Re: Web Service

["Niels Liisberg" <liisberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hey Griz;

When dealing with SOAP you must know that is it a way for Microsoft to 
expose COM-objects to the HTTP-protocol. It contains a header with routing 
info for the COM-object and a body with the payload. The SOAP body is simply 
a XML wrapper that wraps an other XML document. The SOAP envelope also has 
some information about which target server is etc. but you don't really need 
this information on the iSeries - you can go directly to the soap body.

You can build SOAP-based webservices with RPG-CGI and a XML parser and you 
have to parse the http-request your self. - but I prefer to use a product 
called IceBreak. Because it make all the XML parsing stuff for you and let 
you access the webservice XML request with an syntax called X-path: i.e. if 
you want the custno in an SOAP request it is on line of RPG in your program 
like:

eval CustNo = ReqXmlGetValue('/soap:Envelope/soap:Body/Myrequest/Custno');

IceBreak also helps you render the response XML by using a technique called 
ASP. It allows you to "escape"  your XML with RPG code directly - just like 
JSP.

Useful links:

X-path

 http://www.w3schools.com/xpath/default.asp
 http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath

IceBreak:
http://ice-break.net/tutorials/Tutorials.asp?topic=ex15.htm
http://www.icebreak.info

Best regards

Niels

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Grizzly Malchow" <grizzlym@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <web400@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2006 6:51 PM
Subject: [WEB400] Web Service


> I'm looking into a way to use an RPG program as a web service (server
> side). Is it as simple as creating a RPG-CGI program that receives xml
> formatted data and writes xml formatted data back to the browser or is
> there more to it?
>
> My understanding is that SOAP will be used to post xml formatted data to
> the web service and the web service will return xml formatted data. All
> of the examples I have seen use SOAP and WSDL and none of the examples I
> have seen call an RPG-CGI program.  I'm not opposed to using SOAP and
> WDSL, but it is necessary in order for the RPG-CGI program to be
> considered a web service?
>
> Regards,
>
> Griz
>
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