topic Re: SAS and Twilio SMS API in SAS Users Group in Israel

SAS and Twilio SMS API

Assaf_Attas — Tue, 06 Jul 2021 13:56:01 GMT

hi friends,

does anyone has any experience with Twilio or any other kind of SMS API's ?

i'm trying to figure how to pass a "new line" to the api

already tried \n and '0A'x ... it just pass then as plain text and not as special characters

proc http 
	method=POST
	url="&url"
	in = form 	(
				"From" 	="&from"
				"To" 	="&to"
				"Body" 	="&sms_body"
				)
	out=rrespons
	headerout=hdrout
	WEBUSERNAME="&sid_account"
	WEBpassword="&token"
	auth_basic
	;
	DEBUG LEVEL=3 REQUEST_BODY REQUEST_HEADERS;
	
run;

Re: SAS and Twilio SMS API

Hagay — Tue, 06 Jul 2021 14:12:53 GMT

Hello Assaf,

didn't work with Twilio myself but according to this:

https://support.twilio.com/hc/en-us/articles/223181468-How-do-I-Add-a-Line-Break-in-my-SMS-or-MMS-Message-

you need to add a $ sign to the beginning of the message to have your special characters to work.

Hagay

Re: SAS and Twilio SMS API

Assaf_Attas — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 04:21:50 GMT

hi hagay,

using $ sign is for cUrl..

i guess i'm looking for the sas equivalent for protecting special characters in proc http

Re: SAS and Twilio SMS API

EyalGonen — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 07:17:43 GMT

Hi @Assaf_Attas

See if any of the links below help:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3871729/transmitting-newline-character-n

https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Procedures/proc-http-passing-url-parameters-which-have-special-characters/td-p/489133

Eyal

Re: SAS and Twilio SMS API

Assaf_Attas — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 07:49:47 GMT

I think i found the solution..

the problem was that sas tries to url encode the already url encoded character.

the solution is to selectively pre urlencode

data _null_;
	length msg_txt $ 256;
	msg_txt = urlencode("Go to") || '%0A' || urlencode("New Line");

	/* or even shorter ...*/
	msg_txt = urlencode("Go to" || byte(10) || "New Line");

	call symput('msg_txt', msg_txt);
run;
%put &msg_txt;

combined with using the proc http NOENCODE option

proc http 
	method=POST
	url="&url"
	in = form 	(
				"From" 	="&from"
				"To" 	="&to"
				noencode "Body" 	="&msg_txt"
				)

	;
run;

@EyalGonen

@Hagay