Appboard/2.4/builder/data sources/web service

Revision as of 21:55, 28 August 2013 by imported>Mike.berman (copied in page from old wiki for David to update)
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

There are several web service data adapters available to choose from in AppBoard: CSV WebService, JSON WebService, and XML XSLT. As each type of data adapter will require different information to connect to AppBoard, this page will assist you in understanding some of the specific options associated with web service data adapters.


CSV WebService

This is a web services adapter that uses CSV to communicate with an application server.

Connecting with CSV WebService

The Data Source Wizard begins with the "Connect" step. Here you must fill in the necessary information to connect AppBoard to your CSV WebService data source. These are the possible elements you will need to provide:


Name Description
url Base URL for the web service from which to fetch data. This can also be the complete URL, if you want to include any needed parameters here instead of as separate settings.
httpAuthUsername Username to use for HTTP Auth (Basic, Digest, etc.). Ignored if HTTP Auth is not needed.
httpAuthPassword Password to use for HTTP Auth (Basic, Digest, etc.). Ignored if HTTP Auth is not needed.
cacheTimeout Time limit before reloading results from the database.
httpHeaders Optional HTTP headers to set on request.
httpPostBody Optional POST body to send with request. If set, the request will be made via a POST; if not, the HTTP request will be a GET request.
headerLine Whether the data includes a header to define the columns/field names.
delimiter.data Whether the data includes a delimiter to define the columns/field names.
useQuoteChar Whether the data fields should be written within quotes.
proxyurl Optional URL for web proxy.
proxyuser Optional Proxy Username.
proxypass Optional Proxy Password.
proxyntlm Optional Proxy NT Domain.
proxydomain Optional Use NTLM Auth for Proxy.


JSON WebService

This is a web services adapter that uses Javascript, rather than XML, to communicate with an application server.


Connecting with JSON WebService

The Data Source Wizard begins with the "Connect" step. Here you must fill in the necessary information to connect AppBoard to your JSON WebService data source. These are the possible elements you will need to provide:


Name Description
url Base URL for the web service from which to fetch data. This can also be the complete URL, if you want to include any needed parameters here instead of as separate settings.
httpAuthUsername Username to use for HTTP Auth (Basic, Digest, etc.). Ignored if HTTP Auth is not needed.
httpAuthPassword Password to use for HTTP Auth (Basic, Digest, etc.). Ignored if HTTP Auth is not needed.
cacheTimeout Time limit before reloading results from the database.
httpHeaders Optional HTTP headers to set on request.
httpPostBody Optional POST body to send with request. If set, the request will be made via a POST, if not, the HTTP request will be a GET request.
proxyurl Optional URL for web proxy.
proxyuser Optional Proxy Username.
proxypass Optional Proxy Password.
proxyntlm Optional Proxy NT Domain.
proxydomain Optional Use NTLM Auth for Proxy.


XML XSLT

This adapter lets you get data from an XML web service and transform it into records that are in a format applicable to AppBoard.


Connecting with XML XSLT

The Data Source Wizard begins with the "Connect" step. Here you must fill in the necessary information to connect AppBoard with your XML XSLT data source. These are the possible elements you will need to provide:


Name Description
url This is the location of the information file used for your data source. Included in the distribution are some sample xml files which can be accessed by using the 'file://' url. For example, on windows it would look like 'file://localhost/${application.home}/data/pkg/sample/atlas/atlas.xml' and on UNIX it would look like: 'file://${application.home}/data/pkg/sample/atlas/atlas.xml'. Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_URI_scheme for more details on using file:// urls; although you will normally be using http:// to reference the RESTful WebService.
stylesheetPath The path from '${application.home}/stylesheets/' of the XSL stylesheet to be used to convert the data from the web service into the AppBoard internal XML representation.
httpAuthUsername Username to use for HTTP Auth (Basic, Digest, etc.). Ignored if HTTP Auth is not required.
httpAuthPassword Password to use for HTTP Auth (Basic, Digest, etc.). Ignored if HTTP Auth is not required.
cacheTimeout Time limit before re-loading results from the RESTful web service. Note: if a timeout is not specified, it will calculate the timeout based on the timeout specfied by the response header. If the request should be run on every request, then a value of '0' should be specified.
httpHeaders Optional HTTP headers to set on request.
httpPostBody Optional POST body to send with request. If set, the request will be made via a POST; if not, the HTTP request will be a GET request.
proxyurl Optional URL for web proxy.
proxyuser Optional Proxy Username.
proxypass Optional Proxy Password.
proxyntlm Optional Proxy NT Domain.
proxydomain Optional Use NTLM Auth for Proxy.