GetToString() occasionally returns nothing

Archived
1

Hello! I have been using the GetToString() function to retrieve my content, but it seems that it fails one every 10 times.

Here is the code I am using

' request the content feed from the API
xfer = CreateObject("roURLTransfer")
xfer.SetCertificatesFile("common:/certs/ca-bundle.crt")
xfer.InitClientCertificates()
url = "https://myvalidurl.com/page?parameter=sample"

xfer.SetURL(url)
rsp = xfer.GetToString()

I am unsure why but rsp is equal to an empty string once every 10 times and the correct content the rest of the time.

I am 100% sure that my URL link is valid when the code fails to retrieve the content for that URL is static and never changes. On a web browser, the content is always returned with a 100% success rate.

I tried using an async version of the same code but it yielded the same results :

'request the content feed from the API
xfer = CreateObject("roURLTransfer")
xfer.SetCertificatesFile("common:/certs/ca-bundle.crt")
xfer.InitClientCertificates()
url = "https://myvalidurl.com/page?parameter=sample"
port = CreateObject("roMessagePort")
xfer.SetMessagePort(port)

print url
xfer.SetURL(url)

if xfer.AsyncGetToString()
    rsp = wait(10000, port)
    print type(rsp)
    if type(rsp) = "roUrlEvent"
        rawData = rsp.GetString()
        ProcessContent(rawData)
    end if
else
    'Should not get there
    notifyError = true
end if

What happens on that bit of code is rawData is indeed populated but with an empty string (“”) instead of the correct data. My code works 90% of the time but sometimes the content is just failed to be retrieved.

Any idea of what I should do to secure the content retrieval? I could re-run the URL request if it returns empty but it does not seem like a pretty solution.

Thank you for your help.

2

Before you use GetString() you should be checking the response code with rsp.GetResponseCode(). If it’s not 200 reissue the async transfer.

3

Hey, I made a recursive function to do that and it seems to work fine. Here is the code I used :

'*****************************************************************************************
' GetContent
'*****************************************************************************************
sub GetContent()
    ' request the content feed from the API
    xfer = CreateObject("roURLTransfer")
    xfer.SetCertificatesFile("common:/certs/ca-bundle.crt")
    xfer.InitClientCertificates()
    port = CreateObject("roMessagePort")
    xfer.SetMessagePort(port)

    xfer.SetURL("https://myvalidurl.com/page?parameter=sample")

    data = TryToGetData(xfer, port, 5)
    if data <> invalid and data <> ""
        ProcessContent(data)
    else
        m.top.error++
    end if

end sub

'*****************************************************************************************
' TryToGetData
'*****************************************************************************************
function TryToGetData(xfer, port, numberOfTries)

    if numberOfTries < 0 
        return invalid
    end if

    if xfer.AsyncGetToString()
        rsp = wait(10000, port)
        print type(rsp)
        if type(rsp) = "roUrlEvent"
            
            code = rsp.GetResponseCode()
            print "Response code is " code

            if code <> 200
                print "Re-trying to load content"
                triesRemaining = numberOfTries - 1
                return TryToGetData(xfer, port, triesRemaining)
            else
                print "Content retrieved correctly"
                return rsp.GetString()
            end if

        end if
    end if
    ' Should never get here
    return invalid
end function