Re: SOAP and web services
Hi Ric, I use mod_perl/apache/soap::lite to create an internal application server so that I can distribute processing load from the public webserver. This also allows me to expose a soap web service to the public if I wished to give them direct access to a method on this application server, but of course they would need a soap client to access this service. Do you want to just return an xml to your user, or do you want to do what I do which is do internal RPC using SOAP. in my opinion a web service has another great benefit - you can sperate the logic and the front ends. we have here an application running on php/html, and all the logic is inside this scripts, in case of running on another medium/language (like flash or php for plain html) you must copy all the logic - you can call this a nightmare. in this case i think that a solution provides with PRC/SOAP is a good idea, but on every article i read more, i realize that this technology is still young and just experimental (e.g. php 4.x). bart
Re: SOAP and web services
that too :) - Original Message - From: Bart Frackiewicz [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Richard Clarke [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, May 03, 2002 4:15 PM Subject: Re: SOAP and web services Hi Ric, I use mod_perl/apache/soap::lite to create an internal application server so that I can distribute processing load from the public webserver. This also allows me to expose a soap web service to the public if I wished to give them direct access to a method on this application server, but of course they would need a soap client to access this service. Do you want to just return an xml to your user, or do you want to do what I do which is do internal RPC using SOAP. in my opinion a web service has another great benefit - you can sperate the logic and the front ends. we have here an application running on php/html, and all the logic is inside this scripts, in case of running on another medium/language (like flash or php for plain html) you must copy all the logic - you can call this a nightmare. in this case i think that a solution provides with PRC/SOAP is a good idea, but on every article i read more, i realize that this technology is still young and just experimental (e.g. php 4.x). bart
Re: SOAP and web services
Bart Frackiewicz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Ric, I use mod_perl/apache/soap::lite to create an internal application server so that I can distribute processing load from the public webserver. This also allows me to expose a soap web service to the public if I wished to give them direct access to a method on this application server, but of course they would need a soap client to access this service. Do you want to just return an xml to your user, or do you want to do what I do which is do internal RPC using SOAP. in my opinion a web service has another great benefit - you can sperate the logic and the front ends. we have here an application running on php/html, and all the logic is inside this scripts, in case of running on another medium/language (like flash or php for plain html) you must copy all the logic - you can call this a nightmare. in this case i think that a solution provides with PRC/SOAP is a good idea, but on every article i read more, i realize that this technology is still young and just experimental (e.g. php 4.x). To add to the fun :) (now that my semester is over...) I mention the following only so you are aware of the possibilities, not because I think the decision to use SOAP is wrong (I don't think it is or isn't). I am working on an application that involves inter-process communication, of which XML-RPC is an example. I've decided to break my IPC needs into two classes: many-to-one or one-to-one, and one-to-many or many-to-many. XML-RPC does okay for the first set, but can't handle in any reasonably scalable manner the second set. For that, I'm taking a look at Spread [1], which Stas mentioned in passing on this list a few weeks ago. Spread also can work reasonably well, afaik, for many-to-one or one-to-one when the connection overhead associated with XML-RPC/SOAP becomes significant (e.g., frequent requests where the return value is not very important such as log consolidation). SOAP is a more complicated extension of XML-RPC (don't let the `Simple' fool you - the spec is anything but simple compared to XML-RPC -- of course, XML-RPC doesn't support object-orientation). XML-RPC is actually a fairly mature technology, imho, since it is available in such a wide range of languages and implementations. The initial spec was drawn up in April 1998 [2]. The PHP 4.x implementation is new and immature [3], but the spec itself is fairly mature. That said, XML-RPC, SOAP, and Spread all have reasonably simple Perl interfaces. [1] http://www.spread.org/ [2] St. Laurent S., Johnston J. and E. Dumbill, _Programming Web Services with XML-RPC_, O'Reilly (2001). [3] http://www.php.net/manual/en/ref.xmlrpc.php -- James Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED], 979-862-3725 Texas AM CIS Operating Systems Group, Unix
Re: SOAP and web services
At 19:34 02.05.2002, Bart Frackiewicz wrote: Dear List, i want to create a server in mod_perl/apache, which receives request via get/post (plain), process this request (with database access and some functions) and answers in xml (with correct header), after planning this about a month i realized that this is called a web service. the difference between my solution and all articles was SOAP, which i understand as an extension to http, so in my opinion i need something that allows to parse the request and creates the output, is there a solution for mod_perl anyway? and is this solution stable for a production server which more than 10.000 request/day? i hope this is the right place to ask, but in all articles i read there were only examples for java/tomcat, not for perl/mod_perl. Yes, to the glory of the Perl community, we probably have the simplest answer you could want: It's called SOAP::Lite (but is nowehere near lite): http://www.soaplite.com/ An example: mod_soap enabled SOAP server: .htaccess SetHandler perl-script PerlHandler Apache::SOAP PerlSetVar dispatch_to /Your/Path/To/Deployed/Modules, Module::Name That's an example. Some may call web services hype, I don't really know, but atleast this will get you going. Stable enough? you'll have to ask someone else, but I think it should work well enough. -- Per Einar Ellefsen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: SOAP and web services
Stable enough? you'll have to ask someone else, but I think it should work well enough. I've been using SOAP::Lite + Apache for a bunch of my newer projects with moderate load, and so far I've had no problems... ;) --d
Re: SOAP and web services
Are you sure soap is what you want?. Just because SOAP uses XML to encode the parameters and data which it transmits doesnt necessarily mean you want that same format sent to the user. Why would you not have a normal mod perl content handler execute whatever procedures are necessary to get the information and then build the XML structures from the plethora of modules available? I use mod_perl/apache/soap::lite to create an internal application server so that I can distribute processing load from the public webserver. This also allows me to expose a soap web service to the public if I wished to give them direct access to a method on this application server, but of course they would need a soap client to access this service. Do you want to just return an xml to your user, or do you want to do what I do which is do internal RPC using SOAP. Ric. p.s. apologies if I'm completely off track :) - Original Message - From: Bart Frackiewicz [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, May 02, 2002 6:34 PM Subject: SOAP and web services Dear List, i want to create a server in mod_perl/apache, which receives request via get/post (plain), process this request (with database access and some functions) and answers in xml (with correct header), after planning this about a month i realized that this is called a web service. the difference between my solution and all articles was SOAP, which i understand as an extension to http, so in my opinion i need something that allows to parse the request and creates the output, is there a solution for mod_perl anyway? and is this solution stable for a production server which more than 10.000 request/day? i hope this is the right place to ask, but in all articles i read there were only examples for java/tomcat, not for perl/mod_perl. Thanks in advance Bart Frackiewicz -- BART FRACKIEWICZ systementwickler inity - agentur fuer neue medien gmbh birkenstrasse 71 40233 duesseldorf
Re: SOAP and web services
Richard Clarke wrote: I use mod_perl/apache/soap::lite to create an internal application server so that I can distribute processing load from the public webserver. That would be a lot more efficient if you just used vanilla HTTP. Less wasted overhead. This is the same principal at work when you use mod_proxy in your web server and a backend system with mod_perl on it. - Perrin
RE: SOAP and web services
Bart, I would have to recommend SOAD::Lite ( http://www.soaplite.org) also. We use it accomplish many tasks - not the least of which is exposing Perl data structures to M$ ASP applications - which have a moderate load and have had no problems. Joe -Original Message- From: Bart Frackiewicz [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, May 02, 2002 12:34 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: SOAP and web services Dear List, i want to create a server in mod_perl/apache, which receives request via get/post (plain), process this request (with database access and some functions) and answers in xml (with correct header), after planning this about a month i realized that this is called a web service. the difference between my solution and all articles was SOAP, which i understand as an extension to http, so in my opinion i need something that allows to parse the request and creates the output, is there a solution for mod_perl anyway? and is this solution stable for a production server which more than 10.000 request/day? i hope this is the right place to ask, but in all articles i read there were only examples for java/tomcat, not for perl/mod_perl. Thanks in advance Bart Frackiewicz -- BART FRACKIEWICZ systementwickler inity - agentur fuer neue medien gmbh birkenstrasse 71 40233 duesseldorf
Re: SOAP and web services
On Thu, May 02, 2002 at 01:27:48PM -0500, Joe Breeden wrote: Bart, I would have to recommend SOAD::Lite ( http://www.soaplite.org) also. We use it accomplish many tasks - not the least of which is exposing Perl data structures to M$ ASP applications - which have a moderate load and have had no problems. A few more examples can be found in chapter 15 of the mod_perl cookbook. The (fairly simple) code in HalfLife-QueryServer is here: http://www.modperlcookbook.org/code/ch15/ Another simple way to do RPC over HTTP with mod_perl is RPC::XML. Both it and SOAP::Lite are testaments to the power and simplicity of perl+apache.. -Original Message- From: Bart Frackiewicz [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, May 02, 2002 12:34 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: SOAP and web services Dear List, i want to create a server in mod_perl/apache, which receives request via get/post (plain), process this request (with database access and some functions) and answers in xml (with correct header), after planning this about a month i realized that this is called a web service. the difference between my solution and all articles was SOAP, which i understand as an extension to http, so in my opinion i need something that allows to parse the request and creates the output, is there a solution for mod_perl anyway? and is this solution stable for a production server which more than 10.000 request/day? i hope this is the right place to ask, but in all articles i read there were only examples for java/tomcat, not for perl/mod_perl. Thanks in advance Bart Frackiewicz -- BART FRACKIEWICZ systementwickler inity - agentur fuer neue medien gmbh birkenstrasse 71 40233 duesseldorf -- Paul Lindner[EMAIL PROTECTED] | | | | | | | | | | mod_perl Developer's Cookbook http://www.modperlcookbook.org/ Human Rights Declaration http://www.unhchr.ch/udhr/
