My updated The Things Industries(TTI) connector will use a number of Azure Functions to process Application Integration webhooks (with HTTP Triggers ) and Azure Storage Queue messages(with Output Bindings & QueueTriggers ).
On a couple of customer projects we had been updating Azure Functions from .NET 4.X to .NET Core 3.1 , and most recently .NET Core 5 . This process has been surprisingly painful so I decided to build a series of small proof of concept (PoC) projects to explore the problem.
Visual Studio Azure Function Trigger type selector I started with the Visual Studio 2019 Azure Function template and created a plain HTTPTrigger .
public static class Function1
{
[Function("Function1")]
public static HttpResponseData Run([HttpTrigger(AuthorizationLevel.Function, "get", "post")] HttpRequestData req,
FunctionContext executionContext)
{
var logger = executionContext.GetLogger("Function1");
logger.LogInformation("C# HTTP trigger function processed a request.");
var response = req.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK);
response.Headers.Add("Content-Type", "text/plain; charset=utf-8");
response.WriteString("Welcome to Azure Functions!");
return response;
}
}
I changed the AuthorizationLevel to Anonymous to make testing in Azure with Telerik Fiddler easier
public static class Function1
{
[Function("PlainAsync")]
public static async Task<IActionResult> Run([HttpTrigger(AuthorizationLevel.Anonymous, "get", "post", Route = null)] HttpRequestData request, FunctionContext executionContext)
{
var logger = executionContext.GetLogger("UplinkMessage");
logger.LogInformation("C# HTTP trigger function processed a request.");
var response = request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK);
response.Headers.Add("Content-Type", "text/plain; charset=utf-8");
response.WriteString("Welcome to Azure Functions!");
return new OkResult();
}
}
With not a lot of work I had an Azure Function I could run in the Visual Studio debugger
Azure Functions Debug Diagnostic Output I could invoke the function using the endpoint displayed as debugging environment started.
Telerik Fiddler Composer invoking Azure Function running locally I then added more projects to explore asynchronicity, and output bindings
Azure Functions Solution PoC Projects After a bit of “trial and error” I had an HTTPTrigger Function that inserted a message containing the payload of an HTTP POST into an Azure Storage Queue.
[StorageAccount("AzureWebJobsStorage")]
public static class Function1
{
[Function("Uplink")]
public static async Task<HttpTriggerUplinkOutputBindingType> Uplink([HttpTrigger(AuthorizationLevel.Function, "post")] HttpRequestData req, FunctionContext context)
{
var logger = context.GetLogger("UplinkMessage");
logger.LogInformation("Uplink processed");
var response = req.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK);
return new HttpTriggerUplinkOutputBindingType()
{
Name = await req.ReadAsStringAsync(),
HttpReponse = response
};
}
public class HttpTriggerUplinkOutputBindingType
{
[QueueOutput("uplink")]
public string Name { get; set; }
public HttpResponseData HttpReponse { get; set; }
}
}
The key was Multiple Output Bindings so the function could return a result for both the HttpResponseData and Azure Storage Queue operations
Azure Functions Debug Diagnostic Output After getting the function running locally I deployed it to a Function App running in an App Service plan
Azure HTTP Trigger function Host Key configuration Using the Azure Portal I configured an x-functions-ke y which I could use in Telerik Fiddler
After fixing an accidental truncation of the x-functions-key a message with the body of the POST was created in the Azure Storage Queu e.
Azure Storage Queue Message containing HTTP Post Payload
The aim of this series of PoCs was to have an Azure function that securely (x-functions-key ) processed an Hyper Text Transfer Protocol(HTTP ) POST with an HTTPTrigger and inserted a message containing the payload into an Azure Storage Queue using an OutputBinding .
Use the contents of this blog post with care as it may not age well.
