Re: SOAP on i5 -- MIDRANGE-L

Rhett Hermer wrote:

Anyone has done SOAP, HTTP/XML on iSeries, eg program calling to a
webservice and processing the result data set in XML?

Where should I start?


With RPG you can do one of the following:

a) Program your own socket server
   (http://www.scottklement.com/rpg/index.html)
b) Download and use the free CGIDEV2 package from IBM
   (http://www-922.ibm.com/en? or
   http://www.easy400.net/cgidev2h/readme.htm)
c) Buy/Try a 3rd party application server
   such as:
      - BCD WebSmart (http://www.bcdsoftware.com)
      - IceBreak (http://www.icebreak.org)
      - ... there are several ...

Personally, I have been working with IceBreak for well over a year nowand it is the greatest application server I've seen and tried on theiSeries. First of all it runs programs native which means that it is asfast as a 5250 screen but for web. WebSphere doesn't even come close toit in performance. Secondly you can use your existing business logic ineither ILE/RPG, Cobol or C and extend it to the browser using (X)HTML,XML etc. An additional advantage is that you can use WebServices fromyour 5250 applications(!) - no need for a browser.


IceBreak requires i5/OS V5R1+

If you want to you can try out a very basic example by doing the following:

1) Go to http://www.icebreak.org
2) Click on "Creating programs" in the left hand navigation

3) In the text-area at the bottom of the screen paste the followingsource (between the -----------'s; Please note that your email mightbreak the D*Name...-line):

-------------------------------------------------------------
<%@ language="RPGLE" %>
<%
D*Name++++++++++ETDsFrom+++To/L+++IDc.Keywords+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Comments++++++++++++
D counter         s             10  0 inz(0)

/free
    SetContentType('text/xml; charset=utf-8');

%><?xml version='1.0' ?>
<numbers>
    <% for counter = 1 to 100; %>
        <number><% = %char(counter)%></number>
    <% endfor; %>
</numbers>
<%
    *inlr = *on;
    return;
%>
-------------------------------------------------------------
4) Click the "Compile and run the sample!!" button

5) Your browser should now open a new window with the content of an XMLfile created from the above example... dead simple. The <% ... %>encloses the business logic and if you don't want to put the XML or HTMLwithin the business logic it is possible to have it in an external textfile that can have sections of source, so you can separate logic andpresentation. There are other examples on the "Creating programs" pageyou might try out.

I know this was a very basic example but it should show you what ispossible and if you decide to try it out I can tell you that there areeven support within RPG through IceBreak functions for strings and fileslarger than 32K ;o) This example only generates XML back to the useragent but IceBreak also has support for parsing the content of a POST astext or as XML so you should be able to both consume and compose webservices.


Best regards,
JohnF