Hello All!
As you know we provide Development and Support/Maintenance Services for Business Intelligence & Analytics.
In this post, we would like to share with you a customer´s request that could be interesting for you in the future. They are using OBIEE 11g as a BI tool.
Let´s introduce the issue. Our customer was sending a huge amount of information via Go URL using a narrative view in his report. The narrative was working as expected but we had a limitation. Using such URL we could only send ~2000 symbols. This length was not enough to cover customer´s requirement.
Background
What is HTTP?
HTTP works as a request-response protocol between a client and server.
Two commonly used methods for a request-response between a client and server are: GET and POST.
The GET Method
Note that the query string (name/value pairs) is sent in the URL of a GET request:
/test/demo_form.asp?name1=value1&name2=value2
The POST Method
Note that the query string (name/value pairs) is sent in the HTTP message body of a POST request:
POST /test/demo_form.asp HTTP/1.1
Host: example.com
name1=value1&name2=value2
The following table compares the two HTTP methods: GET and POST.
| GET | POST | |
|---|---|---|
| Bookmarked | Can be bookmarked | Cannot be bookmarked |
| Cached | Can be cached | Not cached |
| Encoding type | application/x-www-form-urlencoded | application/x-www-form-urlencoded or multipart/form-data. Use multipart encoding for binary data |
| History | Parameters remain in browser history | Parameters are not saved in browser history |
| Restrictions on data length | Yes, when sending data, the GET method adds the data to the URL; and the length of a URL is limited (maximum URL length is 2048 characters) | No restrictions |
| Restrictions on data type | Only ASCII characters allowed | No restrictions. Binary data is also allowed |
| Security | GET is less secure compared to POST because data sent is part of the URL Never use GET when sending passwords or other sensitive information! | POST is a little safer than GET because the parameters are not stored in browser history or in web server logs |
| Visibility | Data is visible to everyone in the URL | Data is not displayed in the URL |
Business Case
The customer wanted to send a list of
customers. The narrative was defined as follow:
Prefix:
<a href = ” http://example/?Data=
Narrative:
pd@1=@15;pt@1=@11:@12:@13;lo@1=@18;la@1=@19;ac@1=@5;tm@1=@16;st@1=@1;pr@1=@6;du@1=@14;
Postfix:
” target=”_blank”><font
color=”#6FA458″> Show Detail </font>
</a>
The GET method adds the data to the URL and
the length of a URL is limited (maximum URL length is 2048
characters). This narrative generated the following URL:
http://example/?Data=pd1=Value1;pt1=Value1;lo1=Value1;la1=Value1;ac1=Value1;tm1=Value1;st1=Value1;pr1=Value1;du1=Value1;pd2=Value2;pt2=Value2;lo2=Value2;la2=Value2;ac2=Value2;tm2=Value2;st2=Value2;pr2=Value2;du2=Value2;pd3=Value3;pt3=Value3;lo3=Value3;la3=Value3;ac3=Value3;tm3=Value3;st3=Value3;pr3=Value3;du3=Value3;pd4=Value4;pt4=Value4;lo4=Value4;la4=Value4;ac4=Value4;tm4=Value4;st4=Value4;pr4=Value4;du4=Value4;pd5=Value5;pt5=Value5;lo5=Value5;la5=Value5;ac5=Value5;tm5=Value5;st5=Value5;pr5=Value5;du5=Value5;pd6=Value6;pt6=Value6;lo6=Value6;la6=Value6;ac6=Value6;tm6=Value6;st6=Value6;pr6=Value6;du6=Value6;pd7=Value7;pt7=Value7;lo7=Value7;la7=Value7;ac7=Value7;tm7=Value7;st7=Value7;pr7=Value7;du7=Value7;pd8=Value8;pt8=Value8;lo8=Value8;la8=Value8;ac8=Value8;tm8=Value8;st8=Value8;pr8=Value8;du8=Value8;pd9=Value9;pt9=Value9;lo9=Value9;la9=Value9;ac9=Value9;tm9=Value9;st9=Value9;pr9=Value9;du9=Value9;pd10=Value10;pt10=Value10;lo10=Value10;la10=Value10;ac10=Value10;tm10=Value10;st10=Value10;pr10=Value10;du10=Value10;pd11=Value11;pt11=Value11;lo11=Value11;la11=Value11;ac11=Value11;tm11=Value11;st11=Value11;pr11=Value11;du11=Value11;pd12=Value12;pt12=Value12;lo12=Value12;la12=Value12;ac12=Value12;tm12=Value12;st12=Value12;pr12=Value12;du12=Value12;pd13=Value13;pt13=Value13;lo13=Value13;la13=Value13;ac13=Value13;tm13=Value13;st13=Value13;pr13=Value13;du13=Value13;pd14=Value14;pt14=Value14;lo14=Value14;la14=Value14;ac14=Value14;tm14=Value14;st14=Value14;pr14=Value14;du14=Value14;pd15=Value15;pt15=Value15;lo15=Value15;la15=Value15;ac15=Value15;tm15=Value15;st15=Value15;pr15=Value15;du15=Value15;pd16=Value16;pt16=Value16;lo16=Value16;la16=Value16;ac16=Value16;tm16=Value16;st16=Value16;pr16=Value16;du16=Value16;pd17=Value17;pt17=Value17;lo17=Value17;la17=Value17;ac17=Value17;tm17=Value17;st17=Value17;pr17=Value17;du17=Value17;pd18=Value18;pt18=Value18;lo18=Value18;la18=Value18;ac18=Value18;tm18=Value18;st18=Value18;pr18=Value18;du18=Value18;pd19=Value19;pt19=Value19;lo19=Value19;la19=Value19;ac19=Value19;tm19=Value19;st19=Value19;pr19=Value19;du19=Valu
After our modification of the narrative
including POST method as you see below:
Prefix:
<form method=”POST” action=”http://example/”
target=”_blank”>
<input type=”hidden”
name=”Data” value=”
Narrative:
pd@1=@15;pt@1=@11:@12:@13;lo@1=@18;la@1=@19;ac@1=@5;tm@1=@16;st@1=@1;pr@1=@6;du@1=@14;
Postfix:
“>
<input type=”submit” value=”Show Detail”>
</form>
The url sent was:
All the information is being sent but
the URL does not show all the parameters.
We hope this info will be useful!