Introduction to Web services

Web services are a standard way of communicating between applications over an intranet or Internet.

They define how to communicate between two entities:
  • A server that exposes services
  • A client that consumes services

Server usage example

A server exposes a "StockQuotation" service that responds to an operation "getQuote". For the "getQuote" operation, the input message is a stock symbol as a string, and the output message is a stock value as a decimal number.

The "getQuote" operation is a function written in Genero BDL, and it is published on the server. This function retrieves the stock value for the stock symbol passed in, and returns it.

Client usage example

The Web service client application calls the function as if it were a local function. It passes the stock symbol in to the function, and stores the returned value in a variable. If the Web Service operation is named WebService_StockQuotation_getQuote and the local variable is svalue, the Web Service is called as follows:

LET svalue = WebService_StockQuotation_getQuote( "MyStockSymbol" )