JavaScript – How to Access the Magento API from Native Client

Edit: Found a better way, see Solution 2 below

As mentioned in the comment, the SOAP API is the way to go.

Solution 1:

Suds worked for me with slight modification (Usage of Titanium.Network.HTTPClient instead of XMLHttpRequest), but it does not much more than creating a SOAP envelope for the call and returning the whole XML response.

Proof-of-Concept implementation, using jQuery Deferred for request chaining:

Service.MagentoClient = function()
{
    var self = this;
    var suds = new SudsClient({
        endpoint : "http://the-magento-host/api/v2_soap/",
        targetNamespace : "urn:Magento",
    });

    self.login = function() {
        var deferred = new $.Deferred();
        var args = {
            username : 'the-username',
            apiKey: 'the-api-key'
        };
        suds.invoke("login", args, function(xmlDoc) {
            self.sessionId = $(xmlDoc).find("loginReturn").text();
            deferred.resolve({});
            //TODO reject if no sessionid returned
        });
        return deferred;
    };

    self.setStatus = function(orderId, status, comment, notify) {
        var deferred = new $.Deferred();
        if (!self.sessionId) {
            deferred.reject({ error: 'Login not successful.' });
            return;
        }
        var args = {
            sessionId        : self.sessionId,
            orderIncrementId : orderId,
            status           : status,
            comment          : comment,
            notify           : notify
        }
        suds.invoke("salesOrderAddComment", args, function(xmlDoc) {
            var success = $(xmlDoc).find("salesOrderAddCommentResponse").text();
            if (success) {
                deferred.resolve({});
            } else {
                deferred.reject({ error: 'Update not successful.' });
            }

        });
        return deferred;
    };
};

Usage example:

        var magento = new Service.MagentoClient();
        magento.login().then(function() {
            magento.setStatus('100000029', 'complete', 'soap test');
        }).then(function() {
            alert('Update successful');
        }, function(reject) {
            alert('Update failed: ' + reject.error);
        });

Solution 2:

Turned out that writing an own API adapter can be really easy. With the example of this core-hack (dead link) I was able to write a clean module for a JSON-RPC adapter based on Zend_Json_Server. It uses the same Authentication and ACL as the SOAP and XML-RPC APIs.

To use the entry point /api/jsonrpc, the new controller has to be added to the api route:

<config>
    <frontend>
        <routers>
            <api>
                <args>
                    <modules>
                        <my_jsonrpc before="Mage_Api">My_JsonRpc_Api</my_jsonrpc>
                    </modules>
                </args>
            </api>
        </routers>
    </frontend>
</config>

Update 02/2015: The above link is dead now, so I open sourced my JSON-RPC adapter as a complete extension: https://github.com/sgh-it/jsonrpc

My JS client now looks like this (again with JQuery.Deferred, but no additional 3rd party libraries for the API):

/**
 * Client for the Magento API
 */
Service.MagentoClient = function()
{
    var self = this;

    /**
     * @param string   method    the remote procedure to call
     * @param object   params    parameters for the RPC
     * @param callback onSuccess callback for successful request. Expects one parameter (decoded response object)
     * @param callback onError   callback for failed request. Expects one parameter (error message)
     * 
     * @return void
     */
    self.jsonRpc = function(method, params, onSuccess, onError) {
        var request = {
            method : method,
            params : params,
            jsonrpc : "2.0",
            id : 1
        };

        var options = {
            entryPoint : config.magentoClient.entryPoint,
            method: 'post',
            timeout: config.magentoClient.timeout
        };

        var httpClient = Titanium.Network.createHTTPClient();
        httpClient.onload = function(e) {
            try {
                var response = JSON.parse(this.responseText);
            } catch (jsonError) {
                return onError(jsonError);
            }
            if (response.error) {
                if (response.error.code == 5) { // session expired
                    self.sessionId = null;
                }
                return onError(response.error.message);
            }
            onSuccess(response);
        };
        httpClient.onerror = function(e) {
            onError(e.error + '; Response:' + this.responseText);
        };
        httpClient.setTimeout(options.timeout);

        if (httpClient.open(options.method, options.entryPoint)) {
            httpClient.setRequestHeader("Content-type", "application/json");
            httpClient.send(JSON.stringify(request));
        } else {
            onError('cannot open connection');
        }

    }
    /**
     * Retrieve session id for API
     * 
     * @return JQuery.Deferred deferred object for asynchronous chaining
     */
    self.login = function() {
        var deferred = new $.Deferred();
        if (self.sessionId) {
            deferred.resolve();
            return deferred;
        }
        var loginParams = config.magentoClient.login;
        try {
            self.jsonRpc('login', loginParams, function(response) {
                if (response && response.result) {
                    self.sessionId = response.result;
                    deferred.resolve();
                } else {
                    deferred.reject('Login failed.');
                }
            }, function(error) {
                deferred.reject(error);
            });
        } catch (rpcError) {
            deferred.reject(rpcError);
        }
        return deferred;
    };
    /**
     * Updates order states in Magento
     *
     * @param string method   name of the remote method
     * @param object args     arguments for the remote method
     * 
     * @return JQuery.Deferred deferred object for asynchronous chaining
     */
    self.call = function(method, args) {
        var deferred = new $.Deferred();
        if (!self.sessionId) {
            deferred.reject('No session.');
            return;
        }
        var callParams = {
            sessionId : self.sessionId,
            apiPath   : method,
            args      : args
        };
        try {
            self.jsonRpc('call', callParams, function(response) {
                deferred.resolve(response.result);
            }, function(error) {
                deferred.reject(error);
            });
        } catch (rpcError) {
            deferred.reject(rpcError);
        }

        return deferred;
    };
};

Note that all methods after login are routed through call. The method parameter is something like sales_order.list, the args parameter an array or object with the method arguments.

Usage example:

        var filters = [];
        var magento = new Service.MagentoClient();
        magento.login().then(function() {
            magento.call('sales_order.list', [filters]).then(
                function(orders) {
                    // do something with the response
                }, function(error) {
                    alert('Magento API error: ' + error);
                }
            );
        });