Support for raw payloads

[daniel-beard]

I occasionally have a requirement where I have raw string payloads that I'd like to send over APNS. I couldn't see a way to pass a string payload with the current set of classes and protocols. Is this something you'd be willing to support?

E.g. I just want to be able to pass something like the following:

{ "aps": { "alert": "hello world", "badge": 9, "sound": "bingbong.aiff"} ,"g": {"l": "appme:///dispatch/us?utm_medium=notification&utm_source=ec&utm_campaign=20171018"}}

[kylebrowning]

You should be able to conform to APNSwiftNotification and use that.

struct G {
    let l: String
}
struct AcmeNotification: APNSwiftNotification {
    let acme2: [String]
    let g: G
    let aps: APNSwiftPayload

    init(acme2: [String], aps: APNSwiftPayload, g: G) {
        self.acme2 = acme2
        self.aps = aps
        self.g = g
    }
}

[daniel-beard]

@kylebrowning the structure varies quite a bit, and the source for this comes from external systems. I would conform to APNSwiftNotification, but I don't know the structure ahead of time.

I'd also like to replace our aging, internal rails based push testing tool, which takes a freeform string input from QA peeps.

[kylebrowning]

@daniel-beard Let me think about that. We need to find a way to some sort of AnyCodable concept.

This might work but im hesitant to depend on third party dependencies.

[weissi]

Can't we just do

struct SpecialNotification<ExtraPayload: Codable>: APNSwiftNotification {
    let extra: ExtraPayload
    let aps: APNSwiftPayload
}

?

[daniel-beard]

@weissi how in that case would I create the aps object from that single string payload?

[kylebrowning]

What if we did

    public func send(withCustomPayload buffer: ByteBuffer, pushType: APNSwiftConnection.PushType, to deviceToken: String, expiration: Date? = nil, priority: Int? = nil, collapseIdentifier: String? = nil, topic: String? = nil) -> EventLoopFuture<Void> {
            let streamPromise = channel.eventLoop.makePromise(of: Channel.self)
            multiplexer.createStreamChannel(promise: streamPromise) { channel, streamID in
                let handlers: [ChannelHandler] = [
                    HTTP2ToHTTP1ClientCodec(streamID: streamID, httpProtocol: .https),
                    APNSwiftRequestEncoder(deviceToken: deviceToken, configuration: self.configuration, bearerToken: self.bearerTokenFactory?.currentBearerToken, pushType: pushType, expiration: expiration, priority: priority, collapseIdentifier: collapseIdentifier, topic: topic),
                    APNSwiftResponseDecoder(),
                    APNSwiftStreamHandler(),
                ]
                return channel.pipeline.addHandlers(handlers)
            }
            
            let responsePromise = channel.eventLoop.makePromise(of: Void.self)
            let context = APNSwiftRequestContext(
                request: buffer,
                responsePromise: responsePromise
            )
            
            return streamPromise.futureResult.flatMap { stream in
                return stream.writeAndFlush(context)
            }.flatMap {
                responsePromise.futureResult
            }
    }

[kylebrowning]

Then you just construct the byte buffer yourself, but there's no guarantees the payload is legit safe.

[daniel-beard]

@kylebrowning I think that will work, you don't need the JSONEncoder param though. I'm cool with the payload being able to be malformed.

[kylebrowning]

Correct I just did it quick and dirty haha.

[kylebrowning]

I just tested this, and it seems to work just fine, not sure if @weissi Has any other ideas.

public func send<Notification: APNSwiftNotification>(_ notification: Notification, pushType: APNSwiftConnection.PushType, to deviceToken: String, with encoder: JSONEncoder = JSONEncoder(), expiration: Date? = nil, priority: Int? = nil, collapseIdentifier: String? = nil, topic: String? = nil) -> EventLoopFuture<Void> {
    let data: Data = try! encoder.encode(notification)
    
    var buffer = ByteBufferAllocator().buffer(capacity: data.count)
    buffer.writeBytes(data)
    return send(withByteBuffer: buffer, pushType: pushType, to: deviceToken)
}

public func send(withByteBuffer buffer: ByteBuffer, pushType: APNSwiftConnection.PushType, to deviceToken: String, expiration: Date? = nil, priority: Int? = nil, collapseIdentifier: String? = nil, topic: String? = nil) -> EventLoopFuture<Void> {
        let streamPromise = channel.eventLoop.makePromise(of: Channel.self)
        multiplexer.createStreamChannel(promise: streamPromise) { channel, streamID in
            let handlers: [ChannelHandler] = [
                HTTP2ToHTTP1ClientCodec(streamID: streamID, httpProtocol: .https),
                APNSwiftRequestEncoder(deviceToken: deviceToken, configuration: self.configuration, bearerToken: self.bearerTokenFactory?.currentBearerToken, pushType: pushType, expiration: expiration, priority: priority, collapseIdentifier: collapseIdentifier, topic: topic),
                APNSwiftResponseDecoder(),
                APNSwiftStreamHandler(),
            ]
            return channel.pipeline.addHandlers(handlers)
        }
        
        let responsePromise = channel.eventLoop.makePromise(of: Void.self)
        let context = APNSwiftRequestContext(
            request: buffer,
            responsePromise: responsePromise
        )
        
        return streamPromise.futureResult.flatMap { stream in
            return stream.writeAndFlush(context)
        }.flatMap {
            responsePromise.futureResult
        }
}

[weissi]

@daniel-beard wait, you want to inject an arbitrary string into the JSON?

[kylebrowning]

@weissi It appears so. Sounds like they attach arbitrary data on the push notification. So aps still exists, but then they use basically what appears to be [String: AnyObject]

[weissi]

@kylebrowning hmm, if it were actually structured data, I think what I proposed would’ve worked, no? But I think @daniel-beard wants to have the aps object to be an arbitrary sequence of bytes they get from elsewhere. If that is the case, then Codable won’t support that because it’s no longer typed.

I’m happy adding a function like you propose, I think the parameter name should maybe be rawBytes or so instead of withByteBuffer (the word ‘with’ is usually omitted and ‘ByteBuffer’ is the type name already so doesn’t add much value)

[kylebrowning]

@weissi Main problem is that APNSwiftPayload is not fully Codable but just Encodable so updating that would be API breaking.

Furthermore I went down the route of testing that and couldn't get it to work with structured data. That being said I tried for like 5 minutes.

Finally I believe @daniel-beard is saying that he won't know the input, so it all has to be arbitrary.

[daniel-beard]

@kylebrowning yes, that's correct. I don't have structured data, and want to be able to directly load logged payloads from disk and send them.

[kylebrowning]

@daniel-beard If you don't mind, Im going to let #51 marinate for around 24 hours and then cut a new release of 1.2.1

[daniel-beard]

Sounds good, thanks for the quick responses and implementation, much appreciated!

[kylebrowning]

closing in favor of PR #51. Can continue discussion there if needed.