# HTTP Binding

This binding allows using HTTP to bring external data into openHAB or execute HTTP requests on commands.

# Supported Things

Only one thing named url is available. It can be extended with different channels.

# Thing Configuration

parameter optional default description
baseURL no - The base URL (including protocol http:// or https://) for this thing. Can be extended in channel-configuration.
refresh no 30 Time in seconds between two refresh calls for the channels of this thing.
timeout no 3000 Timeout for HTTP requests in ms.
bufferSize no 2048 The buffer size for the response data (in kB).
delay no 0 Delay between two requests in ms (advanced parameter).
username yes - Username for authentication (advanced parameter).
password yes - Password for authentication (advanced parameter). Also used for the authentication token when using TOKEN authentication.
authMode no BASIC Authentication mode, BASIC, BASIC_PREEMPTIVE, TOKEN or DIGEST (advanced parameter).
stateMethod no GET Method used for requesting the state: GET, PUT, POST.
commandMethod no GET Method used for sending commands: GET, PUT, POST.
contentType yes - MIME content-type of the command requests. Only used for PUT and POST.
encoding yes - Encoding to be used if no encoding is found in responses (advanced parameter).
headers yes - Additional headers that are sent along with the request. Format is "header=value". Multiple values can be stored as headers="key1=value1", "key2=value2", "key3=value3",
ignoreSSLErrors no false If set to true, ignores invalid SSL certificate errors. This is potentially dangerous.
strictErrorHandling no false If set to true, thing status is changed depending on last request result (failed = OFFLINE). Failed requests result in UNDEF for channel values.
userAgent yes (yes ) Sets a custom user agent (default is "Jetty/version", e.g. "Jetty/9.4.20.v20190813").

Note: Optional "no" means that you have to configure a value unless a default is provided, and you are ok with that setting.

Note: The BASIC_PREEMPTIVE mode adds basic authentication headers even if the server did not request authentication. This is dangerous and might be misused. The option exists to be able to authenticate when the server is not sending the proper 401/Unauthorized code. Authentication might fail if redirections are involved as headers are stripper prior to redirection.

Note: If you rate-limit requests by using the delay parameter you have to make sure that the time between two refreshes is larger than the time needed for one refresh cycle.

Attention: baseUrl (and stateExtension/commandExtension) should not use escaping (e.g. %22 instead of " or %2c instead of ,). URLs are properly escaped by the binding itself before the request is sent. Using escaped strings in URL parameters may lead to problems with the formatting (see below).

# Channels

The thing has two channels of type request-date-time which provide the timestamp of the last successful (last-success) and last failed (last-failure) request.

Additionally, the thing can be extended with data channels. Each item type has its own channel-type. Depending on the channel-type, channels have different configuration options. All channel-types (except image) have stateExtension, commandExtension, stateTransformation, commandTransformation and mode parameters. The image channel-type supports stateExtension only.

parameter optional default description
stateExtension yes - Appended to the baseURL for requesting states.
commandExtension yes - Appended to the baseURL for sending commands. If empty, same as stateExtension.
stateTransformation yes - One or more transformation applied to received values before updating channel.
commandTransformation yes - One or more transformation applied to channel value before sending to a remote.
stateContent yes - Content for state requests (if method is PUT or POST)
mode no READWRITE Mode this channel is allowed to operate. READONLY means receive state, WRITEONLY means send commands.

Some channels have additional parameters. When concatenating the baseURL and stateExtension or commandExtension the binding checks if a proper URL part separator (/, & or ?) is present and adds a / if missing.

# Value Transformations (stateTransformation, commandTransformation)

Transformations can be used if the supplied value (or the required value) is different from what openHAB internal types require.

The relevant transformation service needs to be installed via the Main UI or addons.cfg before use.

Here are a few examples to unwrap an incoming value via stateTransformation from a complex response:

Received value Tr. Service Transformation
{device: {status: { temperature: 23.2 }}} JSONPATH JSONPATH:$.device.status.temperature
<device><status><temperature>23.2</temperature></status></device> XPath XPath:/device/status/temperature/text()
THEVALUE:23.2°C REGEX REGEX::(.*?)°

Transformations can be chained by separating them with the mathematical intersection character "∩". Please note that the values will be discarded if one transformation fails (e.g. REGEX did not match).

The same mechanism works for commands (commandTransformation) for outgoing values.

# color

parameter optional default description
onValue yes - A special value that represents ON
offValue yes - A special value that represents OFF
increaseValue yes - A special value that represents INCREASE
decreaseValue yes - A special value that represents DECREASE
step no 1 The amount the brightness is increased/decreased on INCREASE/DECREASE
colorMode no RGB Mode for color values: RGB or HSB

All values that are not onValue, offValue, increaseValue, decreaseValue are interpreted as color value (according to the color mode) in the format r,g,b or h,s,v.

# contact

parameter optional default description
openValue no - A special value that represents OPEN
closedValue no - A special value that represents CLOSED

# dimmer

parameter optional default description
onValue yes - A special value that represents ON
offValue yes - A special value that represents OFF
increaseValue yes - A special value that represents INCREASE
decreaseValue yes - A special value that represents DECREASE
step no 1 The amount the brightness is increased/decreased on INCREASE/DECREASE

All values that are not onValue, offValue, increaseValue, decreaseValue are interpreted as brightness 0-100% and need to be numeric only.

# number

parameter optional default description
unit yes - The unit label for this channel

number channels can be used for DecimalType or QuantityType values. If a unit is given in the unit parameter, the binding tries to create a QuantityType state before updating the channel, if no unit is present, it creates a DecimalType. Please note that incompatible units (e.g. °C for a Number:Density item) will fail silently, i.e. no error message is logged even if the state update fails.

# player

parameter optional default description
playValue yes - A special value that represents PLAY
pauseValue yes - A special value that represents PAUSE
nextValue yes - A special value that represents NEXT
previousValue yes - A special value that represents PREVIOUS
fastforwardValue yes - A special value that represents FASTFORWARD
rewindValue yes - A special value that represents REWIND

# rollershutter

parameter optional default description
upValue yes - A special value that represents UP
downValue yes - A special value that represents DOWN
stopValue yes - A special value that represents STOP
moveValue yes - A special value that represents MOVE

All values that are not upValue, downValue, stopValue, moveValue are interpreted as position 0-100% and need to be numeric only.

# switch

parameter optional default description
onValue no - A special value that represents ON
offValue no - A special value that represents OFF

Note: Special values need to be exact matches, i.e. no leading or trailing characters and comparison is case-sensitive.

# URL Formatting

After concatenation of the baseURL and the commandExtension or the stateExtension (if provided) the URL is formatted using the java.util.Formatter (opens new window). The URL is used as format string and two parameters are added:

  • the current date (referenced as %1$)
  • the transformed command (referenced as %2$)

After the parameter reference the format needs to be appended. See the link above for more information about the available format parameters (e.g. to use the string representation, you need to append s to the reference, for a timestamp t). When sending an OFF command on 2020-07-06, the URL

http://www.domain.org/home/lights/23871/?status=%2$s&date=%1$tY-%1$tm-%1$td

is transformed to

http://www.domain.org/home/lights/23871/?status=OFF&date=2020-07-06

# Examples

# demo.things

Thing http:url:foo "Foo" [
    baseURL="https://example.com/api/v1/metadata-api/web/metadata", 
    headers="key1=value1", "key2=value2", "key3=value3",
    refresh=15] {
        Channels:
            Type string : text "Text" [ stateTransformation="JSONPATH:$.metadata.data" ]
}