Connecting a web service to Omnis Studio

[Bastiaan Olij]

Hey Das,

That is a very broad question and has much more to do with the web
service you chose to connect to, then with Omnis Studio.

There are 3 obvious categories or paths if you will:

1) Using the good old web enabler commands for TCP and HTTP to connect
to a web service. This should allow you to talk to just about anything
but it also means you'll be constructing the commands and parsing the
results yourself. Lots of extra work depending on how complex the web
service is. There are one or two limitations here in what Omnis offers
but you can always go down the route of Kellys TCPIP external if you run
into those.

2) Using SOAP if the web service supports this. This has been around for
some time and if memory serves me correct, has native support since
Omnis Studio 4. It has been awhile since I last used it but there is a
wizard or support tool in Omnis that lets you enter the address of the
WSDL file that describes the service and Omnis will add a number of
objects to your library that you can use to communicate with the
service. I do vaguely remember that this requires a working JAVA
environment but I could be wrong, I can't remember if only the server
required that (you can turn Omnis into a SOAP server) or if you also
needed that when Omnis is the client

3) Using RESTful if the web service support this. This is the new black
at the moment and is especially popular now that JSON is used as the
format for the data being exchanged as this makes it a really nice fit
for all those Javascript programmers.
I personally also really like the way most RESTful services are
structured. What I miss a little is that there is a lot of wild growth
in the way the services are documented, there isn't a single standard
like WSDL in SOAP that you can use to get details about a service so 
you are a bit at the mercy of how well the people who have implemented
their web services have done their jobs.
Having Omnis Studio talk to a web service over REST is easy in Omnis
Studio 8, I haven't played with it too much but there again is a nice
interface that lets you configure the interface and you end up with a
number of objects with methods you can call to interact with the web
service.
If you're on Studio 6 the JSON parsing logic is all there and you can
use plain old HTTP commands to build stuff yourself, a little more work
but not all that difficult.

Cheers,

Bas

On 24/03/2017 5:40 AM, Das Goravani wrote:
>
> Basically, how does it work to connect a web service to Omnis studio
>
> A short description of "Basically how it’s done" is all I seek. 
>
> Something that describes the handles in omnis that make it work
>
> How do you grab Omnis’s attention from an outside process in a lower level language is sought
>
> Not the details, I’m sure that would drain you, but just a high level description of how it goes
>
> The goal would be to grab omnis, and put data into some fields and save the record
> _____________________________________________________________
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-- 
Kindest Regards,

Bastiaan Olij
e-mail: bastiaan at basenlily.me
web: http://www.basenlily.me
Skype: Mux213
http://www.linkedin.com/in/bastiaanolij