Receiving an SMS

To receive an SMS, you need to:

Rent a virtual number to receive messages
Create a webhook endpoint using one of the code examples shown below
Configure the webhook in your Nexmo Dashboard

Prerequisites

Install dependencies

npm install express body-parser

Initialize your dependencies

Create a file named receive-express.js and add the following code:

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const app = require('express')()
const bodyParser = require('body-parser')

app.use(bodyParser.json())
app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({ extended: true }))

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Write the code

Add the following to receive-express.js:

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app
  .route('/webhooks/inbound-sms')
  .get(handleInboundSms)
  .post(handleInboundSms)

function handleInboundSms(request, response) {
  const params = Object.assign(request.query, request.body)
  console.log(params)
  response.status(204).send()
}

app.listen(process.env.PORT || 3000)

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Run your code

Save this file to your machine and run it:

node receive-express.js

Prerequisites

Install dependencies

Add the following to `build.gradle`:

compile 'com.nexmo:client:5.2.1'
compile 'com.sparkjava:spark-core:2.7.2'

Write the code

Add the following to the main method of the ReceiveSMS class:

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    /*
     * Route to handle incoming SMS GET request.
     */
    Route inboundSmsAsGet = (req, res) -> {
        System.out.println("msisdn: " + req.queryParams("msisdn"));
        System.out.println("messageId: " + req.queryParams("messageId"));
        System.out.println("text: " + req.queryParams("text"));
        System.out.println("type: " + req.queryParams("type"));
        System.out.println("keyword: " + req.queryParams("keyword"));
        System.out.println("messageTimestamp: " + req.queryParams("message-timestamp"));

        res.status(204);
        return "";
    };

    /*
     * Route to handle incoming SMS with POST form-encoded or JSON body.
     */
    Route inboundSmsAsPost = (req, res) -> {
        // The body will be form-encoded or a JSON object:
        if (req.contentType().startsWith("application/x-www-form-urlencoded")) {
            System.out.println("msisdn: " + req.queryParams("msisdn"));
            System.out.println("messageId: " + req.queryParams("messageId"));
            System.out.println("text: " + req.queryParams("text"));
            System.out.println("type: " + req.queryParams("type"));
            System.out.println("keyword: " + req.queryParams("keyword"));
            System.out.println("messageTimestamp: " + req.queryParams("message-timestamp"));
        } else {
            MessageEvent event = MessageEvent.fromJson(req.body());

            System.out.println("msisdn: " + event.getMsisdn());
            System.out.println("messageId: " + event.getMessageId());
            System.out.println("text: " + event.getText());
            System.out.println("type: " + event.getType());
            System.out.println("keyword: " + event.getKeyword());
            System.out.println("messageTimestamp: " + event.getMessageTimestamp());
        }

        res.status(204);
        return "";
    };

    Spark.port(8080);
    Spark.get("/webhooks/inbound-sms", inboundSmsAsGet);
    Spark.post("/webhooks/inbound-sms", inboundSmsAsPost);
}

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Run your code

We can use the application plugin for Gradle to simplify the running of our application. Update your build.gradle with the following:

  apply plugin: 'application'
  mainClassName = project.hasProperty('main') ? project.getProperty('main') : ''

Run the following gradle command to execute your application, replacing com.nexmo.quickstart.sms with the package containing ReceiveSMS:

gradle run -Pmain=com.nexmo.quickstart.sms.ReceiveSMS

Prerequisites

Install dependencies

Install-Package Nexmo.Csharp.Client

Import dependencies

Create a file named SmsController.cs and add the following code:

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using System.Threading.Tasks;

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Write the code

Add the following to SmsController.cs:

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[HttpPost("webhooks/inbound-sms")]        
public IActionResult InboundSms()
{
    InboundSms sms;
    using (StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(Request.Body, Encoding.UTF8))
    {
        sms = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<InboundSms>(reader.ReadToEndAsync().Result);
    }
    Console.WriteLine($"SMS Received with message: {sms.Text}");
    return NoContent();
}

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Prerequisites

Install dependencies

composer require slim/slim:^3.8

Initialize your dependencies

Create a file named index.php and add the following code:

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$app = new \Slim\App;

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Write the code

Add the following to index.php:

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$handler = function (Request $request, Response $response) {
    $params = $request->getParsedBody();

    // Fall back to query parameters if needed
    if (!count($params)){
        $params = $request->getQueryParams();
    }

    error_log(print_r($params, true));

    return $response->withStatus(204);
};

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Run your code

Save this file to your machine and run it:

php -f index.php

Prerequisites

Install dependencies

pip install flask

Initialize your dependencies

Create a file named receive-flask.py and add the following code:

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from flask import Flask, request, jsonify
from pprint import pprint

app = Flask(__name__)

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Write the code

Add the following to receive-flask.py:

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@app.route('/webhooks/inbound-sms', methods=['GET', 'POST'])
def inbound_sms():
    if request.is_json:
        pprint(request.get_json())
    else:
        data = dict(request.form) or dict(request.args)
        pprint(data)

    return ('', 204)

app.run(port=3000)

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Run your code

Save this file to your machine and run it:

python receive-flask.py

Prerequisites

Install dependencies

gem install sinatra sinatra-contrib

Initialize your dependencies

Create a file named receive.rb and add the following code:

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require 'sinatra'
require 'sinatra/multi_route'
require 'json'

helpers do
  def parsed_body
     json? ? JSON.parse(request.body.read) : {}
  end

  def json?
    request.content_type == 'application/json'
  end
end

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Write the code

Add the following to receive.rb:

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route :get, :post, '/webhooks/inbound-sms' do
  puts params.merge(parsed_body)
  status 204
end

set :port, 3000

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Run your code

Save this file to your machine and run it:

ruby receive.rb

Configure the webhook endpoint in your Nexmo Dashboard

So that Nexmo knows how to access your webhook, you must configure it in your Nexmo account.

In the code snippets, the webhook is located at /webhooks/inbound-sms. If you are using Ngrok, the webhook you need to configure in your Nexmo Dashboard API Settings page is of the form https://demo.ngrok.io/webhooks/inbound-sms. Replace demo with the subdomain provided by Ngrok and enter your endpoint in the field labeled Webhook URL for Inbound Message:

Try it out

Now when you send your Nexmo number an SMS you should see it logged in your console. The message object contains the following properties:

{
  "msisdn": "447700900001",
  "to": "447700900000",
  "messageId": "0A0000000123ABCD1",
  "text": "Hello world",
  "type": "text",
  "keyword": "Hello",
  "message-timestamp": "2020-01-01T12:00:00.000+00:00",
  "timestamp": "1578787200",
  "nonce": "aaaaaaaa-bbbb-cccc-dddd-0123456789ab",
  "concat": "true",
  "concat-ref": "1",
  "concat-total": "3",
  "concat-part": "2",
  "data": "abc123",
  "udh": "abc123"
}