Re: Different approaches to expose RPG program outside of ibmi

I would rephrase solution #1 to "Exposing RPG program as a web service". There are many tools which can do this. One tool I have successfully utilized is ILEastic from Niels Liisberg. I have written a little tutorial about it which can be found here: https://champions.rpgnextgen.com .

But using web services (no matter what tool) definitely produces some overhead which costs precious time. It pretty much depends on your use case if a web service will work for you. As ILEastic is open source you can download it and make a PoC and test if this is a viable approach for you.

My 2 cents.

Mihael


Am 11.04.25 um 09:57 schrieb Mahesh Angadi via RPG400-L:

Hi,
We areconsidering two different approaches to expose our RPG program as an API andwould like to gather insights from IBM i experts before deciding:
- Solution#1 -- Utilizing the IBM i HTTP Apache server to expose the RPG program as an API. We are aware that various products leverage this method to build APIs.
- Solution#2 -- Developing an API within the .NET environment and directly invoking the RPG program from .NET using cwbx.dll (provided by IBM i Access Client Solutions). We have already built a framework using cwbx.dll to support our needs.

We are uncertain about which solution to choose and would greatly appreciate expert opinions on both approaches from a long-term perspective, including any real-world challenges that you may be encountered during implementation and usage.


Thanks,

Mahesh Angadi