Feedback - Consumed REST Services (BETA)
I've noticed a few additional shortcoming of the new REST Services connector that you are able to accomplish with the legacy one that are not noted in the limitations.
- Authentication other than Basic Auth
- While you can add header parameters at the request level, it would be nice to be able to set global header values. Better yet, support JWT flows natively (including signature validation)!
- Json array support
- This has always been a pain point in Mendix as the runtime itself does not support arrays of primitive types, but it would be nice of the connector supported responses of json arrays. Right now, you can construct a request with json arrays, but the response mapper doesn't map arrays to a 1:M relationship, it only sees the value as a flat object.
Hello Ryan,
I'm from the team that is working on the REST services connector. We appreciate the input
For the first point we agree that indeed would be nice to have re-usable global headers. We are still thinking about how to approach it optimally.
For the second point the JSON Primitive Array is actually supported but due to the automatic simplification in the REST connector, the user does not see the 1:M relationship (this gets automatically optimized into one entity). I'm attaching a normal JSON Structure without the simplification and an Import mapping. Here, the user can exclude the root in the JSON structure manually.
Currently the REST connector only supports automatically simplified responses, which in your case de-selects the wrapper. In the upcoming versions we will release an option for the user to select which of the 2 structures you want to use. Those are simplified and unsimplified.
Feel free to message us if anything is unclear or you have more feedback.