Authenticate Non-Fusion Application via the Oracle Fusion Cloud

Hi Folks,

Today, I’ll explain you to implement authentication mechanism to Non-Fusion application through the Oracle Fusion cloud.  Basically my business flow is, user should log into Oracle Fusion cloud first and then access to Non-Fusion application through the external URL available in Fusion Springboard or Navigator.

Following diagram depicted the authentication flow, I’ll explain each process flows, it will easy to understand the authentication process.

Authentication Flow

Fusion user to Application Session Bean

First user should log into the Oracle Fusion cloud. Then the user click the icon on Oracle fusion springboard/Navigator. Oracle Fusion provide JWT (JSON Web Token) to identify logged user uniquely, we should have implement a mechanism to pass the generated JWT key as an URL parameter to Non-Oracle application. For generate JWT, we can use simple expression language like this.

https://<Non-Fusion Application URL>?jwtparam= #{applCoreSecuredToken.trustToken}  

JSON Web Token validation 

   

This step bit tricky, because we have mechanism to avoid misusage of JWT key. Each time user click the URL, oracle generate JWT on demand. This key has 4hrs lifetime within this time period user can use generated JWT key multiple times. For avoid that, we can implement validation to allow fresh JWT each time by looking JWT generated time.

To get JWT generated time, you can simply decode JWT header using standard library provide by jwt.io web. Here’s the implementation of validation method.  

Validate the Logged User

Now we have Oracle generated JWT, but we are unable to decode verify signature for identified user details directly. So we need to use SOAP service for get the logged user details. In hcmService/UserDetailsServiceV2 request we can pass the JWT as Authorization Header along with Bearer keyword.

In above mentioned flow, I used internal user details stored data base to verify against fusion result. But it’s not mandatory.

Happy Coding,

Regards,

Denuwan Himanga Hettiarachchi

Switching between Default mood to Accessibility mode, without additional clicks in Oracle ADF Application

Hi Folks,

This post onward, I’ll publish my technical articles in both Medium & Blogger accounts. I believe this option allow me to reach new technical enthusiasm audience.

Few months back, I have opportunity to allocate really interesting task. In my organization we have a requirement to allow our Time Entry application to the visual impact users. According to W3.org accessibility mean,

Accessibility addresses discriminatory aspects related to equivalent user experience for people with disabilities, including people with age-related impairments. For the web, accessibility means that people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with websites and tools, and that they can contribute equally without barriers. For more information, see the Accessibility introduction.

In this post I’m not going to explain the way to modification you should do to achieve accessibility in Oracle ADF application. Oracle provide advanced documentation for develop application with the aim of accessibility feature. “Fusion Middleware Web User Interface Developer's Guide for OracleApplication Development Framework” this should be your bible.

But, the way documentation suggest to switch in between accessible mode and default mode is really painful. So I come up with a totally new solution to switching these modes.

If you already refereed Oracle documentation (I highly recommend you to go through it, before try to understand my solution) you have idea about the importance of trinidad-config.xml file. In order to switch application to different modes we should add screenReader/default values to accessibility-mode property.

But we have to configure above mentioned values permanently or we need to provide additional pop-up to choose accessibility preferences and based on the value we should fully refresh web application in each time user login to the system.

Stored a permanent value is not an elegant design, Couse this will ruin ordinary users experience. Providing an additional pop-up also damage minimum click approach in web design world.

Option I

I have two solutions to avoid, above mentioned design problems. In my scenario we have pre known user based, so I created a new attribute in USER_DETAILS table and store accessibility_mode based on user preferences.

But how to change accessibility-mode property in trinidad-config.xml,

Kudos to Session Bean objects, we can simply create a variable in Session Bean scope and assign to accessibility-mode property in trinidad-config.xml. Final solution should be like this.

Option II

Option I, sort of a mediocre solution. Because we need to pre-identified our user’s accessibility preferences. Option II come up with an innovative way, but you have to log Oracle Fusion Cloud first and navigate to your application through Fusion Cloud.

In my organization Time Entry application host as a Non-Fusion application, but authentication through the Fusion Cloud (I’ll write a separate post to describe authentication process).

If I simply explain the authentication process. When you’re Non-Fusion application load, you can generate JSON Web Token (JWT) and pass it as a URL parameter. Oracle HCM Cloud provide SOAP web services to get user details, by passing JWT as an Authorization Header simply call findSelfUserDetails SOAP service to get a AccessibilityMode value. 

Same as the Option I, you can execute the above process inside the Session bean scope and assign SOAP result to accessibilityMode variable.

Hope you got a clear idea about these two options, please feel free to comment your questions.

Happy Coding!

Regards,

Denuwan Hettiarachchi

Access Google gmail Inbox via 3rd Party Application

Hi folks,

Today, I’m come up with a pretty impressive application, which is allow you to access to your gmail inbox and get the feed about the latest email. This simple application based on Atom Google gmail inbox feed. Before I go to development session, let me explain about the atom, according to Google,

Atom is a system which makes it easy for you to receive, in one place, regular updates from news websites, blogs, and/or Gmail. You can use Atom with an aggregator (also known as a newsreader, feed reader, or RSS/Atom reader) to receive new message alerts.Here we go, this is the way to do it.

Pre Requirements.

In order to access gmail account, you have to allow to access ‘less secure Application’. You can easily do it by referring following screen shots.  

Go to Settings and then click Other Google Account settings

Click Apps with account access

Allow to Access Allow less secure apps

I’ll create a separate class to represent email object, and another separate class to get the data from atom the feed.

Get the sample project from GitHub Repository  

Happy Coding,

Best Regards,

Denuwan Himanga

Implementing SharePoint Online REST client on JAVA platform.

Hi folks,

SharePoint 2013 hosts a Representational State Transfer (REST) service. Using REST API, Developers can interact remotely with SharePoint data by using any technology that supports REST web requests.

SharePoint Online (SPO) REST client request should need to authorize. SharePoint Online Single Sign On (SSO) process validate the REST call and establish connection between SPO and REST client.

In order to establish connection between SPO and REST client, needs to provide following authentication values.

1) rtFa Cookies

2) FedAuth Cookies

3) FormDigestValue

In this post, I’ll demonstrate only implementing a JAVA based RESTful client part and way of passing the above mention authentication values as headers in RESTful call. How to generate the auth values explained in this post. We can simply use generated auth values using POSTMAN case, these values never expire and platform independent.

Happy Coding....

Regards,

Denuwan Himanga

Generate SharePoint Online Rest API Authentications Details Using POSTMAN

Hi folks,

Today, SharePoint Online is the most preferred cloud based platform in many of the organizations to collaborate with external and internal parties, with organizing documents and access the information from any time anywhere.

SharePoint 2013 hosts a Representational State Transfer (REST) service. Using REST API, Developers can interact remotely with SharePoint data by using any technology that supports REST web requests.

In order to communicate SharePoint online REST services you needs to have following authentications keys.

1) BinarySecurityToken
2) rtFa & FedAuth Cookies
3) FormDigestValue 

In this post, I’ll demonstrate how to generate SharePoint Online Rest API authentications keys using Google chrome POSTMAN App.

Generate BinarySecurityToken

In order to get BinarySecurityToken, needs to use Microsoft Security Token Service put above mentioned address as the URL

https://login.microsoftonline.com/extSTS.srf

Needs to add following XML Envelope as a message body, replace [username], [password] & [yourdomain] as per your environment.

When you go through the respond from STS Service, you should notice two main tags among respond envelope. Those are <wst:Lifetime> & <wst:RequestedSecurityToken>. Within RequestedSecurityToken tag we can identify the BinarySecurityToken, which we try to generate in this step, but make sure to follow the second step before the time period within <wst:Lifetime> token. Cause BinarySecurityToken is time based temporary key.   

Generate rtFa & FedAuth Cookies

Now, we need to POST generated BinarySecurityToken to SharePoint Online, if it is valid token SharePoint Online single sign on processes responding with two authentication cookies called rtFa & FedAuth.

In order to get the cookies, you need to enable POSTMAN interceptor. It’s allow to send requests which use browser’s cookies through POSTMAN.

https://[YourDomain].sharepoint.com/_forms/default.aspx?wa=wsignin1.0

Postman : Important sections are Highlighted

Generate FormDigestValue

Form digest value use as a credential validation key in SharePoint architecture. REST API call run inside the firewall, so REST calls are authenticated using the current user's credentials and they can get the form digest value.

https://[YourDomain].sharepoint.com/_api/contextinfo

Following values should declare as a headers in POSTMAN.

Cookie: rtFa=[rtFa]

Cookie: FedAuth=[ FedAuth]

Origin: [YourDomain].sharepoint.com

REST Call Demo

Using generated authentication values, we can simply test GET request. You need to replace following request as per your environment. Needs to add FormDigestValue as X-RequestDigest in header alone with above mentioned headers in Generate FormDigestValue step.

Additionally, I add optional header which format response as a JSON object.

Accept:application/json;odata=verbose

Happy Coding.
Regards,
Denuwan Himanga

Customize Databound Fixed List of Values in Oracle ADF

Hi folks,

Oracle ADF is a one of the most advanced framework use by many of companies nowadays. It will allow developers to build an MVC architecture based applications, basically ADF make developer life essayer than any other framework existing in today.

This post for developers who has basic knowledge with ADF.

Creating a fixed list dropdown, usually used for some static values. Let’s assume that we have a requirement of the selecting two type of age ranges for some app. 45> allowed and 45< not allowed, in DB side these operation handle by the Boolean type variable. 45> true and 45< false.

When we are checking the documentations of Oracle ADF, the recommended way is using a databound fixedlist,

But it will be a mess, when we need to customize the display value and DB item value, because we need to mention the exact same list which include in DB side, If we consider the scenario like above mentioned, we can’t use different value and label like this,

1:  <af:selectOneChoice value="#{bindings.Userstatus.inputValue}"  
2:            label="#{bindings.Userstatus.label}: ">  
3:   <f:selectItems value="#{bindings.Userstatus.items}" itemLabel="#{bindings.Userstatus.items == true ? Above 45 : Bellow 45}"/>  
4:  </af:selectOneChoice>  

Because it doesn’t allow to customize with different itemLabel and value, this drop down always display true and false instead of “Above 45” and “Bellow 45”.

In order to solve that, we can create a programmatic fixed list, this approach allows you to customize value and label according to our requirement.

According to SelectItem documentation, six (6) override constructors allow us to define following parameters,

•          java.lang.Object value
•          java.lang.String label
•          java.lang.String description
•          boolean disabled
•          boolean escape

We can define fixed list in bean class and, simply customize dropdown value list.

1:  List<SelectItem> userStatus;  
2:    public void setUserStatus(List<SelectItem> userStatus) {  
3:      this.userStatus = userStatus;  
4:    }  
5:    public List<SelectItem> getUserStatus() {  
6:            if (userStatus == null) {  
7:        userStatus = new ArrayList<SelectItem>();  
8:        userStatus.add(new SelectItem(true,"Above 45"));  
9:        userStatus.add(new SelectItem(false,"Bellow 45"));  
10:            }  
11:      return userStatus;  
12:    }  

MyBean.java

1:  <af:selectOneChoice value="#{bindings.Userstatus.inputValue}"  
2:            label="#{bindings.Userstatus.label}: ">  
3:   <f:selectItems value="#{MyBean.userStatus}" />  
4:  </af:selectOneChoice>  

Happy Coding,

Regards,

Denuwan Himanga

JAVA Interface Implementation

Hi folks,

In this post, I decide to cover little bit confused area in programming, most of the candidates are little bit straggle in when they faced a job interview. On OOP inheritance concept depend on these two methodologies. I explained OOP & Abstract concept, in the previous post. Today I’m figuring out major differentiations between Interfaces & Abstract concepts.

Basically Interfaces & Abstract class are looks like same, when most of the programmers deal with those both methodologies in very first time. But the reality is these two techniques are introduced for the two different things. As well as in a very complex scenario, we must identify which technique implements in to the system. Otherwise, most probably we face difficulties in developing/maintaining stages in SDLC.   

Use Case Diagram

Ok, let’s try to implement above scenario, for the implementation process I use to unique features of the interface. Following list listed down those features. 

1.                  Interface variables are by default Constant.

2.                  The interface allows only method signatures / doesn’t allow method body (Above JAVA 8)

3.                  The interface allows to implement multiple interfaces.

4.                  Interface, Interface implementation can use extends keyword

5.                  Class, Interface implementation can using implements keyword

6.                  An interface can extend multiple interfaces.

Following code segments depict how Mobile Phone class extending using interface wise implementation. For the demonstration I used highlighted segment in above UML diagram. Try to implement whole scenario by yourself.  

package com.interfaces;

public interface Secondary {
    
    public double MEGA_PIXELS = 13;
    public int Resolution = 1080;
   
}

Secondary.java

package com.interfaces;

public interface Primary {
    
    public double MEGA_PIXELS = 13;
    public double FLASH_RANGE = 4;
    public int [] SENSITIVITY = { 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600 };
    public double ZOOM = 3;
    
    public boolean zoomLence(int zoomRange);
    
    public void onFlash();
    
    public void offFlash();
    
    public void autoFocus();
    
    public int changeSensitivity(int Sensitivity);
}

Primary.java

package com.interfaces;

public interface Display {
    
    public String TYPE = "CAPACITIVE TOUCHSCREEN, 16M COLORS";
    public double SIZE = 5.0;
    public int[] RESOLUTION = {720 , 1280};
    
    public boolean multiTouch();
    
    public boolean turnOnDisplay();
    
    public boolean turnOffDisplay();
    
}

Display.java

package com.interfaces;

public interface Camera extends Primary, Secondary{
    
    public String FILE_FORMAT = ".jpeg";
    
    public boolean saveFile(String fileName);
    
    public boolean capture();

}

Camera.java

package com.application;

import com.interfaces.Camera;
import com.interfaces.Display;

public class MobilePhone implements Camera, Display{
    
    private String brandName;
    private int year;
    private String price;
    
    @Override
    public boolean zoomLence(int zoomRange){
        return true;
    }
    
    @Override
    public boolean saveFile(String fileName){
        return true;
    }
    
    @Override
    public void onFlash(){
    }
    
    @Override
    public void offFlash(){
    }
    
    @Override
    public int changeSensitivity(int Sensitivity){
        return 0;
    }
    
    @Override
    public boolean turnOnDisplay(){
        return true;
    }
    
    @Override
    public boolean multiTouch(){
        return true;
    }
    
    @Override
    public boolean turnOffDisplay(){
        return true;
    }
    
    @Override
    public boolean capture(){
        return true;
    }
    
    @Override
    public void autoFocus(){
    }    
}

MobilePhone.java

Additionally, JAVA 8 allow to implement method body inside interface, it looks like the evolution of Interface concept. Following example, I explained how to implement a method body in the interface. Using default & static key word we can implement a method body inside an interface scoop. Also override a default method is not a mandatory, but two interfaces, content same name compiler doesn’t identify which method belongs to which interface. So mitigate demanding issues if there any method to contain the same method signature in two different interfaces, overriding is mandatory. But method which are implements using the static key word can’t override in any concern.

 interface Java8Interface {  
   static void playCaptureSound(){  
     System.out.println("Click !!!");  
   }  
   default void formatMemory(){  
     //Do stuff here;  
   }  
 }  

Happy coding,

Regards,

Denuwan Himanaga

String vs. StringBuffer/StringBulider

Hi all,

In this post, I’ll demonstrate how memory behave while string type data involving scenario in our JAVA program. Basically, when we execute JAVA program on our PC, Java mange PCs main memory in its own way. For string type operations are handled through following 3type of memory segments.

• Stack
• Heap
• Pool

String data type is immutable, mean when changes happen to literals particular literals never change, instead of that reference variable pointed to new value. This behavior helps to manage literals which have more than one reference.

When we consider above scenario, step 1 to 4 nameList variable reference to new literals in each step of the loop, at the same time previous values of literals are reaming inside the pool without any references, instead of JAVA garbage collector involving to clear pool, String pool will be full of garbage value.

For mitigate these kind of scenario JAVA 5 introduces StringBuffer & StringBulider both of the classes are not immutable. Let’s see how to implement above code segment using StringBuffer class.

Happy Coding,

Regards,

Denuwan Himanga

Solution for Apache POI Date format Issue

Hi folks,

Today I’m here with some tricky solution, if you are familiar with Apache POI you might be facing this problem before. I’ll explain in fundamental level.

What is Apache POI

POI is the one of the common open source libraries introduced by Apache for interact (Inserting/Deleting/Reading) with applications in MS office package. Using POI library, we can easily create an interconnection with MS office application and our JAVA app.  

But most of the time, Apache POI doesn’t support for large Excel files. Because of that, most of developers are useing another third partition library call Streaming Reader for filtering specified excel sheets from large excel file.  But when we use this library some time reader doesn’t identify the exact cell type in excel file. Most of the time the cells, which we change the cell type as Date, Streaming reader, read this cell without any exception, but then we can notice, it displays a totally different number when we compare with exact value in the Excel cell.

Actually the reality is Streaming reader little bit intelligent than our eye, usually excel assign some formulated value for each date formatted cell for their calculation purpose. So what happens is streaming reader read that value instead of actual displayed value in excel cell.  

The reading value is not a random value, 01/Jan/1900 excel numbering as 01. So using a small conversion method we can easily convert these numbers in to actual date.

Here's the code, or you can simply use Convert Serial To Date library for that conversion process,

[GIT Repository / Library for Convert Excel Serial to date] 

Happy coding,

Regards, 

Denuwan Himanga

Simple JavaScript Timer

Hi folks,

After long time I’m back, I’m really sorry about this two month delay. Because I’m really busy with my new job. By the way, today I’m here to share some simple, but little bit tricky JavaScript activity.

Develop a small JavaScript Timer, It’s a really easy thing. Actually, this may be easier than develop a simple “Hello World!” printing app.

setTimeout

This is the inbuilt method I use to develop this simple timer. Actually, this method gets two values as parameters. First, we need to pass a function name as a first parameter, then we need to pass a time in the millisecond format to mention execution time. In a simple word, setTimeout responsible for executing the passed function after giving time.

Here we go! This is the tricky point I use to build this simple web based timer, when page load I call the onload event to execute the ‘steamer’ function, this function responsible for print hours, minutes, seconds & milliseconds. After that recursively call it again after 1 millisecond its own function again. At that time these numeric values go thought some conditions for increase those values according to corresponding time format.

Additionally, use ‘twoDigitConverter’ function use for converting numeric values into two digit value.

That’s it, is that hard, actually this is what I’m always believe in this field, ‘Software industry depends on concepts & innovation thinking, instead of technology or resources’ isn’t it……..

JavaScript code jegment 

<script> var hour = 0; var minute = 0; var seconds = 0; var milliseconds = 0; function setTimer()  { if(milliseconds == 99) { milliseconds =0 if(seconds == 59) { seconds =0 if(minute == 59) { minute =0 hour++; }else { minute++; } }else { seconds++; } }else { milliseconds++; } document.getElementById('hour').innerHTML = twoDigitConverter(hour); document.getElementById('minute').innerHTML = twoDigitConverter(minute); document.getElementById('seconds').innerHTML = twoDigitConverter(seconds); document.getElementById('milliseconds').innerHTML = milliseconds; setTimeout("setTimer()", 10); } function twoDigitConverter(number) { var numberString = number+''; if(numberString.length == 1) { numberString = '0'+number; } return (numberString); }  </script>

CSS code segment

<style type="text/css"> body,td,th { color: #FFF; } .TimerTheme{ font-family: Segoe UI Light; background-color:#06F; font-size:36px; width:25%; text-align:center; } </style>

HTML code segment

<body onload="setTimer()">
<table width="100%" border="0">
  <tr>
    <td><table width="50%" border="0" align="center">
      <tr>
        <td class="TimerTheme" id="hour" />
        <td class="TimerTheme" id="minute" />
        <td class="TimerTheme" id="seconds" />
        <td class="TimerTheme" id="milliseconds" />
      </tr>
    </table></td>
  </tr>
</table>

</body>

Final Result

[Sample Code/Recourse]

Regards,
Denuwan Himanga.

LINQ (Language Integrated Query)

Hi guys,

The revolution of the computer programming technology rapidly change, Industry leaders such as Microsoft, Adobe try to add some values to their product in each releases. Within large amount of various product Microsoft own “C#” do an incredible revolution change in computer program developing history. They try to build universal language as well as universal IDE instead of different IDEs and different programing languages.   

According to their huge vision, Microsoft introduce Language Integrated Query with their amazing IDE called Visual Studio in 2008. Basically LINQ provide power full language capability to C#. Very simple explanation is, you can use only one programing language instead of SQL, XML etc.

In this demo, I’ll explain how to retrieve a data from SQL data base without using SQL query. LINQ consider table as a class, as well as data tuple as an object. That feature make computer programing technology to an amazing place J. 

Demo (Retrieving data from SQL database to WPF Application)    

Create a windows presentation foundation (WPF) application.

After that drag and drop a ‘list box’ from tool box, then formatted that list box according to our SQL table. In my case, Vehicle table formatted like this.

Using XAML code, we can easily format list box according to our requirement. Following XAML code segment format list box according to Vehicle table.

<ListBox x:Name="vehicleListBox" ItemsSource="{Binding}" Margin="0,40,0,0" >

            <ListBox.ItemTemplate>

                <DataTemplate>

                    <Grid>

                        <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>

                            <ColumnDefinition/>

                            <ColumnDefinition/>

                            <ColumnDefinition/>

                        </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>

                        <TextBlock Text="{Binding Vehicle_Name}" Grid.Column="0" Width="150"  FontSize="18" />

                        <TextBlock Text="{Binding Vehicle_Price}" Grid.Column="1" Width="150" FontSize="18"/>

                        <Image Source="{Binding Vehicle_Image}" Grid.Column="2" Width="150"/>

                    </Grid>

                </DataTemplate>

            </ListBox.ItemTemplate>

</ListBox>

Now we need to build a connection between SQL server and application, traditionally connection string responsibility for do this part. But in LINQ, add a .dbml Data classes and call when we need.

Add a .dbml data class to the project.

Add tables on to design surface.

After that, need to create a data classes data context object inside the application.

DataClasses1DataContext DB = new DataClasses1DataContext();

Finally we can easily call a values into special data type call ‘var’, this data type formatted according to values, which is assign to the variable. 

var result = from dt in DB.Vehicles
                         select dt;

vehicleListBox.ItemsSource = result.ToList<Vehicle>();

  
Source code/Project Repo.

Happy coding....

Best regards,
Denuwan Himanga.