If webservices created using PHP,Is that web service can be call from any other language like Intersystems Cache Or GTM..etc.and call from anywhere?
If it is a true web service, it can been consumed by any language that can access it.
Web services are about inter operating between languages and platform, so they can be consumed by a wide range of those.
Related
I know some basic programming languages but im new at using API's.
Can someone please explain how, or where do i run my API's codes?
Will the API's be run on the website i'm trying to get my data from or can it be run on a client or from another different running environment or platform?
Apis should only (I say "should" because I am not sure that something like this can be done on the client side) to run on the server.
when you get information from an api you are not executing it on the client. you are only getting the data you requested for the endpoints you used.
Do you plan to use REST APIs as a consumer or producer? That is, do you want to expose your data, systems and processes as resources for an end consumer, or do you want to be the consumer creating applications that leverage services?
The Producer
To produce REST APIs, you'll need to run your API providers using a web server. Just about any web server will do, so long as it can map resource paths to functions. Some common ones are:
Node.JS with Express.js
Nginx with Python/Flask
Java using Spring
You should be able to run whatever you chose on nearly any hosting provider, cloud VM or wherever else you usually run websites.
The Consumer
You can use Rest APIs anywhere you have network connectivity. You'll find this commonly in mobile applications, web applications, IoT devices, etc where data are combined from multiple providers on to a single application for end users. The key feature as a consumer you'll be looking for is a directory of API providers from which you can build your application.
ProgrammableWeb maintains one such list.
I'm new to the concept of REST. And so far I've used a REST client (Advanced REST client) to make all the requests. But I don't understand the point of it all if I have to use a REST client to access the web service. I mean how then is a layman supposed to access a web service in his browser? And can browsers at all access access web services? If yes then why do I need a REST client?
The layman access a REST service all the time, when they access a web site (though many web sites violate REST principles to varying degrees). The REST architectural style was arrived at by examining why HTTP worked well, and was then used the conclusions to influence how HTTP 1.1 improved on 1.0.
They aren't expected to access a REST web-service, because a web-service is a service which uses the properties used by websites to provide machine-readable rather than human-readable data. A RESTful web-service tries to do this by taking advantages of how HTTP works and working with that. (The earliest "web services" seemingly started with the assumption that the web was a failure and needed to be coerced into working with the sort of RPC model that had been used previously, despite the fact that if this was true there'd be no advantage in using the web rather than the existing RPC protocols).
The layman therefore would more likely use an application that in turn used web services (whether that application was a web application, desktop, mobile, or whatever). The layman uses them the same way that they use any programming techniques; they use something devs built using them.
And can browsers at all access access web services?
Often they can get at least read-only access and sometimes a bit more. When this is the case it can be extremely useful for debugging.
In my iphone application I am calling (by SOAP post method) a web service which is written in .net and hosted on a server, and its all working fine. But my doubt is, can we write a web service in objective c? And host it on a server? so that we should be able to access it from any of the platforms like .net, php and objectiveC.
I read a fantastic tutorial regarding this question some time ago here.
To be honest, it can be quite difficult to really use this in a productive environment. If you want to get all the features and tools Apple gives to you (what seems to be the intention of your question), you'll have to use a Mac in order to run your service afterwards.
In my opionion using PHP for example (if you need a db also backed up by MySQL) is much easier. Almost all hosters support it and you won't have to worry about setting up a bunch of macs and connecting them via solid and stable cables to the internet (and with that: guarantee availability).
Yes. A web service is just some application that can provide a service over the web. As you can create an application in Objective C, it can be a web service the same as made in any other language.
You can make it run on any server where you have an objective C compiler, however, the framework you use may restrict your choices to the server (ie, you can write objective C on windows, but you wouldn't be able to use the NS framework)
Web services are not limited to a programming language, however you do need to find if there is any framework using objective-c can run on specific server. For example, iiS allows you to use Asp.net which could be implemented using C# or VB.Net.
From the clients who will consume web services, they don't have to be a specific type of device. I think that's the point of web services. The messages travel in between is formatted. For example, a SOAP message is using xml, and that would ensure the message travel on HTTP. Therefore no matter you use iPhone or Android or Blackberry, you should have no problem to make web service calls.
So in general, I think you have to see what kind of web services you want to create, and then see if Apple(I assume) can provide you with a good framework to do it. In terms of client side, as long as your web services are using XML or JSON, it should be well supported.
Hope it helps.
I want to use a WCF service and consume it using all the mobile platforms iPhone, android, Blackbery, Nokia etc'
Whats my best strategy for using those clients with a WCF service. it will have to be secured of course.
Thanks
amit
I disagree with SOAP and JSON. Use RESTfull service with POX (plain old xml). It will be most probably supported by all platform. Mobile phones can have limited SOAP stack implementations and JSON is usually used with browsers. My friend has BlackBerry and he continuously complains about its support for JavaScript.
To secure your service use HTTPS.
Use a SOAP or JSON endpoint. Most platforms will have support for these (or it'll be easy to find libraries). JSON is more web oriented (Javascript) but will work in other situations as well.
Mono supports WCF so maybe their iPhone and Android will support it as well.
Totally agree with #Ladislav on not expecting clients to be able to consume SOAP. Seems like SOAP stacks are lacking unless your client is native .NET or Java. Your clients will thank you by allowing them to choose JSON (web clients) or XML (system integration). Secure via HTTPS and basic auth or an API key.
If you already have an existing infrastructure of WCF services that you want to aggregate, or adapt, for downlevel clients you could put that POX (or 'REST') service in front of them and let it handle mapping protocols and formats for you. e.g. HTTP/S to TCP/IP and XML or JSON to SOAP.
The upside is that you will make it easier for downlevel clients to consume your services. The downside is that you've added an extra layer, which will cause complexity. Some tools, like WCF Routing Service (free) or Apigee (commercial), coupled with a solid automated deployment proces can help mitigate this complexity.
To build a REST service that supports XML or JSON, create your service with this template, it's designed for .NET 4.0. From there you can configure endpoints that respond in XML or JSON and let your client tell the service what response type it wants.
EDIT You can also have the service respond in a default format to reduce every client having to specify what format.
<standardEndpoints>
<webHttpEndpoint>
<standardEndpoint name="" defaultOutgoingResponseFormat="Json"/>
</webHttpEndpoint>
</standardEndpoints>
Is there a way to implement RESTful WebService using Spring 3 (or not) that does not use any web container?
Thank you !
I assume that the RESTful request will arrive over HTTP? So something needs to listen on the appropriate port and dispatch requests off to the service code. Obviously you can write such code, but you are likely to end up with something not very different from a Web Server.
If your objective is to embed this capability in some context then a lighweight container such as Jetty (as proposed by skaffman) seems like an answer - I'd be reluctant to write my own code instead
Using a framework such as JAX-RS makes writing REST services very easy, so if the actual objective is develop RESTful services quickly then I'd be prepared to live with a container that does the work for me.
In theory, yes - the various Spring-WS components are decoupled from the Servlet API. So you could, in theory, use the webserver built in to the Sun Java6 JRE.
In practice, this would be a lot of extra work. You'd have to bridge the Sun Web Server API to the Spring-WS API.
As an alternative to traditional Servlet containers, I can highly recommend Embedded Jetty, where your app can start up a lightweight servlet container within itself, and serve Spring-WS from that.