Hai

Can anyone provide me with a starting point to learn web services?

Thanks

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kerry,

Can you narrow it down? That is a very large subject.

Enigma,

1) On which domain would you like to build a web service?

2) Does that web service would interact with web focus?

The answer to your Q2 is yes... Webfocus can interact to other webapps through webservices...

As said in product manual, It can be through a Java/J2EE or a .NET call.

quote:

Features of the WebFOCUS Web Service Enablement Option :
1) Full support of all key Web-services standards to ensure interoperability

2) User extensible – empowering developers to build new functions that can then be
published as new J2EE or .NET calls

3) Utility for automatic generation of Web Services Description Language (WSDL) to expedite
application development

4)Exposed functionality for more efficient Web-services development, including security,
report execution, application management, user administration, and delivery and scheduling

http://www.informationbuilders...ebfocus/web_services

http://www.informationbuilders...f/WebServices_FS.pdf

All depends on whether WebFocus will be consuming web services that have been published using other platforms (java, ,NET, etc.), or if WebFocus will be providing services to other platforms. WebFocus and ReportCaster both have support in either case.

We've been using WebFocus with .NET-generated SOAP web services for years. All our web services interactions have WebFocus as the consumer, not the producer of services. But the .NET implementation of SOAP and other web service standards has changed dramatically with the Windows Communications Foundation (WCF). WCF is now Microsoft's comprehensive solution for interoperability. WebFocus version 7.7 added support for WCF services--see http://documentation.ibi.com/m...nfhilit/snfhilit.pdf and search for "WCF").

A good overview of WebFocus web services is at
http://documentation.informati.../wf77web/wf77web.pdf

If you're looking for generic information on Web Services, I've found the following two tutorial's useful:

Introduction to SOAP

Introduction to WSDL's

This guide is also pretty good on using Web Services in vb.net:

VB.NET & Web Services

Its worth noting that if you're using a later version of Visual Studio or Visual Studio Express that you now use a "Service Reference" rather than a "Web Reference".

As a result this changes the syntax slightly for the connection, since it adds to the end of the name "SoapClient".

e.g. Rather than the following which shows in the WebFOCUS web services manual when you name the service reference "MR":
Dim wfs As New MR.WebFocus

You would have the following:
Dim wfs As New MR.WebFocusSoapClient

The rest of the example code from the manual should be able to be copied and pasted out of the manual without modification.