Web services provide a way of making programming resources available to remote applications, by exposing subroutines and functions using a web server. Web services use standard protocols (XML, HTTP, etc.) to provide a high level of abstraction, thus making it possible to exchange data between systems that might otherwise be completely incompatible. A developer can therefore create applications that use a combination of local code and web services from a variety of sources.
Reality Web Services allow you to expose your DataBasic subroutines using a Java Servlet that can run on any servlet compatible web server (the Jetty web server is supplied so that you can get started). Access to the subroutines concerned must be granted on the Reality database and the service is set up using the Web Services Management Console. You can create any number of web services, each providing access to one or more DataBasic subroutines – see Creating a Reality Web Service for details.
Any subroutine can be exposed in this way – it does not have to be specially written, though formatting input and output data in XML is recommended (see XML Support).
Note: All subroutine parameters are assumed to be bi-directional. For efficiency reasons, it is recommended that any large input parameters that are not used to return results should be cleared by the subroutine.
The Reality Web Services Management Console is a web application that is run from a browser. To start the console, do one of the following:
If you are using a UNIX system on which Reality Web Services are installed or if you are connecting remotely, start your web browser and enter the following address:
http://systemName:port/NorthgateWebServices/manager/index.xsp
where systemName is the network name of the system on which Reality Web Services are installed and port is the port used by the web server (normally port 8080).
Refer to the on-line help supplied with the Reality Web Services Management Console for details of how to use this tool.