This post was originally published here

Another common task for us developers inside Azure Integration Services, especially inside Logic Apps, is manually creating a JSON message, either inside a Parse JSON action, Compose action, or directly in the connectors (or any other way), but there is a catch…

If you work in the Azure Portal and create an invalid JSON message inside an action or connector, the editor will not allow you to save the Logic App. Instead, it will give you an error saying that the definition contains invalid parameters.

However, if you are creating the same Logic App Consumption inside Visual Studio:

We can successfully validate this Logic App:

And we can actually successfully deploy this Logic App:

And that will become a problem once we run our Logic App. For this reason, it is always good for you to guarantee that the JSON message is well formatted before you deploy your business processes.

And yes, I know many only tools exist to perform this task, so why a Windows tool? Again, for the same reasons I described in my previous tools: security and privacy

I’m starting to become a freak in terms of security. Nothing is free, and the problem with these online tools is that we never know behind the scenes what they are doing. Are you sure that they are not keeping logs of the inputs we provide and the result outputs? And don’t say, but Sandro, this is just a simple message. Well, many messages have sensitive (private) information from users or companies that sometimes you are not aware of, so it is better to play safe than sorry. It is wise to be careful now so that problems do not occur later on and protect yourself against risk rather than be careless.

JSON Validator Tool

JSON Validator Tool is a lightweight Windows tool that allows you to validate and reformat a JSON message.

To not raise the same suspicions about this tool, the source code is available on GitHub!

Download

Hope you find this useful! So, if you liked the content or found it useful and want to help me write more content, you can buy (or help buy) my son a Star Wars Lego! 

Credits

  • Diogo Formosinho | Member of my team and one of the persons responsible for developing this tool.
Author: Sandro Pereira

Sandro Pereira lives in Portugal and works as a consultant at DevScope. In the past years, he has been working on implementing Integration scenarios both on-premises and cloud for various clients, each with different scenarios from a technical point of view, size, and criticality, using Microsoft Azure, Microsoft BizTalk Server and different technologies like AS2, EDI, RosettaNet, SAP, TIBCO etc.

He is a regular blogger, international speaker, and technical reviewer of several BizTalk books all focused on Integration. He is also the author of the book “BizTalk Mapping Patterns & Best Practices”. He has been awarded MVP since 2011 for his contributions to the integration community.
View all posts by Sandro Pereira