topic Re: How to receive and process XML data in a ThingWorx service (via external SAP API call)? in ThingWorx Developers

How to receive and process XML data in a ThingWorx service (via external SAP API call)?

MA8731174 — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 12:50:46 GMT

Hi everyone,

I’m working on a use case where our SAP team wants to send data to ThingWorx via an HTTP API call. They will post the data as XML, and ThingWorx should receive it in a service, parse it, and store the information in a DataTable or Dataset.

However, I’m not sure how to receive the XML payload properly inside a ThingWorx service. When SAP calls my service endpoint, I don’t see any way to directly access the raw XML content — it’s either not recognized or comes as an empty input parameter.

What’s the correct approach to handle this in ThingWorx?

Specifically:

How can I receive XML from an external system in a ThingWorx service?

Do I need to configure a specific Content-Type header (like application/xml)?

If anyone has done SAP → ThingWorx integration with XML payloads, I’d really appreciate an example or best-practice recommendation.

Thanks in advance!

Re: How to receive and process XML data in a ThingWorx service (via external SAP API call)?

MA8731174 — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 12:54:32 GMT

We solved it by setting the Content-Type to text/xml and accept text/xmland creating a ThingWorx service with an input parameter content of type XML.

In the REST API call, I added the flag ?postParameter=content — and now the XML payload from SAP is correctly received inside the service.

Re: How to receive and process XML data in a ThingWorx service (via external SAP API call)?

MA8731174 — Thu, 27 Nov 2025 08:48:54 GMT

I am facing another issue now while processing the XML payload received from SAP. There are several tags (around 4–5) that contain the % character. When these tags include the % sign, the request fails with an “unable to parse XML request” error.

I am already sending the correct headers:

Accept: text/xml
Content-Type: text/xml

If the % character is removed from the payload, the request is processed successfully and I receive the expected XML response.

Could anyone please advise how we should handle or encode the % character in the XML so that the request can be parsed correctly?

Re: How to receive and process XML data in a ThingWorx service (via external SAP API call)?

Rocko — Thu, 27 Nov 2025 12:24:02 GMT

Tagnames in XML can't contain the % character per definition. That problem should be solved at the source, not the destination.

Re: How to receive and process XML data in a ThingWorx service (via external SAP API call)?

MA8731174 — Thu, 27 Nov 2025 12:30:01 GMT

I did not find that % sign should not be in the XML. I have seen that operator like & must not be in the xml in the specifications of the XML. Would you please let me know more about it?

So you meant that i should inform SAP team that not to send me % sign in the XML?

Re: How to receive and process XML data in a ThingWorx service (via external SAP API call)?

Rocko — Thu, 27 Nov 2025 12:34:14 GMT

You wrote about tags containing "%". Like <AA%AA></AA%AA> This is not allowed.

% in the payload is allowed.

Re: How to receive and process XML data in a ThingWorx service (via external SAP API call)?

MA8731174 — Thu, 27 Nov 2025 12:37:27 GMT

its in payload actually. then what can be the solution to this issue?

Re: How to receive and process XML data in a ThingWorx service (via external SAP API call)?

MA8731174 — Thu, 27 Nov 2025 12:44:05 GMT

One of the example from my XML --> <Tagging>%</Tagging>

Re: How to receive and process XML data in a ThingWorx service (via external SAP API call)?

Rocko — Thu, 27 Nov 2025 12:51:09 GMT

Hard to say. You could dig into finding out where the % gets removed, you could try to introduce encoding or check if the encoding is correct (UTF-8?).

You could also try to switch from text/xml to text/plain and transform/parse the XML yourself.

Re: How to receive and process XML data in a ThingWorx service (via external SAP API call)?

Constantine — Thu, 27 Nov 2025 15:09:37 GMT

% is an XML entity, try encoding it as &percnt; on SAP side.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_XML_and_HTML_character_entity_references

Re: How to receive and process XML data in a ThingWorx service (via external SAP API call)?

MA8731174 — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 10:10:01 GMT

403 forbidden error when i try to use text/plain only without UTF-8.

and with UTF-8 text/xml is also error unable to parse xml request.

with UTF-8 text/plain 403 forbidden.

Re: How to receive and process XML data in a ThingWorx service (via external SAP API call)?

MA8731174 — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 10:14:30 GMT

With CDATA it works as below

![CDATA[&percnt;]]

but if i write &percnt in a tag then error as below

406 not acceptable

I ll contact SAP team about it Thank you!

Re: How to receive and process XML data in a ThingWorx service (via external SAP API call)?

Rocko — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 10:54:28 GMT

Maybe also check you are not running into the ESAPI validation issue as earlier. https://support.ptc.com/help/thingworx/platform/r10.0/en/#page/ThingWorx/Help/Installation/ConfiguringESAPIValidatorSettings.html

Re: How to receive and process XML data in a ThingWorx service (via external SAP API call)?

PEHOWE — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 20:29:48 GMT

Hello @MA8731174 ,
The basic issue you have encountered. The Percent Character (ie %), is allowed in the data of the XML. The issue with passing the XML data in a URL. The allowed characters in the URL does not allow the "%" character. The data needs to be encoded so that it can be passed. The change for the % character is to replace with "&percent;". If you are receiving the data from an SAP Rest API it should be encoded. The receiving service will need to undo the encoding to get the original XML.

Does this help?

Regards,

Pehowe

Re: How to receive and process XML data in a ThingWorx service (via external SAP API call)?

MA8731174 — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 08:58:25 GMT

Hi Pehowe,

thank you for the explanation.
In my case, the XML is actually being sent in the body of the API request, not in the URL.
So I just wanted to clarify that the “%” character is only part of the XML content inside the request body.

Does the same encoding rule still apply when the XML is not passed through the URL?

Re: How to receive and process XML data in a ThingWorx service (via external SAP API call)?

MA8731174 — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 09:57:12 GMT

I have tested it with like <tage>%20></tage> as 20 is an ASCII for percentage sign and now the url works..

now the question is like SAP team do not want to do encoding for me and i have to handle this on my own. where i can prepare the xml data first because on thingworx its not possible to prepare the xml first and then get it. i am thinking to make a preparation of xml data from another server in a company and then send to thingworx but i am still not sure that should i request again to SAP team for it... please give me your opinion on this matter

Re: How to receive and process XML data in a ThingWorx service (via external SAP API call)?

PEHOWE — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 17:07:25 GMT

Hello @MA8731174 ,

I did a little research, I believe this is the answer you are looking for when using POSTMAN.

Pleases review "Send parameters and body data with API requests in Postman"

Let me know if it answers your questions

Regards,

Pehowe

Re: How to receive and process XML data in a ThingWorx service (via external SAP API call)?

MA8731174 — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 06:02:22 GMT

Hello @PEHOWE,

thank you for your response and for checking this.
I just wanted to clarify that in my case the issue is not related to the URL parameters or URI encoding.

The actual problem occurs in the request body.

When I manually encode the body content (e.g., using EncodeURIComponent), the request works correctly and percentage characters (%) are preserved as expected.

However, when I send the body without encoding, Postman throws a parsing error.

So the behavior is not about URL encoding, but how Postman handles raw body content when certain special characters are included.

The postParameter = content at the end of the URL is fine — the real challenge is ensuring the body is interpreted correctly.

Just wanted to clarify this difference for the context of my issue. It seems like a thingworx error.

Regards,

Re: How to receive and process XML data in a ThingWorx service (via external SAP API call)?

PEHOWE — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 13:34:24 GMT

Hello @MA8731174 ,

If you have a test case which shows this issue, I would be happy to get it reviewed.
It is important to have the version numbers of the application to allow validation of the issue and testing of a workaround or resolution.

ThingWorx Version
POSTMAN Version
Server Type and Version (Linux , Windows)
If you can provide the POSTMAN configuration and any customization needed on ThingWorx side I will get the issue reviewed.

Regards,

Pehowe

Re: How to receive and process XML data in a ThingWorx service (via external SAP API call)?

MA8731174 — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 07:15:16 GMT

hello @PEHOWE

Thingworx version 9.3.7

Postman 11.75.1

server type-> windows

Please create a service on thingworx and choose output as xml and input param for me i call it content is also of xml type.

result = content

after that you can give a xml in service and u get output same as xml what u give in input. then you can use that service as api in post and give it content of xml and use percentage sign in it and you will not get output... please dont forget to use postParameter=content in the end of the link otherwise it does not take xml.

please test it ... i am excited to see results as i have already talked with one ptc guy and he has tried it for an hour but still could not get this error resolved...