Accessing External Web Services

SOAP = Simple Object Access Protocol

SOAP is a XML based messaging protocol created to communicate over internet using HTTP protocol. SOAP message is an XML document with following elements:

  • An envelop element to that works as an identifier of SOAP message.
  • A header element to contain header information.
  • A body element the contains the request and response information.
  • A fault element that holds status information.

How to use

Developer need to type in the following url to open the project request form:

Famis Test Server: http://famis.test.uconn.edu/uconnNow/unifier/createProcessRequest.php

Fill up form and click on ‘Request Project’ to create a new business project request. The web service returns ‘200’ if successfully executed and creates a record in stage unifier. Login to https://uconn-stage-unifier.oracleindustry.com/ and follow the steps mentioned below to check whether the record a business process record is created.

Under User Tab -> Company Logs -> Project Intake.

In case of failure, the web service returns the corresponding error code.

Overview of the code

getDepartments() function on createProcessRequest2.php gets the list of the Schools/Departments and populates the ‘Requesting School/Department’ drop down list during page load. We create a SoapClient and passed relative path for the following WSDL file : “UnifierWebServices_16_1.1.0.wsdl” using the following code segment:

$wsdl = ‘../../../api/UnifierWebServices_16.1.1.0.wsdl’;
$trace = true;
$exceptions = false;$client = new SoapClient($wsdl, array(‘trace’ => $trace, ‘exceptions’ => $exceptions));

Call ‘getBPList’ web service defined in UnifierWebService_16.1.1.0.wsdl to get the list of schools/departments, deans, associate deans as a well formed XML document. Following code snippet does the job:

$response = $client->getBPList($xml_array);
$lresponse = $client->__getLastResponse();

Tools to help

Following are the tools to help with SOAP development.

  • SoapUI : SoapUI is an open-source web service testing application for service-oriented architectures (SOA) and representational state transfers (REST). This application can be download from https://www.soapui.org/downloads/soapui.html. We used SoapUI is verify the correctness of the inputs provided to a web service and see the output provided by the web service. Please follow steps provided below to test web service using soapUI. Open soapUI -> File -> New Soap Project -> Choose Initial WSDL -> Select the Web service  (highlighted in read) listed under Projects (Left hand side) ->Click of Request1. Please enter the values as shown in the screenshot below. and click on the green traingle (highlighted in read). You can find the response on right hand side window.soapui

Known systems

Unifier

KFS

JSON = Javascript Object Notation

Background

(from json.org 10/4/2016)

JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a lightweight data-interchange format. It is easy for humans to read and write. It is easy for machines to parse and generate. It is based on a subset of the JavaScript Programming Language, Standard ECMA-262 3rd Edition - December 1999. JSON is a text format that is completely language independent but uses conventions that are familiar to programmers of the C-family of languages, including C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, Perl, Python, and many others. These properties make JSON an ideal data-interchange language.

JSON is built on two structures:
  • A collection of name/value pairs. In various languages, this is realized as an object, record, struct, dictionary, hash table, keyed list, or associative array.
  • An ordered list of values. In most languages, this is realized as an array, vector, list, or sequence.

How to

Add how to access information here (php based how to’s)

Tools to help

List tools used to help with JSON development

Known systems