Web Services

[jac53]

Does Profound have the capabilities to create a Web Service program? If yes How?

[David]

Profound UI / Genie cannot be used to create Web Services programs.

For creating Web Services programs through RPG, we recommend RPG-XML Suite from Krengel Technologies:

http://www.rpg-xml.com/

It's a great tool which makes it very easy to call a web service and process the results, all using standard RPG. The tool can also be used in the other way, to provide an RPG-based Web Service that others can call.

[jac53]

Thank you for your recommendation.
It looks to me that is not possible to create web services using Profound but consume a web service it is possible because when using an Iframe to posti an URL as to show the Google maps for an specific address, what we are doing is consuming a Web Service Isn't it?

[David]

Sorry -- I was not aware this was the type of thing you were thinking of. This would not actually be considered a Web Service. Displaying a Google Map would be considered just embedding external page content. And yes, this can be done as you describe using an IFrame widget.

Web Services are pages that output data (usually in XML format) that are designed for consumption by a program, as opposed to content which is viewed by a user, such as Google Maps.

For example, let's say you are writing an order entry application, and your program needs to retrieve shipping rates from UPS or FedEx. The program posts off some details to their site and receives an XML document back from them. The program then parses the document for the rate info and adds the appropriate fees to the customer's order.

That is the sort of thing that is considered Web Services consumption, and RPG-XML Suite allows you to do this easily through standard RPGLE code.