ColdFusion MX and Web ServicesFrom Creation and Consumption

Introduction Neil Ross

• Senior Application Architect with Automation Creations in Blacksburg, Virginia, USA. neil@aciwebs.com / http://www.aciwebs.com

Freelance application development as Codesweeper. neil@codesweeper.com / http://www.codesweeper.com

• Certifications: ColdFusion Developer and ColdFusion Instructor

• Author: Inside ColdFusion MXhttp://www.insidecoldfusionmx.com as well as online and CFDJ articles

• Speaker: ColdFusion DevCon 2000 in DC, CFUGs, MMUGs, CFEurope 2003

• Founder and former manager of Central Penn CFUGCurrently manager and founder of Southwest Virginia MMUG

Overview

• Explain Web Services

• Examine how to create your own web services with ColdFusion MX

• Examine how to consume an existing web service in ColdFusion MX

• Examine how to publish your web services for consumption by the world

What are Web Services?

• Web services encapsulate existing business processes for publishing to the web

• A Web Service is a URL-addressable software resource that perform one or more functions

• Web Services communicate using standard protocol known as SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol)

Characteristics

• A web service is accessible over the web

• Web services communicate using platform-independent and language-neural web protocols

• A web service provide an interface to be called by other programs

• A web service can be registered and located through a web service registry

What would you use them for?

• Expose existing resources to the web

• Develop new applications from web services

• Separate business logic from UI components

• Bundle common functionality across web services

• Provide Security (Authentication, Authorization)

• Provide consistency among services

Common Web Services

Examples of web services include the following:

• User authentication and authorization

• Credit card validation

• Stock quotes

• E-commerce

• News and information syndication

What do they look like?

Parts of a Web Service

Web services consist of the following basic components:

• Publishers create and provide application

• Brokers maintain a registry of service providers

• Consumers web pages that access and use the remote web service

Creating ColdFusion Components

• ColdFusion components are the gateway to web services in ColdFusion MX

• Write a bunch of code that’s really complicated to write the XML that comprises your WSDL document…???

NO!!!

• First step is to create a ColdFusion Component and it’s very very easy to do

CFC Code view

<!--- ::: creating a ColdFusion component in code view ::: --->

<cfcomponent><cffunction name="myFunction" access="public" returntype="string">

<cfargument name="myArgument" type="string" required="true"><cfset myResult="foo"><cfreturn myResult>

</cffunction></cfcomponent>

Using code view in Dreamweaver MX, select File> New>, then select Dynamic Page from the Category menu and ColdFusion Component from the Dynamic Page menu:

CFC wizard viewSelect the + button on the component tab within the Application panel in DWMX

Fill out information requested within the Create Component window.

View and Test your CFC• Of course, you don’t want to assume that your CFC

works properly without proper testing

• From the components tab in the Application panel, expand the component, then select the function to call

• Drag and drop the selected component function into your CFML template

<!--- ::: invoke the ColdFusion component ::: ---><cfinvoke component="cdsettlement.act.users" method="authenticate_user" returnvariable="authenticate_userRet">

<cfinvokeargument name="username" value="enter_value_here"/> <cfinvokeargument name="password" value="enter_value_here"/>

</cfinvoke>

Creating the Web Service

• Select the Components in the Application Panel

• Select Web Services from the select menu

• Type in the URL of the WSDL file or the CFC with “?WSDL” appended

• That’s it… click OK and it will be added to your list of available web services

Consuming Web Services

• Connecting programmatically to a Web service is known as consuming it.

• First… find the web service that you want to connect to

• Write a bunch of code that’s really complicated so that you can connect to the web service but only if you know everything about the web service and its in/out parameters… ???

NO!!!

Consuming Web Services

• Select the Components in the Application Panel

• Select Web Services from the select menu

• Drag and drop the web services function into the code editor

Web Services in the Real World

• Currency exchange rates and conversion

Web Services in the Real World

• Currency exchange rates and conversion code

Finding Web Services

• Web services exist in UDDI registries

• UDDI – Universal Description, Discovery and Integration

Finding Web Services

• Microsoft UDDI Business Registry

• IBM Web Services and UDDI

• Xmethods

Conclusion

• Web Services don’t have to be a mystery

• CFMX allows for the easiest implementation of Web Services

• Dreamweaver MX and ColdFusion MX for web services are the shizzle, fo sheezy!

• For more information, contact me at:neil@aciwebs.com