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**Category:** Ignition\
**Created:** [September 20, 2022, 9:49am UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/httpget-returning-unicode-html/64272 "2022-09-20T09:49:35Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1
**Author:**  [@Cameronin](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Cameronin)\
**Post date:** [September 20, 2022, 9:49am UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/httpget-returning-unicode-html/64272/1 "2022-09-20T09:49:35Z")
Morning humans
I have manged to put together an api call that appears to work in that it returns a thing.
But the returned object is in unicode/ html, very dense, and I can’t begin to work out how to slice and dice it to extract useful things.
I have a project script:
```auto
import java.lang
from java.net import URLEncoder
import logging
class JythonClient:
def Coruson_api(self, userName, passWord):
baseUrl = 'https://platform.gaelenlighten.com:443/api'
self.client = system.net.httpClient(username = userName, password = passWord)
headers = {"tenant":"slg.gaelenlighten.com"}
def get_reports(self, coruson_request, userName, passWord):
baseUrl = 'https://platform.gaelenlighten.com:443/api'
base = 'https://platform.gaelenlighten.com:443/api/reports?'
encode_request = java.net.URLEncoder.encode(str(coruson_request), 'UTF-8')
url = base+encode_request
headers = {"tenant":"slg.gaelenlighten.com"}
response = system.net.httpGet(url = url, username = userName, password = passWord, headerValues = headers)
return response
```
and a component script on a button, that gets the required username and password, and the request dictionary info:
```auto
def runAction(self, event):
'''
This event is fired when the 'action' of the component occurs.
Arguments:
self: A reference to the component that is invoking this function.
event: An empty event object.
'''
userName = (textField).props.text
passWord = (password field).props.text
reports = apiReports.JythonClient().system_api(userName, passWord)
formName = "FormName"
owner = (dropdown).props.options[(dropdown).props.value]['label']
startDate = (component).props.value
endDate = (component).props.value
coruson_request = {"FormName":formName, "StartDate":startDate, "EndDate":endDate, "Owner":owner}
response = apiReports.JythonClient().get_reports(coruson_request, userName, passWord)
self.custom.response = response
```
Is there something I need to add/remove in order to get this as json and/or convert it, and/or make it readable as a table or other component?
I’m trying to bind the response to a table at the moment, but it just gets upset about having a string instead of an array.
Help?
---
**Author:**  [@pascal.fragnoud](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/pascal.fragnoud)\
**Post date:** [September 20, 2022, 11:30am UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/httpget-returning-unicode-html/64272/2 "2022-09-20T11:30:17Z")
There are a few things I find weird about the code you’ve shown:
- You’re calling `apiReports.JythonClient().system_api(userName, passWord)` But there’s no method named `system_api` in the class definition. I suspect you swapped `Coruson_api` for `system_api` in the second code snippet.
- `encode_request = java.net.URLEncoder.encode(str(coruson_request), 'UTF-8')` looks weird. I’m not sure it does what you think it does.
After trying what that function does, I think it converts a string to an url formatted string. But it doesn’t convert a dict into url parameters… ~~So you’re formatting a dict into a url compatible string. Which is probably not what you want to do~~ …
EDIT: I don’t think this is very clear… Let me rephrase: You’re converting a dict into a string, and then replacing characters that aren’t allowed in a url by codes that correspond to those characters, without converting it into url parameters before. Basically, it converts the dict’s brackets and dots into character codes.
dicts look like `{'foo': "FOO", 'bar': 42}`
url parameters look like `foo=FOO&bar=42`
`urllib.urlencode()` can convert a dict to url parameters for you.
- the doc for the api is a mess and I couldn’t find how to specify a return format, but maybe there’s a parameter you can add to get a json response
- do you NEED classes for this ? What good is the `Coruson_api` (or `system_api`) method here ? What is it supposed to do ? You’re passing everything to `get_reports` anyway.
- you’re importing `from java.net import URLEncoder`, then calling `java.net.URLEncoder.encode()`
Lastly, what does the returned string look like ? It might help determine if it’s a proper response.
---
**Author:**  [@Cameronin](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Cameronin)\
**Post date:** [September 20, 2022, 1:02pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/httpget-returning-unicode-html/64272/3 "2022-09-20T13:02:15Z")
- I did! I was trying to do the ‘make code generic’ thing for posting it here, then I got distracted. They match irl.
- I think urllib has started having compatibility issues? I’ve been replacing it with the java.net.URLEncoder.encode() instead, which has worked elsewhere (when urllib.urlencode was throwing errors).
I did think putting the string part first might do something weird, but it didn’t seem to be happy with the dictionary. It might want different syntax?
\*I probably don’t need the class, no. But it was in the code I nicked off the forums, so I kept it…
\*Yeah. The info I found about urllib getting wonky and using encoder instead had it set out that way, so I haven’t faffed with it. It’s working happily in another project, so I didn’t fix a not-apparently-broken thing…
Thank you for the comprehensive response!
Do you know what the syntax ought to be for feeding a dictionary to java.net.URLEncoder.encode()?
---
**Author:**  [@pascal.fragnoud](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/pascal.fragnoud)\
**Post date:** [September 20, 2022, 1:45pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/httpget-returning-unicode-html/64272/4 "2022-09-20T13:45:00Z")
> [@Cameronin](#):
>
> Do you know what the syntax ought to be for feeding a dictionary to java.net.URLEncoder.encode()?
According to its javadoc, that's not what it's for. What it does is
> Translates a string into application/x-www-form-urlencoded format using a specific encoding scheme. This method uses the supplied encoding scheme to obtain the bytes for unsafe characters.
You need to format your dict into a query string first. If you don't want to use `urllib.urlencode` (it should be safe to use), maybe java has a function for this, but I don't know much about java.
Otherwise, you can do it yourself, with something like this:
```python
def format_params(params):
if params:
return "?" + "&".join("{}={}".format(key, value) for key, value in params.items())
else:
return ""
```
Then you can feed that string to java's `URLEncoder.urlencode()`
---
**Author:**  [@Cameronin](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Cameronin)\
**Post date:** [September 20, 2022, 2:45pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/httpget-returning-unicode-html/64272/5 "2022-09-20T14:45:30Z")
I got it working 😃
running the base url and dictionary through httpClient did the encoding, then using the output of that as the url in httpGet got me a good response.
putting “format”:“json” as part of the dictionary forced that.
Now I just have to get rid of a bit of superfluous info the table won’t parse, and we might be set…
_smhd_
Thank you again
---
**Author:**  [@paul-griffith](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/paul-griffith)\
**Post date:** [September 20, 2022, 7:34pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/httpget-returning-unicode-html/64272/6 "2022-09-20T19:34:46Z")
I would really, _really_ strongly encourage you to migrate to `system.net.httpClient`, which takes care of basically all of the encoding and decoding for you when dealing with a typical REST API:
[https://docs.inductiveautomation.com/display/DOC81/system.net.httpClient](https://docs.inductiveautomation.com/display/DOC81/system.net.httpClient)