# Data Forms

Data Forms

Allows to exchange structured data between users and applications for common tasks such as registration and searching using Forms.

- Create a Form to fill out
- Answer a Form

JEP related: JEP-4

Create a Form to fill out

Description

An XMPP entity may need to gather data from another XMPP entity. Therefore, the data-gathering entity will need to create a new Form, specify the fields that will conform the Form and finally send the Form to the data-providing entity.

Usage

In order to create a Form to fill out use the Form's constructor passing the constant Form.TYPE_FORM as the parameter. The next step is to create the form fields and add them to the form. In order to create and customize a FormField use the FormField's constructor specifying the variable name of the field as the parameter. Then use setType(String type) to set the field's type (e.g. FormField.TYPE_HIDDEN, FormField.TYPE_TEXT_SINGLE). Once we have the Form instance and the FormFields the last step is to send addField(FormField field) for each field that we want to add to the form.

Once the form to fill out is finished we will want to send it in a message. Send getDataFormToSend() to the form and add the answer as an extension to the message to send.

Examples

In this example we can see how to create and send a form to fill out:

>           // Create a new form to gather data
>             Form formToSend = new Form(Form.TYPE_FORM);
>             formToSend.setInstructions(
>                 "Fill out this form to report your case.\nThe case will be created automatically.");
>             formToSend.setTitle("Case configurations");
>             // Add a hidden variable to the form
>             FormField field = new FormField("hidden_var");
>             field.setType(FormField.TYPE_HIDDEN);
>             field.addValue("Some value for the hidden variable");
>             formToSend.addField(field);
>             // Add a fixed variable to the form
>             field = new FormField();
>             field.addValue("Section 1: Case description");
>             formToSend.addField(field);
>             // Add a text-single variable to the form
>             field = new FormField("name");
>             field.setLabel("Enter a name for the case");
>             field.setType(FormField.TYPE_TEXT_SINGLE);
>             formToSend.addField(field);
>             // Add a text-multi variable to the form
>             field = new FormField("description");
>             field.setLabel("Enter a description");
>             field.setType(FormField.TYPE_TEXT_MULTI);
>             formToSend.addField(field);

>             // Create a chat with "user2@host.com"
>             Chat chat = conn1.createChat("user2@host.com" );

>             Message msg = chat.createMessage();
>             msg.setBody("To enter a case please fill out this form and send it back to me");
>             // Add the form to fill out to the message to send
>             msg.addExtension(formToSend.getDataFormToSend());

>             // Send the message with the form to fill out
>             chat.sendMessage(msg);

Answer a Form

Description

Under many situations an XMPP entity could receive a form to fill out. For example, some hosts may require to fill out a form in order to register new users. Smack lets the data-providing entity to complete the form in an easy way and send it back to the data-gathering entity.

Usage

The form to fill out contains useful information that could be used for rendering the form. But it cannot be used to actually complete it. Instead it's necessary to create a new form based on the original form whose purpose is to hold all the answers.

In order to create a new Form to complete based on the original Form just send createAnswerForm() to the original Form. Once you have a valid form that could be actually completed all you have to do is send setAnswer(String variable, String value) to the form where variable is the variable of the FormField that you want to answer and value is the String representation of the answer. If the answer consist of several values you could then use setAnswer(String variable, List values) where values is a List of Strings.

Once the form has been completed we will want to send it back in a message. Send getDataFormToSend() to the form and add the answer as an extension to the message to send back.

Examples

In this example we can see how to retrieve a form to fill out, complete the form and send it back:

>           // Get the message with the form to fill out
>             Message msg2 = chat2.nextMessage();
>             // Retrieve the form to fill out from the message
>             Form formToRespond = Form.getFormFrom(msg2);
>             // Obtain the form to send with the replies
>             Form completedForm = formToRespond.createAnswerForm();
>             // Add the answers to the form
>             completedForm.setAnswer("name", "Credit card number invalid");
>             completedForm.setAnswer(
>                 "description",
>                 "The ATM says that my credit card number is invalid. What's going on?");

>             msg2 = chat2.createMessage();
>             msg2.setBody("To enter a case please fill out this form and send it back to me");
>             // Add the completed form to the message to send back
>             msg2.addExtension(completedForm.getDataFormToSend());
>             // Send the message with the completed form
>             chat2.sendMessage(msg2);