APEX 4.0 Web Services Evaluation Guide

APEX 4.0 Web Services Evaluation Guide

Application Express 4.0 will offer a number of improved and new Web services features including support for RESTful style Web services both from the consumer and provider perspective. This guide will explain these features and give you step by step instructions on how to use them.

Note: The instructions below are written assuming that you are using the classic version of page editing and not the Tree view. Also, some exercises will not work properly with Internet Explorer. You should use a browser that is supported for the evaluation such as Firefox.

Consuming RESTful Style Web Services

REST (REpresentational State Transfer) is a simpler architecture for accessing Web services than traditional SOAP style Web services. Parameters to a RESTful style Web service are typically passed as part of the URI and the operation is usually described by the HTTP method used: GET, HEAD, POST, PUT, DELETE). Responses are typically in XML or JSON. Application Express 4.0 provides a declarative wizard based method for creating references to RESTful style Web services. Once a reference is created, there are facilities to test calling the Web service as well as wizards to create forms to call the Web service within Application Express and reports to report on the result.
Consuming a RESTful Style Web Service with an XML Response
In this exercise you create a reference to the Yahoo Maps RESTful Web service and then create a form and report to interact with the service. The response returned is XML. You will need to sign up for a Yahoo developer key here.
1. Navigate to the Application Builder home page and click on an application or create a new one.
2. Click Shared Components.
3. Click Web Service References.
4. Click Create >.
5. Choose REST and click Next >.
6. Open https://developer.yahoo.com/maps/rest/V1/ in a new tab or new browser session. You will continue to create the reference to this Web service by reviewing its documentation.
7. Return to Application Express and enter Yahoo Map in the Name field.
8. Enter http://local.yahooapis.com/MapsService/V1/mapImage in the URL field.
9. Click Next >.
10. Enter appid in the Name field and click Add Parameter.
11. Enter location in the Name field and click Next >.
12. Leave Output Format as XML.

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