Web Services 101 James Payne Managing Director for New Media / Advancement July 30, 2013.
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Transcript of Web Services 101 James Payne Managing Director for New Media / Advancement July 30, 2013.
Web Services 101
James PayneManaging Director for New Media / Advancement
July 30, 2013
Agenda
Introductions Web Services Overview
Definition Examples of web services
iModules Web Services Technologies Using
What is a web service?
- Also known as ‘APIs’- A building block for ‘Service-Oriented
Architecture’ (SOA)- Used to tie systems together- Used to provide access by a provider to
services or data to a consumer other than a browser… But sometimes to a browser (AJAX)
What are some examples of web services?
Companies- Google- Facebook- Twitter- Yelp!- LinkedIn- Everyone
What are they used for?
Example: Real Estate Web Site- IP location lookups (Various)- Real estate listings (MLS)- Secondary School Details (education.com)- Business Reviews (Yelp!)- Job Listings (simplyhired.com)- Census Data (www.census.gov)- Custom Mapping (Google)- Advertising details for integrated
marketing (Various)
What can I do with iModules web services?
There are actually seven web services…
GeneralQuery.asmx Provides access to non-instance fields that are not specific to any Form
ControlQuery.asmx Provides access to fields that are specific to a form
TransactionsQuery.asmx Instance fields that are specific to a commerce transaction
EmailCategoryQuery.asmx Allows the import and export of Email Category opt-out information
LoginQuery.asmx Allows logging a constituent in by proxyMemberMergeQuery.asmx Allows queuing a non-member record and an
associated constituent record for the nightly Member Merge process
ContentQuery.asmx Allows pulling event listing / calendars, and event content information
What technologies do I need to know?
- XML- HTTP- Some Programming Language
HTTP (1/3)
- A request/response protocol for data communications between computers
- Resources are specified with a URL – Uniform Resource Locator- A number of request types (or methods) are supported; GET,
POST, PUT, DELETE, others- A request returns a status and possibly some additional
diagnostic or application data- 200 – Success- 401 – Unauthorized (*)- 404 – Not Found- 400 – Bad Request- 418 – I’m a teapot (IETF RFC 2324)
HTTP (2/3) Client Request
GET /index.html HTTP/1.1Host: www.example.comSource: Wikipedia
- The first line of an HTTP request consists of a method, a resource specification, and an optional version number.
- A number of header lines (key/value pairs) may follow.- Depending on the method, a content body may be attached.
HTTP (3/3) Server Response
HTTP/1.1 200 OKDate: Mon, 23 May 2005 22:38:34 GMTServer: Apache/1.3.3.7 (Unix) (Red-Hat/Linux)Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8Content-Length: 131Connection: close
<html> <head> <title>An Example Page</title> </head> <body> Hello World, this is a very simple HTML document. </body></html>
Source: Wikipedia
XML
- XML is a markup language designed to facilitate transportation and storage of data in a human readable format.
- XML has similarities to HTML but is different; HTML is designed to display data
Simple Example:
<note><to>Tove</to><from>Jani</from><heading>Reminder</heading><body>Don't forget me this weekend!</body>
</note>
Source: http://www.w3schools.com/xml/note.xml
Some Programming Language
The language used must…- Support string handling and concatenation- Support HTTP network interaction- Support some sort of data input and output
That’s just about every language…
- Perl, Java, VB, VBScript, C#, Python
Other Buzzwords/Acronyms You’ll Hear…
JSON JavaScript Object Notation
REST Representational State Transfer
SOAP Simple Object Access Protocol
WSDL Web Service Definition Language
How do I use them?
- Documentation- Access- Options for Calling Web Services- Crafting the URL- Using the Web Service Help Pages - Creating the request - Placing the request- Consuming the response
Documentation
- iModules has very good web service documentation
- Download it at…https
://confluence.imodules.com/display/help/iModules+Web+Services+2.1+-+Engineering+Documentation
- Or just search the Internet for imodules web service 2.1
Access
- You will need a username and password to access web services
- Tell your account manager that you would like to use web services
- Your account manager will arrange access for you
Options for Calling the Web Services
There are several ways of calling the web services from your program…
- SOAP 1.1 or 1.2- HTTP GET- HTTP POST
Crafting the URL
Base URL (USA)…https://api.imodules.com/ws/21/
Web Service…GeneralQuery.asmx
Operation…GetAllColumns
For SOAP or WSDL…https://api.imodules.com/ws/21/GeneralQuery.asmx
For HTTP get…https://api.imodules.com/ws/21/GeneralQuery.asmx/GetAllColumns? login=string&password=string
For HTTP post…https://api.imodules.com/ws/21/GeneralQuery.asmx/GetAllColumns
Using the Web Service Help Pages (/2)
The Web Service Definition Language pages can be used to experiment with web service requests and responses.
Using the Web Service Help Pages (2/2)
Creating a Request (SOAP)
Example Request…
<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:con="http://imodules.com/WebServices/ControlQuery/"> <soapenv:Header/> <soapenv:Body> <con:GetAllColumns> <con:login>A309979A-AFB2-4C49-BBB7-4086B5134755 </con:login> <con:password>supersecret</con:password> <con:controlId>896</con:controlId> </con:GetAllColumns> </soapenv:Body> </soapenv:Envelope>
Creating a Request (HTTP GET)
GET /ws/21/GeneralQuery.asmx/GetAllColumns?login=A309979A-AFB2-4C49-BBB7-4086B5134755&password=supersecret&controlId=896 HTTP/1.1Host: api.imodules.com
You can do a GET from the browser…
Creating a Request (HTTP POST)
POST /ws/21/GeneralQuery.asmx/GetAllColumns HTTP/1.1Host: api.imodules.comContent-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencodedContent-Length: 64
login=A309979A-AFB2-4C49-BBB7-4086B5134755 &password=supersecret&controlId=896
Note: The SOAP method on a previous slide also utilizes a POST operation.
Placing the Request (1/2)
1) Create the request payload2) Create an HTTP request using your language’s native
functionality- Specify URL and HTTP method (GET or POST)
3) Set content_type and content_length for POST and SOAP- Content type is application/x-www-form-urlencoded or
text/xml- Content length is based on the request body size character
count4) Send the request5) Read the response6) Check the status; if it’s 200, the request succeeded(*). Parse the
returned XML and continue7) If the status is not 200, an error has occurred. Handle the error.
Placing the Request (2/2)
Note: If the username or password is wrong, the iModules web service call will return 200/OK instead of 401/Unauthorized. The return content body will indicate that the credentials are wrong.
Consuming the Response
Stitch Together Calls to Get the Results You Want
For example, to get all instance and non-instance fields for gift records…
GetTransactionsAllSincehttps://api.imodules.com/ws/21/TransactionsQuery.asmx
Loop…
Filter based on control IDs for gift forms
GetAllColumns for a control to use to pass to the next control-oriented service callhttps://api.imodules.com/ws/21/ControlQuery.asmx
GetOneMemberByMemberId including member ID, control ID, and columns https://api.imodules.com/ws/21/ControlQuery.asmx
End loop
Resources
iModules Web Service v2.1 Documentationhttps://confluence.imodules.com/display/help/iModules+Web+Services+2.1+-+Engineering+Documentation
XMLhttp://www.w3schools.com/xml/
HTTPhttp://www.jmarshall.com/easy/http/
SoapUI http://sourceforge.net/projects/soapui/files/latest/download
XML Pretty Print http://xmlprettyprint.com/
