[WSO2-ESB] URI- template encoding in WSO2 ESB for reserved characters

 In a recent engagement with the WSO2 ESB, I've come across a situation where WSO2 ESB does not encode some reserved characters when using a URI-template as the endpoint to a get call.

In this particular instance it was the '&' that was not getting encoding and the <space>.

The reason is that WSO2 ESB uses the java.net libraries  and it ends up not encoding the characters correctly.

As a solution to this, we can use the script mediator in WSO2 ESB. We could get the value in the script mediator and encode it using the  javascript encode uri method, and encode our values correctly.

An example as shown below:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<api
    xmlns="http://ws.apache.org/ns/synapse"
     name="testAPI"
     context="/testAPI">
    <resource methods="POST">
        <inSequence>
            <log level="full"/>
            <property name="uri.var.fullname" expression="//APIRequest/Fullname/text()"/>
            <property name="uri.var.address" expression="//APIRequest/HomeAddress/text()"/>
            <script language="js">var fullname = mc.getProperty('uri.var.fullname');var homeAddress = mc.getProperty('uri.var.address');                 mc.setProperty("uri.var.fullname",encodeURIComponent(fullname));                 mc.setProperty("uri.var.address",encodeURIComponent(homeAddress));                 </script>
            <header name="Content-Type" scope="transport" action="remove"/>
            <send>
                <endpoint>
                    <http method="get"
                     uri-template="https://localhost/test?apikey=1234&amp;api=54&amp;fullname={+uri.var.fullname}&amp;address={+uri.var.address}"/>
                </endpoint>
            </send>
        </inSequence>
    </resource>
</api> 

In this what is done is that the API request values has been extracted and stored in a property using a property mediator.

Then by using the script mediator  we make use of javascript and store the value as a var and encode it using the "encodeURIComponent" method.

In the "encodeURIComponent" yet, we still have some characters that are not encoded. These include the !'()*~.

References

[1] https://docs.wso2.com/display/ESB480/Getting+Started+with+REST+APIs#GettingStartedwithRESTAPIs-URItemplates

[2] https://docs.wso2.com/display/ESB480/Template+Endpoint

[3] https://docs.wso2.com/display/ESB480/Property+Mediator

[4] https://docs.wso2.com/display/ESB480/Script+Mediator

[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percent-encoding
[6] http://xkr.us/articles/javascript/encode-compare/