flow Reference"/>
</flow>
<sub-flow name="HTTPResponseFlow" doc:name="HTTPResponseFlow">
<logger message="Payload Output : #[message.payload]" level="INFO" doc:name="Logger"/>
<choice doc:name="Choice">
<when expression="message.inboundProperties['http.context.path'] contains '${user.context}'">
<processor-chain>
<http:outbound-endpoint exchange-pattern="request-response" address="http://${user.server}/#[message.inboundProperties['http.relative.path']]" responseTimeout="120000" doc:name="HTTP User"/>
</processor-chain>
</when>
<when expression="message.inboundProperties['http.context.path'] contains '${cms.context}'">
<processor-chain>
<http:outbound-endpoint exchange-pattern="request-response" address="http://${cms.server}/#[message.inboundProperties['http.relative.path']]" responseTimeout="120000" doc:name="HTTP CMS"/>
</processor-chain>
</when>
<when expression="message.inboundProperties['http.context.path'] contains '${ads.context}'">
<processor-chain>
<http:outbound-endpoint exchange-pattern="request-response" address="http://${ads.server}/#[message.inboundProperties['http.relative.path']]" responseTimeout="120000" doc:name="HTTP Ads"/>
</processor-chain>
</when>
</choice>
<echo-component doc:name="Echo"/>
<message-properties-transformer doc:name="Set Cross-Domain Request Allowed">
<add-message-property key="Access-Control-Allow-Origin" value="*"/>
<add-message-property key="Access-Control-Allow-Methods" value="GET, POST, OPTIONS"/>
<add-message-property key="Access-Control-Max-Age" value="1000"/>
<add-message-property key="Access-Control-Allow-Headers" value="Content-Type"/>
</message-properties-transformer>
</sub-flow>
OK, now I have change most of the configuration, now I have problem of passing the included binary data in the HTTP POST message body. Mule seems to be altering the bytes before passing it to the outbound endpoint. I have create a custom transformer to get the payload manually and parse the binary data from the payload (payload type is String by the way) but the retrieved binary data from payload is already altered. For example below is part of the original file bytes in hexadecimal:
ff d8 ff e0 00 10 4a 46 (ÿØÿà..JF)
but Mule converts into:
3f 3f 3f 3f 00 10 4a 46 (????..JF)
I think it is encoding issue, maybe Mule converts it automatically to UTF-8
-- RouteTransformer.java --
public class RouteTransformer extends AbstractMessageTransformer{
private static final String MULE_CONFIG = "/mule.properties";
private static final String CLIENT_IP = "MULE_REMOTE_CLIENT_ADDRESS";
private static final String CLIENT_IP_HEADER = "Client-Ip";
private static final String IP_REGEX = "/?((\\d{1,3})\\.(\\d{1,3})\\.(\\d{1,3})\\.(\\d{1,3}))(:(\\d{1,5}))?";
private final String[] PASSING_HEADER;
public RouteTransformer() throws IOException{
Properties prop = new Properties();
prop.load(getClass().getResourceAsStream(MULE_CONFIG));
PASSING_HEADER = prop.getProperty("passing-header").split("\\s*,\\s*");
}
public Object transformMessage(MuleMessage message, String outputEncoding) throws TransformerException{
// Copy 'passing' header
for(int i=PASSING_HEADER.length; --i>=0; ){
String headerName = PASSING_HEADER[i];
Object val = message.getInboundProperty(headerName);
if(headerName.equals(CLIENT_IP)){
String s = (String) val;
Pattern p = Pattern.compile(IP_REGEX);
Matcher m = p.matcher(s);
if(!m.matches()) continue;
else{
headerName = CLIENT_IP_HEADER;
val = m.group(1);
}
}
if(val != null) message.setOutboundProperty(headerName, val);
}
// Routing message
String requestString = message.getInboundProperty("http.request");
String contextPath = message.getInboundProperty("http.context.path");
if(requestString != null && contextPath != null)
message.setOutboundProperty("http.real.path", requestString.substring(contextPath.length()));
return message;
}
}
-- Multipart/form-data example --
-----------------------------20037128598723
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="name"
Angga
-----------------------------20037128598723
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="adsImage"; filename="Penguins.jpg"
Content-Type: image/jpeg
ÿØÿà..JF -- and the rest of bytes --
I hope somebody can bring some solutions.
Thanks

Answer 1

In your content type you have to add charset=utf-8:
response.setContentType("application/json; charset=utf-8")
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8

Answer 2

I'm wondering if the issue you're facing is related to the lack of content type (or its default value) on the outbound HTTP interaction.
Try adding a message properties transformer (or a copy properties message processor for 3.3.x users reading this) to copy the "Content-Type" property from the inbound scope to the outbound one.
Also, for strictness' sake, configure this endpoint to use the POST method.