node.js + ALM + REST API = Awesome

Everyday you see people (or yourself) doing some mundane task and you wonder how can you help them automate that process. So this article highlights something I did a few months back to help a friend who used to spend considerable amount of time fetching data from ALM (Earlier know as QC) formatting it and putting in some other database.

I always wanted to use node.js in something useful, so I decided to set up a server to get data from ALM server and push it to other database. Until this point I had no idea if ALM had exposed any API’s. Luckily they had opened up access to ALM 11.00 and higher version via their REST API. I wanted everything on server side and there was no UI involved.

So I was able to come up with a small script which authenticates the user into ALM and then get all the defect related to a release. I have provided the comments where ever necessary in the below code. I am still a noob in node.js so please excuse me if I have made any mistake

var https = require('https'),
	fs = require('fs'),
	config = JSON.parse(fs.readFileSync('config.json'));//this refers to a file where I have all my config like host, userName, password Etc

//this is added to avoid the TLS error. Uncomment if you get a TLS error while authenticating.
//process.env['NODE_TLS_REJECT_UNAUTHORIZED'] = '0';

//set the correct options for the call.
var options = {
	host : config.host, 
	path : "/qcbin/authentication-point/authenticate",
	method: "GET",
	headers : {'Authorization': 'Basic '+new Buffer(config.alm_userName + ':' + config.alm_password).toString('base64')}
	};
	//authenticating the user into ALM
	ALMConnect(options, 'header','', function(status, data){
		if(status){
			//get the LWSSO_Cookie from the header. This is the session cookie which will be used in all callouts to ALM.
			if(data.headers["set-cookie"] != undefined ) {
				extractDefects(data.headers["set-cookie"]);
			}else{
				console.log('Dagnabbit!! ERROR:  Unable to login, check your username/password/serverURL.');
			}
		}else{
			console.log('Dagnabbit!! ERROR:  ' + JSON.stringify(data));
		}
	});

//Function to extract the defects for analysis.
function extractDefects(LWSSO_Cookie){
	var queryParam = "{";
	//add Release
	queryParam += "detected-in-rel["+config.release+"];";
	//add all your request parameters here. Its a little complicated initially, but you will get a hang of it. 
	// Make sure to use encodeURIComponents() for all the values in the query parameters.
	queryParam+="}";
	//get all the fields that you want to query. Lesser the fields smaller the XML returned, faster is the call.
	var fields = config.defectFieldMapping.fieldArray.join(',');
	var opt = {
		host: config.host,
		path: "/qcbin/rest/domains/"+config.domain+"/projects/"+config.project+"/defects?query="+queryParam+"&fields="+fields+"&page-size=max",
		method:"GET",
		headers: {"Cookie":LWSSO_Cookie}
	};

	ALMConnect(opt, 'data','',function(status,data){
		if(status){
                        //write the defects to an XML file in local drive.
			fs.writeFileSync('newDefect.xml',data);
			//once you get the defectXML you can parse it into JSON and push it other databases like SFDC etc..		
		}else{
			console.log('Dagnabbit!! ERROR:  ' + JSON.stringify(data));
		}
	});
}

function ALMConnect(opt, responseType,requestBody, callback){

	var request = https.request(opt, function(res){
		res.setEncoding('utf8');
		var XMLoutput='';
		res.on('data',function(chunk){
			XMLoutput+=chunk;
		});
		res.on('end',function(){
			if(responseType=='data'){
				callback(true,XMLoutput);
			}else {
				callback(true, res);
			}
		});
	});
	request.on('error',function(e){
		callback(false,e);
	});
	if(opt.method=='POST' || opt.method == 'PUT'){
		request.write(requestBody);
	}
	request.end();
}