But here goes.
What is a web service.
It is a way to let another site run a program on your site and get
results.
Say you are the UPS web site, and you have built this super-duper
program to calculate UPS shipping charges to any place in the USA.
The user supplies the weight, origin and destination the program
returns the shipping cost.
Simple enough, I point my browser to the UPS web site, enter the
appropriate info & get the UPS shipping costs.
But, suppose I write a shopping cart program in CFML. I could have the
user (or one of my employees go to the UPS site and determine the
shipping charges for each order (and then enter it into a form field).
But, UPS wants everybody to use their shipping service & they want to
make it as easy as possible.
What if UPS says, if you go to this particular web address, and
provide this particular data (origin, weight & destination) in this
particular format, I willl return the shipping cost.... And, you don't
have to do this manually -- here is what I need & here is what you will
get in return.
Now, your shopping cart (that already knows the source, weight, and
destination) can go to the UPS site on your behalf (behind the scenes)
and get the shipping cost.
You have no direct connection with the UPS site, you are just availing
yourself of a service that they provide: Given a source, weight &
destination, UPS will tell you the UPS shipping cost.
UPS is providing a web service. (they call this "publishing" a web
service) -- if you come here & furnish this, I will do this in return.
When your program goes to the UPS site with a particular source, weight
and destination, you get the UPS shipping charges -- you are said to be
"consuming" a web service.
That's it!
You could store all the UPS area breakdowns and rates on your own web
site & calculate the shipping charges directly. But each time there is
a rate change or an area redefinition, you would need to change your
program.
Why not let UPS tell you what the charges are?
That's a web service -- it involves some standards (XLM to exchange the
data, etc) and some programming techniques --an isolated program module
(a CFC) that provides the service, but those are implementation
details.
HTH
Dick
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