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Backendless and Corona: Using API for Adding Users

by on June 16, 2014

This post will go over the basics of integrating Backendless services into the Corona framework…

First, create your Backendless account and obtain the “application-id” and “secret key”. Keep those handy, you’ll be using them throughout these tutorials.

At present, there is not a proper, Corona-specific API plugin so we’ll be using the REST API for Backendless. A handy link can be found here for the REST documentation.

Managing users in the Backendless

I originally was excited about Backendless for user management. I was excited at the prospect of NOT having to “roll my own”. I was pleased to see that they provided a great and simple, yet flexible user management system. Let’s not waste any time, let’s cover the basics here first and then, let’s REALLY play with the easy customization aspects!

json = require ("json")
-- Create a table to hold our headers we'll be passing to
-- backendless. This is how Backendless
local headers = {}
headers["application-id"] = "ENTER YOUR INFO HERE"
headers["secret-key"] = "ENTER YOUR INFO HERE"
headers["Content-Type"] = "application/json"
headers["application-type"] = "REST"
-- This is a "yes" press
-- OK, well write to the file and update it with the user's name
-- Create a table to put our data into
local tempTable = {}
-- Populate our table with some data...you'll need to change the usernames
-- if you plan on testing it multiple times, of course. Check on your backendless
-- dashboard and find the user table:
tempTable.username = "fowler"
tempTable.email = "amyfarrahfowler@bigbangtheory.com"
tempTable.password = "whooooo"
-- Encode the table into the expectes JSON...
local jsonData = json.encode(tempTable)
-- Debug output for your console window...
print("JSON is "..jsonData)
-- Event handler for our network.request webcall
local function RetrieveUserData( event )
    if ( event.isError ) then
        myText.text = "Network error!"
    else
        print("Response "..event.response)
        local response = json.decode(event.response)
        print("Total users "..response.totalObjects)
    end
end
-- Now, we'll combine both our headers and the body into the single table "params"
-- and send this off to Backendless!
local params = {}
params.headers = headers
params.body = jsonData
-- To create a user using the JSON encoded info we defined above in the 'params' table
network.request( "https://api.backendless.com/v1/users/register", "POST", RetrieveUserData, params)

If you replace headers[“application-id”] and headers[“secret-key”] with your own data, and run the above code, it should create a new user with the above info. Here’s what the console should come back with something similar to this:

JSON is {"username":"fowler","password":"whooooo","email":"amyfarrahfowler@bigba
ngtheory.com"}
Response {"username":"fowler","updated":null,"created":"06/10/2014 22:57:14 GMT+
0000","email":"amyfarrahfowler@bigbangtheory.com","ownerId":null,"objectId":"BC9
F50E0-6D6B-AC54-FFAD-8B30BAE50C00"}

Yours will differ of course with the unique GUID assigned to your “objectId” and the date/time.

Now, go to your Backendless dashboard, and select the data icon and select “users” and you should see the user info listed there. Refresh if it doesn’t appear right away:

It’s that simple. You’ve just created a user programmatically using Backendless!

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