The Worst API ever

I’m integrating with what may be the worst API ever. Check this out!

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" 
               xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
               xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
 <soap:Body>
  <Create xmlns="http://www.REDACTED.com/api/">
   <data>
    ["{\"type\":\"REDACTED\",\"data\":\"{ParentType: 'REDACTED', ParentId: '1', ActionEntityType: '2', ActionEntityId: '3', SegmentId: '0' }\",\"normalize\":false}"]
   </data>
  </Create>
 </soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>

So much wrong in so little space. Here we have:

• a SOAP message…
• … with a “data” parameter…
• … containing a JSON array…
• … of a single string
• … of JSON (string-escaped, of course)…
• … that itself contains “data” parameter…
• … which is again a string….
• … of improperly formatted JSON!

I suspect the last improper formatting is to reduce the amount of quote-escaping needed given that you are now in double-escape territory. Oh, and lest you think it’s just being permissive — if you attempt to properly JSON-encode the inner data parameter, the call fails with “unable to parse JSON!”

This. Is. A. Maz. Ing.