Run a script to parse and build xml before and after a request

[rmclaughlin-nelnet]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
I am currently building an integration with a SOAP XML service. It uses a cumbersone authentication process that I would like to automate with request chaining, but I need to be able to run a script in between each request, and preferably before the first request to parse the response.

The initial request requires values to be passed in, but the HTML entities must be encoded, because this is terrible for a human to read it would be nice to run a script before the request that encodes the HTML

This is what I am currently doing in postman before the first request to build the xml

const encodeHTML = str => str.replace(/[&<>]/g, 
  tag => ({
      '&': '&amp;',
      '<': '&lt;',
      '>': '&gt;',
    }[tag]));

const xmlRequest = `<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>
<DirectSSORequest MessageDateTime="2020-05-04T14:25:00.1255732-07:00" TrackingId="157d2a2b-ec68-443e-a819-6caa7e9725e1">
  <DeviceId>FULL</DeviceId>
  <UserId>${pm.collectionVariables.get("UserId")}</UserId>
  <Password>${pm.collectionVariables.get("Password")}</Password>
  <ProdEnvCd>${pm.collectionVariables.get("ProdEnvCd")}</ProdEnvCd>
  <ProdDefCd>${pm.collectionVariables.get("ProdDefCd")}</ProdDefCd>
</DirectSSORequest>`;

pm.collectionVariables.set("DirectSSORequest", encodeHTML(xmlRequest));

Then when I get the response I parse the XML like this. Maybe this can be done with request chaining? I don't think I can because the XML I need is inside a string, that is why I do xml2JSON

const jsonData = xml2Json(pm.response.text());
const directSignonResult = jsonData["soap:Envelope"]["soap:Body"].DirectSignonResponse.DirectSignonResult;
const directSignonResultJson = xml2Json(directSignonResult);
pm.collectionVariables.set("SSOTicket", directSignonResultJson.DirectSSOResponse.SSOTicket);

and before I send the next request I have to encode the HTML entities again

const SSOTicket = pm.collectionVariables.get("SSOTicket");

const encodeHTML = str => str.replace(/[&<>]/g, 
  tag => ({
      '&': '&amp;',
      '<': '&lt;',
      '>': '&gt;',
    }[tag]));

const xmlRequest = `<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>
<WhoIsRequest MessageDateTime="2020-05-04T14:25:00.7827713-07:00" TrackingId="cf8368ef-dcee-47ba-a40c-11053df17504" SSOTicket="{{SSOTicket}}">
  <LookupSSOTicket>{{SSOTicket}}</LookupSSOTicket>
</WhoIsRequest>`;

pm.collectionVariables.set("WhoIsRequest", encodeHTML(xmlRequest));

Last I build two authenticated objects (one for xml, one for json) for all the other requests

const encodeHTML = str => str.replace(/[&<>]/g, 
  tag => ({
      '&': '&amp;',
      '<': '&lt;',
      '>': '&gt;',
    }[tag]));

const jsonData = xml2Json(pm.response.text());
const whoIsResult = jsonData["soap:Envelope"]["soap:Body"].WhoIsResponse.WhoIsResult;
const whoIsXml = encodeHTML(whoIsResult);

const userAuthenticationXml = `
<UserAuthentication>
    <AccessTypeCode i:nil="true" />
    <AgreementTypeCode i:nil="true" />
    <ApplID>${pm.collectionVariables.get('ApplID')}</ApplID>
    <ApplNumber>0</ApplNumber>
    <AuthorizationType>SingleSignOn</AuthorizationType>
    <CashBoxNumber i:nil="true" />
    <CustomerAccessNumber i:nil="true" />
    <EffectiveDate i:nil="true" />
    <LocationOrgNumber i:nil="true" />
    <NetworkNodeName>${pm.collectionVariables.get('NetworkNodeName')}</NetworkNodeName>
    <PIN i:nil="true" />
    <Password>${whoIsXml}</Password>
    <PhysicalAddress i:nil="true" />
    <PostDate i:nil="true" />
    <UsageCode i:nil="true" />
    <UserId i:nil="true" />
</UserAuthentication>`;

const userAuthenticationJson = JSON.stringify({
    AccessTypeCode: null,
    AgreementTypeCode: null,
    ApplID: pm.collectionVariables.get('ApplID'),
    ApplNumber: 0,
    AuthorizationType: 3,
    CashBoxNumber: null,
    CustomerAccessNumber: null,
    EffectiveDate: null,
    Internationalization: null,
    LocationOrgNumber: null,
    NetworkNodeName: pm.collectionVariables.get('NetworkNodeName'),
    PIN: null,
    Password: whoIsResult,
    PhysicalAddress: null,
    PostDate: null,
    UsageCode: null,
    UserId: null,
});

pm.collectionVariables.set("UserAuthenticationXml", userAuthenticationXml);
pm.collectionVariables.set("UserAuthenticationJson", userAuthenticationJson);

Describe the solution you'd like
I would like to be able to run a script before and after each request

Describe alternatives you've considered
Postman is able to do this easily
Can this be done with a plugin? If so, do plugins sync with team collaboration? This is a must.

Additional context
Add any other context or screenshots about the feature request here.

[rmclaughlin-nelnet]

I have been trying to do this with plugins and it is way too onerous, I would have to write a custom tag for every endpoint. If you simply had the ability to run a pre and post script like postman this would be solved. For now I will stick with postman. If you ever add this ability I will try insomnia again. Thanks.

[kingwrcy]

Really helpful with pre and post script.
Like below:

{
    "orderNo":"39138901830",
    "amount":100,
    "appId":"dP13wTIsgbqYdMasqJaxmeUIVPSuBV0PoGObeCS5hne6I6ghr4",
    "sign":"RSA.sign($orderNo+$amount+$appId+'$salt')"
}

Please add the ability.

[stale[bot]]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.