Introduction

As the world moves forward, there is a higher need for more information. However, it is a near impossible task to create and manage all this information yourself. Sometimes, it’s easier to use freely available services and information feeds provided by others. One such ‘feed’ is a Web Service. By sending a properly formed request to another group over the web, you can receive information back, and display it on your screen. A popular and easy to visualize example of this is getting the local Movie Theater times and titles for current movies. This tutorial will show how to do this. It is recommended that you review our article APEX Tutorial Preparation and OEHR Sample Data Install before proceeding with this tutorial.

Part 2 – Creating the End Reports from the Web Service

High Level Steps

1) Create page, Buttons and Items (0:30)
2) Create the Call Process (4:38)
3) Create and test the Web Service Result Report (5:39)

The times in parenthesis are approximate start times for that step

Notes and Resources

Web Services

Web Services are somewhat like the web itself, and can be transient in nature. Due to this, the information presented in this tutorial is accurate as of the time the tutorial was made. However, there may be changes in the Web Service link, procedures, returned data and other factors since the creation of this document.Web Services can by found by either manually entering the information needed (as we are doing in this tutorial) or by use of the UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery and Integration) registry, which is a directory where businesses have submitted their available Web Services information for others to browse and use.

Testing Manual Services

Whenever you create and test a manual service it accomplishes two things. One it tells you if you are getting back the correct information, and two, it allows you to find the information references you may need later when building the displayed report. In our case, embedded in the returned results for the Movie Info service there are a few things we need to take note of. One is the ‘base node’, another is the ‘namespace’, also there is the ‘XPath’ and the ‘interesting elements’ All of these will be used in the creation of the end report, so it’s important to know them. Of course, this means that you should have a good idea of the data you need from the web service before you go invoking it.

Code and pasted Text

Result Node Path

/GetTheatersAndMoviesResponse/GetTheatersAndMoviesResult/Theater/Movies/Mov
ie

Namespace

http://www.ignyte.com/whatsshowing

Parameter Names

Name
Rating
RunningTime
ShowTimes