Forms: 3rd-Party Xml Post Plugin

Converts external submission from Forms: 3rdparty Integration plugin to an XML or JSON post; optionally can add custom headers (to allow SOAP submissions) or transform/combine separate fields into nested values.

This plugin can turn the 3rdparty mappings into XML elements, so that each form post will be the value (or attribute) of an XML element.

1. Unzip, upload plugin folder to your plugins directory (/wp-content/plugins/)
2. Make sure Contact Form 7 or Gravity Forms is installed
3. Make sure Forms: 3rdparty Integration is installed
4. Activate plugin
5. Go to new admin subpage “3rdparty Services” under the CF7 “Contact” menu or Gravity Forms “Forms” menu and configure services + field mapping.
6. Configure the new “Xml Post” section to choose which services send as xml and/or determine special headers (given as a url querystring).
7. Nest fields by separating nodes with /, and indicate attributes with @. Numeric indexes by themselves will result in repetition of the parent element (ex. item/%i/sub could make <item><sub /></item><item><sub /></item>).

Installation Instructions

1. Unzip, upload plugin folder to your plugins directory (/wp-content/plugins/)
2. Make sure Contact Form 7 or Gravity Forms is installed
3. Make sure Forms: 3rdparty Integration is installed
4. Activate plugin
5. Go to new admin subpage “3rdparty Services” under the CF7 “Contact” menu or Gravity Forms “Forms” menu and configure services + field mapping.
6. Configure the new “Xml Post” section to choose which services send as xml and/or determine special headers (given as a url querystring).
7. Nest fields by separating nodes with /, and indicate attributes with @. Numeric indexes by themselves will result in repetition of the parent element (ex. item/%i/sub could make <item><sub /></item><item><sub /></item>).

I need help

Submit an issue to the GitHub issue tracker in addition to / instead of the WP Support Forums.

How do I add / configure a service?

See “base plugin” Forms: 3rdparty Integration.

How do I set headers

Provide the list of headers as though they were a URL querystring, so that

Content-Type: something
X-Special-Header: something-else

would be given as

Content-Type=something&X-Special-Header=something-else

You may also use shortcodes such as base64 in the header.

How do I nest elements?

Separate element names within the same 3rdparty field mapping using /, so that in order to make:

<credentials type="123"> <user>xyz</user> <pass>abc</pass> </credentials> 

you would use credentials/@type, credentials/user and credentials/pass, respectively.

Note: You may nest and wrap elements even if not transforming into XML; they will be submitted as multi-dimensional arrays like:

credentials[@type]=123&credentials[user]=xyz&credentials[pass]=abc 

How do I repeat elements?

As of v1.3, if there is a standalone numerical index it will cause repetition of the “parent” element.

ex) If the post is:

item => array ( 0 => value1, 1 => value2, 2 => value3 ) 

it will result in

<item>value1</item> <item>value2</item> <item>value3</item> 

You can accomplish this with the Forms-3rdparty separator [%] to place your index appropriately.

How do I set xml prolog attributes?

Just enter the entire root xml in the field, a la http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5992268/simplexml-how-to-correctly-set-encoding-and-xmins

How do I autoclose/not autoclose empty values?

To produce <SomeTag />, make sure the “Autoclose” option is enabled.
To produce <SomeTag></SomeTag>, make sure the “Autoclose” option is unchecked.

How do I completely customize the xml/wrappers/transform?

Use the ‘Mask’ format, which allows you to specify the result exactly as you want via string replacement (sprintf), or the ‘Replace’/’Advanced Replace’ format which will replace string tokens ({{3rdparty}}). Useful for complex XML.

• The ‘Root Element’ field will now be treated as a string-replacement mask (a la sprintf for “Mask” or str_replace for “Replace”), so make sure to include the post body with the appropriate placeholder(s) (%s for “Mask”, {{3rdparty_Fields}} for “Replace”).
• For ‘Mask’ format, each ‘3rd-Party Field’ will also be treated the same, using %s to indicate where the submission value should go.
• For ‘Replace’ format, repeating fields are not handled — it essentially looks for instances of each “3rd-Party Field” column and replaces it with the corresponding input value.
• For ‘Advanced Replace’ format, it works the same except that repeating fields are handled in one of two ways:
  • Providing the shortcode [xpost-loop on="repeatingFieldKey" times="a number"]loop content[/xpost-loop] will repeat the loop content either times or for each key in the array repeatingFieldKey (which is your 3rdparty mapped field)
  • otherwise it will suffix each repeating field key with its index and look for that as a placeholder (e.g. myfield1, myfield2, etc)

How do I use the Advanced Replace format?

For the given mapping:

Source 3rdparty ------ -------- input_1 name input_2 phone input_3.1 files\%i\name input_3.2 files\%i\name input_3.3 files\%i\name input_4.1 files\%i\content input_4.2 files\%i\content input_4.3 files\%i\content input_5.1 files\%i\mime input_5.2 files\%i\mime input_5.3 files\%i\mime 

Normally the input_3.* fields would get grouped together, as would the input_4.* fields. Using separator [%], it will create a nested list like:

array( 'files' => array( 0 => array( 'name' => 'value of input_3.1', 'mime' => 'value of input_5.1', 'content' => 'value of input_4.1' ), 1 => array( 'name' => 'value of input_3.2', 'mime' => 'value of input_5.2', 'content' => 'value of input_4.2' ), 2 => array( 'name' => 'value of input_3.3', 'mime' => 'value of input_5.2', 'content' => 'value of input_4.3' ), )) 

With Advanced Replacement, you could set the “Root Elements” field to something like the following (which mimics a normal form upload):

--multipartboundaryPE6azq Content-Disposition: form-data; name="myNameField" {{name}} --multipartboundaryPE6azq Content-Disposition: form-data; name="myPhoneField" {{phone}} [xpost-loop on="files"]--multipartboundaryPE6azq Content-Disposition: form-data; name="myUploadFiles"; filename="{{name}}" Content-Type: {{mime}} {{content}} [/xpost-loop] 

Note the use of the shortcode xpost-loop which will repeat for each of the elements in the nested files array, replacing the placeholders accordingly.

1.4.3

• added new “Advanced Replace” format which behaves the same as the existing mustache-style replacement but with xpost-loop shortcode
• fix: cloning row clears textarea field too

1.4.2

• wrapper field is textarea for easier format usage

1.4.1

• fix constructor warning for PHP7

1.4

• new string replacement format using mustache-style token placeholders {{3rdparty}}

1.3.3

• actually fix #24 parsing xml in root

1.3.2

• fix: bug parsing existing xml root
• allow shortcodes in root

1.3

• removed somewhat useless numerical index prefixing (n0, n1, nEtc)
• replaced with element repetition instead

1.2

• ignores xml root when considering escaped backslashes (compatibility break — please update your setting accordingly)
• ‘mask’ format — greater flexibility and control over field/wrapper
• shortcodes in header; base64 shortcode

1.0

• autoclose option
• decided it was good enough to be v1

0.5

• Added multipart/form-data and ‘url’ formatting per GitHub issue #6 https://github.com/zaus/forms-3rdparty-xpost/issues/6
• Added xml prolog/root workaround per GitHub issue #8 https://github.com/zaus/forms-3rdparty-xpost/issues/8
  • Can now enter actual xml as root element for finer customization

0.4.2

Can post body as json instead

0.4

Fixed GitHub issue #3 https://github.com/zaus/forms-3rdparty-xpost/issues/3:

• each plugin setting is only applied to that specific service if it has a value
• removed default post wrapper unless sending as xml (and if you send XML you should specify a wrapper)

0.3

Can nest regular post fields even when not submitting XML.

0.2

• Element nesting, attributes
• reworked “xmlify” using recursive SimpleXMLElement

0.1

Base version – xml and header transformation