[ruby] Why does StoreRequest of OpenID Attribute Exchange (AX) attract our heart? (and DEMO of AX StoreRequest with ruby-openid)

AX StoreRequest message is defined in OpenID Attribute Exchange 1.0. It can store personal identity information to the OpenID Provider from RP. It's exciting specification because we use many services on WWW, and input variety of many personal identity in sites. We can aggregate our personal identity automatically with AX StoreRequest message! Additionally, updated personal identity is synced AX's update_uri property across the all services!

Demo that sent AX StoreRequest message, and dispatch AX StoreResponse message with ruby-openid as follows.

At first, we need to extend ruby-openid to handle AX StoreRequest and StoreResponse usefully.
openid_ax_ext.rb

require 'rubygems'
require 'openid/extension'
require 'openid/message'

module OpenID
  module AX
    class StoreRequest
      # Extract a StoreRequest from an OpenID message
      def self.from_openid_request(oid_req)
        message = oid_req.message 
        ax_args = message.get_args(NS_URI)
        return nil if ax_args.empty?
        req = new
        req.parse_extension_args(ax_args)
        req
      end
    end

    class StoreResponse
      def self.from_success_response(success_response)
        resp = nil
        ax_args = success_response.message.get_args(NS_URI)
        resp = ax_args.key?('error') ? new(false, ax_args['error']) : new
      end
    end
  end
end

app/controller/consumer_controller.rb

# in ConsumerController#start
# AX StoreRequest message
if params[:use_ax_store]
  ax_store_req = OpenID::AX::StoreRequest.new
  ax_store_req.set_values('http://axschema.org/contact/email', %w(rakuto@example.com rakuto@example2.com))
  ax_store_req.set_values('http://axschema.org/birthDate', %w(1985-03-12))
  ax_store_req.set_values('http://axschema.org/contact/IM/Skype', %w(rfurutani))
  oidreq.add_extension(ax_store_req)
  oidreq.return_to_args['did_ax_store'] = 'y'
end

Next, OP handles the request included StoreRequest message.
app/controller/server_controller.rb

# in ServerController#start
# Check the AX StoreRequest
@ax_store_req = OpenID::AX::StoreRequest.from_openid_request(oidreq)

And OP must save personal identity sent from RP.

# Extract Personal Identity from request and save it.
# Check the StoreaRequest for AX
ax_store_resp = nil
ax_store_req = OpenID::AX::StoreRequest.from_openid_request(oidreq)
if ax_store_req
 begin
   # I think all user's attribute should be saved, but table structure of RDBMS VERY statically.
   # So we need to respond StoreResponse mode is 'store_response_failure'.
   # In a nut shell, we may use XMLDB by now!
   ax_store_req.data.each do |type_uri, values|
     case type_uri
     when 'http://axschema.org/email'
       # XXX: This is dummy
       user.emails.concat(values)
     when 'http://axschema.org/birthDate'
       # XXX: This is dummy
       user.birth_date = Date.parse(values.first)
     when 'http://axschema.org/contact/IM/Skype'
       # XXX: This is dummy
       # Just one
       user.skype_id = values.first
     else
       ax_store_resp = OpenID::AX::StoreResponse.new(false, "#{type_uri} isn't supported Type URI in this service.")
     end
   end
   user.save
 rescue Error => e
   ax_store_resp = OpenID::AX::StoreResponse.new(false, e.message)
 end
end
oidresp.add_extension(ax_store_resp || OpenID::AX::StoreResponse.new)

This is the sample view for AX StoreRequest added the checkbox enable it.

<% if flash[:ax_store_results] %>
  <div class='error'>
    <%= flash[:ax_store_results] %>
  </div>
<% elsif params[:did_ax_store] -%>
  <div class='alert'>
     Your Personal identity has saved.
  </div>
<% end %>
<div id="verify-form">
<form method="get" accept-charset="UTF-8" 
        action='<%= url_for :action => 'start' %>'>
Identifier:
  <input type="text" class="openid" name="openid_identifier" />
  <input type="submit" value="Verify" /><br />
  <input type="checkbox" name="immediate" id="immediate" /><label for="immediate">Use immediate mode</label><br/>
  <input type="checkbox" name="use_sreg" id="use_sreg" /><label  for="use_sreg">Request registration data</label><br/>
  <input type="checkbox" name="use_pape" id="use_pape" /><label for="use_pape">Request phishing-resistent auth policy (PAPE)</label><br/>
  <input type="checkbox" name="force_post" id="force_post" /><label for="force_post">Force the transaction to use POST by adding 2K of extra d
ata</label><br/>
  <input type="checkbox" name="use_ax" id="use_ax" /><label for="use_ax">Request registration data with AX</label><br/>
  <input type="checkbox" name="use_ax_store" id="use_ax_store" /><label for="use_ax_store">Request store attributes with AX</label>
</form>
</div>

Confirmation of stored personal identities.
app/views/server/decide.rhtml

<% # XXX: Part of axschema  -%>
<% axschema_map = {
  'http://axschema.org/birthDate' => 'Birthdate',
  'http://axschema.org/contact/email' => 'Email',
  'http://axschema.org/contact/IM/Skype' => 'Skype'
} -%>
<% # Is StoreRequest included in request? -%>
<% if @store_req -%>
<div class="attention">
  <p>And do you accept following data sent from RP?</p>
  <dl>
  <% @store_req.data.each do |k,v| -%>
  <dt><%= axschema_map[k] -%>:</dt>
  <dd><%= h v.join(', ') -%></dd>
  <% end -%>
  </dl>
</div>
<% end -%>

Finally, request is coming back to RP, so We need to handle success response.
app/controllers/consumer_controller.rb

# in ConsumerController#complete
# for AX store
if params[:did_ax_store]
ax_store_resp = OpenID::AX::StoreResponse.from_success_response(oidresp)
flash[:ax_store_results] = ax_store_resp.error_message unless ax_store_resp.succeeded?
end

Screenshot
These screenshot are capture output of above code.


Confirmation of stored personal identities.


Conclusion
This future is pretty interesting, but it isn't suppoted even myOpenID now. In the future, I think many OP supports AX StoreRequest. I wish!