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Transforming XML to JSON

The TriggerMesh XMLToJSONTransformation API object can be used to process a Cloudevent containing XML and return a JSON representation.

Configuring an XML to JSON event flow XML

This guide shows you how to configure an event flow that transforms an incoming CloudEvent in XML to their JSON representation. It has four steps:

  • Deploy the EventDisplay service.
  • Deploy the XMlToJSONTransformation object.
  • Deploy a Source that emits XML data.
  • Check the results in the logs of the EventDisplay Pod.

An XMLToJSONTransformation object can be configured to either reply to the event sender or to send the transformed data to a Sink if one is provided. In this guide, we will use a Sink to send the transformed data to a so-called EventDisplay service.

Deploying an Event Display

Let's first deploy the end of our event flow. The EventDisplay is a simple application that can be used to display CloudEvents. It can be deployed by writing the following YAML in a file and using kubectl apply -f <manifest.yaml>:

apiVersion: serving.knative.dev/v1
kind: Service
metadata:
    name: event-display
spec:
  template:
    spec:
      containers:
        - image: gcr.io/knative-releases/knative.dev/eventing-contrib/cmd/event_display@sha256:46d5a66f300c3ced590835d379a0e9badf413ae7ab60f21a2550ecedbc9eb9d3

Deploying an XMLToJSONTransformation Object

With the event-display in place, the XMLToJSONTransformation object can now be deployed in the same manner using the following manifest:

Tip

Below we use a Sink to declare where the response go. If you omit the Sink the response will go back to the Sender.

apiVersion: flow.triggermesh.io/v1alpha1
kind: XMLToJSONTransformation
metadata:
  name: demo
spec:
  sink:
    ref:
      apiVersion: serving.knative.dev/v1
      kind: Service
      name: event-display

Deploying a PingSource Object.

Finally, we deploy an event source that will emit CloudEvents with XML data in the payload. We can do this with the PingSource which sends Cloudevents on a schedule.

The YAML manifest below shows that we will send a note in XML every minute. Write the following YAML in a file and apply it with kubectl apply -f <manifest.yaml>.

apiVersion: sources.knative.dev/v1
kind: PingSource
metadata:
  name: pingxml
spec:
  schedule: "*/1 * * * *"
  contentType: application/xml
  data: '<note><to>Tove</to><from>Jani</from><heading>Reminder</heading><body>Dont forget me this weekend</body></note>'
  sink:
    ref:
      apiVersion: flow.triggermesh.io/v1alpha1
      kind: XMLToJSONTransformation
      name: demo

Viewing the Transformation's Output in the Event Display

With our event flow in place, we can now view the transformed data in the EventDisplay.

We need to retrieve the EventDisplay Pod name by running the following command:

kubectl get pods
NAME                                                             READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
xmltojsontransformation-demo-00001-deployment-7f45697d45-4bngq   2/2     Running   0          5m42s
event-display-00001-deployment-5c97f6c58c-ndjhl                  2/2     Running   0          5m2s

With the Pod name, we can run the following command to view the transformed data in the EventDisplay Pod logs:

kubectl logs event-display-00001-deployment-5c97f6c58c-ndjhl user-container
☁️  cloudevents.Event
Validation: valid
Context Attributes,
  specversion: 1.0
  type: dev.knative.sources.ping
  source: /apis/v1/namespaces/t/pingsources/pingxml
  id: be4a7e9f-a475-4555-895e-84bcf075a85c
  time: 2022-01-21T17:29:00.426355338Z
  datacontenttype: application/json
Data,
  {
    "note": {
      "body": "Dont forget me this weekend",
      "to": "Tove",
      "from": "Jani",
      "heading": "Reminder"
    }
  }

We see our beautiful sample note now in JSON format.