PWB523 Pocket PB, PocketSOAP

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PWB523 Pocket PB, PocketSOAP Web Services
Ian ThainTechnical Evangelistian.thain_at_sybase.co
mAugust 2003
2
Introduction Ian Thain

• Technical Evangelist / Software Engineer in the
  Infrastructure Platform Group of Sybase, Inc
• Involved with the design, production and testing
  of Enterprise class e-Business Solutions, that
  have been implemented using Sybases e-Business
  Platform for Sybase customers around the globe.
• In addition, continually working with Sybases
  key partners and clients to enhance the
  capabilities of the e-business solutions that
  Sybase can offer to its customers.
• EAServer, EP, PowerBuilder, Pocket PowerBuilder,
  PowerJ OEM products

3
Agenda

• PPB Overview
• Problem to address
• Technologies 101
• What is Sybase doing ?
• Solution
• Demonstration
• Futures
• Q A

4
Pocket PowerBuilder Overview

• "Don't think bigThink Small!!"
• PowerBuilder is now coming to aid corporate
  development of Pocket PC applications, brining
  all the benefits I have mentioned above - RAD 4
  GL and even the DataWindow technology.
• So we really can now say, DataWindows
  EVERYWHERE!!!!

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How does it differ from PowerBuilder?

• Unsupported Functions
• OLE
• DDE
• CORBA
• Profiling
• Printing
• Rich Text and a few more
• Unsupported Events
• help()
• closequery()
• anything to do with remote (example
  remoteexec()), hotlinkalarm() and toolbarmoved().
  

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How does it differ from PowerBuilder?

• Unsupported Features
• MDI applications,
• EAServer connections,
• Web and JSP targets,
• and Automation server.

NO PFC !
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Problem to address

• Components
• So you may have diverse components in your
  enterprise and need to access them
• Some of these components may access other data
  and or perform complex processing
• Application Client
• Pocket PowerBuilder v1.0

Unlike PowerBuilder v9.0, Pocket PowerBuilder
v1.0 does not have Initial Context Object or EJB
Client
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Solution

• Components
• So you may have diverse components in your
  enterprise and need to access them
• Some of these components may access other data
  and or perform complex processing
• Application Client
• Pocket PowerBuilder v1.0

Web Services SOAP
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Technologies 101

• What are Web services ?
• Made up of standards that describe business
  processes
• Self describing
• Searchable in a registry of services
• Sync or Async
• Loosely coupled and cross platform
• Reusable

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Technologies 101

• Web services benefits
• RAD
• Neutral
• Architecture language
• Leverage current investment
• Accessed through many different client types

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Technologies 101
High Level Architecture
Client

• Provider creates and publishes service
• A client searches a registry for that service
• The client is able to connect and call the service

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Technologies 101

• Protocols involved Web Services Stack
• WSFL
• UDDI
• WSDL
• SOAP
• XML
• TCP/IP, HTTP etc

Emerging Layers
Core Layers
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Technologies 101

• TCP/IP, HTTP
• Common Internet Transport Protocols
• Web services not tied to any one protocol

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Technologies 101

• XML
• Extensible Markup Language
• Widely accepted format to exchange data
  semantics
• Core building block for every layer in the Web
  services stack

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Technologies 101

• SOAP
• Simple Object Access Protocol,
• Represents a
• light-weight,
• wire-level protocol
• for messaging RPC communications
• Based on XML

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Technologies 101

• SOAP Message
• Envelope comprised of
• Header
• Body
• Body comprised of
• Requests
• Responses
• Status
• Attachments

Envelope
Header
Body
Requests
Response
Status
Attachments
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Technologies 101

• WSDL
• Web Services Definition Language
• Based on XML
• Defines
• Functionality of a Web service
• Supported protocols
• Message formats
• Location of Web service

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Technologies 101

• WSDL Document
• Comprised of
• Data types
• Message/method
• Port
• Binding
• Service

Document
Data Types
Message
Interface
Port
Binding
Implementation
Service
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Technologies 101

• UDDI
• Universal Description, Discovery and Integration
• SOAP-based Web service
• Allows
• Providers to register services
• Clients to lookup services
• Uses WSDL to describe services

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Technologies 101
Client
UDDI
Provider
Lookup
Register
Service
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What is Sybase doing ?

• EAServer 4.x includes the Web Services Toolkit
• WST is a utility that allows users to take their
  existing business components and make them
  available as a Web services.
• The Web Services Toolkit provides support for the
  latest standards SOAP, WSDL and UDDI.
• FYI
• EAServer 5.0 AXIS Implementation
• UDDI Server

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Web Services Toolkit

• The Toolkit provides a full SOAP engine,
  supporting SOAP request/response.
• In addition, the toolkit offers a utility that
  can be run against a component in EAServer, to
  determine its soapability.
• The utility scans the component, chooses any
  methods that meet the soap criteria (all in/out
  parameters are supported by the SOAP standard)
• Only Synchronous Components i.e. not MDBs
• WST Generates the WSDL document that describes
  that method. - Bottom up approach
• Once the WSDL is generated, it can be posted to a
  UDDI repository, making the Web service publicly
  available.

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Web Services Toolkit
EAS
Components
Client
Application
WEB
WEB
Client Proxy
SOAP
Component
WSDL
Listener
X
WS
UDDI HOST
Manager

Gen WSDL, Proxy
WS

Register User
-
Defined Types
GUI
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Solution

• Components
• So you may have diverse components in your
  enterprise and need to access them
• Some of these components may access other data
  and or perform complex processing
• Application Client
• Pocket PowerBuilder v1.0

Web Services SOAP
PocketSOAP
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Mobile Wireless

• Pocket PowerBuilder is the ideal tool to produce
  application that can mobilize your field workers.
  
• Capture data electronically at source, minimizing
  data capture improve the quality of your data.
• Data can then be synchronized back to Enterprise
  systems with minimal impact, improving turn
  around time and increasing the effectiveness of
  the field workers.
• With newer PocketPC devices this synchronization
  can be via dialup or wireless connection.
• HP's iPAQ 5450, which has integrated Bluetooth
  and WiFi 802.11b
• Toshiba's e740, which has integrated WiFi
  802.11b.
• Both can be used within the range of a Wireless
  Access Point and the iPAQ 5450 can use Bluetooth
  to connect to cell phones for dialup connection
  or via GPRS.

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PocketSOAP

• Open Source SOAP client Component Object Model
  (COM) component.
• Distributed under the Mozila Public License
  (MPL).
• Developed by Simon Fell
• Originally targeted for the PocketPC
• now developed for PocketPC and Windows 95, 98,
  Me, NT4.0 and 2000.
• smaller footprint, the total footprint including
  the support library (expat xml parser and zlib)
  weights in at 680k.
• PocketSOAP also uses a sax style parser for perf
  memory load reasons, whilst other toolkits
  still use an intermediate DOM representation.

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PocketSOAP

• Includes the following features SOAP Section 5
  encoding support, support for document/literal
  style SOAP services (such as ASP.NET),
  attachments support via both DIME and SOAP with
  Attachments, Support for SOAP, HTTP 1.1 support
  including persistent connections, SSL, proxies,
  authentication, proxy authentication, redirects,
  cookies and compression.

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PocketSOAP

• Can make remote procedure calls to SOAP servers
  implemented with
• 4s4c
• ROPE
• Apache SOAP
• SOAPLite
• DM's SOAP/Perl
• XMethods SOAP Server
• The package includes a Hypertext Transfer
  Protocol (HTTP) client for making HTTP based SOAP
  requests, but other transports can be added.
• There are more features information that can be
  viewed at http//www.pocketsoap.com

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Pocket PowerBuilder v1.0 PocketSOAP

• Pocket PowerBuilder PocketSOAP interact through
  an Interface / external DLL wrapper, which
  provides a simple access to the PocketSOAP
  package, via its COM Interface.
• Pocket PowerBuilder does not have a COM object,
  aka OleObject at the moment!
• This wrapper will still exist and work when the
  OleObject does appear in the next version of
  Pocket PowerBuilder, but the recommended way to
  use PocketSOAP will be via the OleObject.
• So eventually code will have to be changed, as we
  will be programming directly to the PocketSOAP
  interface rather than the wrapper.
• Until then, lets enjoy using the wrapper and find
  out what we need to do.

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Pocket PowerBuilder v1.0 PocketSOAP

• Model for the API
• First the service object is created and that
  returns the access handle.
• Then you can set the various attributes in
  whatever order you desire.
• Internally, the attributes are simply stored for
  later use. Then you make the SOAP call.
• This uses the previously set attributes.
• Finally, you destroy the service object, which
  cuts away all the previously created COM objects.
  
•  

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Pocket PowerBuilder v1.0 PocketSOAP

• All this is built on top of the PocketSOAP
  system.
• So to run with PocketSOAP, retrieve the installs
  from http//www.pocketsoap.com
• Install them on both the desktop and Pocket PC
  device.
• These installs contain the API documentation,
  which will be useful in the future, when we will
  code directly to the PocketSOAP COM object, via
  the OleObject

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Pocket PowerBuilder v1.0 PocketSOAP

• The PocketSOAP wrapper can be found on the
  CodeXchange website, http//pocketpb.codexchange.s
  ybase.com with other examples etc

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Pocket PowerBuilder v1.0 PocketSOAP

• The wrapper functions can be made accessible from
  Pocket PowerBuilder as a global external
  function.
• In the "Application object
• select "(Declare)"
• and the "Global External Functions".

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Pocket PowerBuilder v1.0 PocketSOAP

• // External Functions all in library
  "PKSoapif.DLL"
• FUNCTION integer PocketSoap_Create( boolean
  fInProc, REF long lHandle ) library
  "PKSoapif.dll"
• FUNCTION integer PocketSoap_Destroy( long lHandle
  ) library "PKSoapif.dll"
• FUNCTION integer PocketSoap_SetProxy( long
  lHandle, readonly string pszProxyServer, long
  iProxyPort ) library "PKSoapif.dll"
• FUNCTION integer PocketSoap_SetProxyAuthentication
  ( long lHandle, readonly string pszUsername,
  readonly string pszPassword ) library
  "PKSoapif.dll"
• FUNCTION integer PocketSoap_SetAuthentication(
  long lHandle, readonly string pszUsername,
  readonly string pszPassword ) library
  "PKSoapif.dll"
• FUNCTION integer PocketSoap_SetMaxRedirects( long
  lHandle, long cRedirects ) library
  "PKSoapif.dll"
• FUNCTION integer PocketSoap_SetTimeout( long
  lHandle, long cSeconds ) library "PKSoapif.dll"
• FUNCTION integer PocketSoap_SetEndPoint( long
  lHandle, readonly string pszEndPointURL )
  library "PKSoapif.dll"
• FUNCTION integer PocketSoap_GetHTTPStatus( long
  lHandle, REF long lStatus ) library
  "PKSoapif.dll"
• // Actually make the SOAP call
• FUNCTION integer PocketSoap_SimpleCall( long
  lHandle,
• readonly string pszNameSpaceURI,
• readonly string pszMethodName,
• readonly string pszArgName,
• readonly string pszArgValue ) library
  "PKSoapif.dll"

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Pocket PowerBuilder v1.0 PocketSOAP

• PocketSoap_Create
• Create a PocketSoap interface object and lay the
  groundwork for future use.
• This must be matched with the "PocketSoap_Destroy"
  .
• PocketSoap_Destroy
• Close this connection and destroy all internal
  references.
• PocketSoap_GetHTTPStatus
• Ask the transport layer what the last HTTP status
  was. Will return a value like 200 or 404 or ...
• PocketSoap_SetProxy
• This enables the use of a proxy server for
  outgoing HTTP(S) connections.

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Pocket PowerBuilder v1.0 PocketSOAP

• PocketSoap_SetProxyAuthentication
• Sets the username/password for BASIC
  authentication to the Proxy server.
• PocketSoap_SetAuthentication
• Sets the username/password for BASIC
  authentication to the EndPoint server.
• PocketSoap_SetMaxRedirects
• Sets the maximum number of redirects the HTTP
  transport will follow for a single request.
• PocketSoap_SetTimeout
• Sets the timeout (in seconds) for a single
  request.

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Pocket PowerBuilder v1.0 PocketSOAP

• PocketSoap_SetEncodingStyle
• Sets the "Encoding Style" used in the SOAP
  message.
• PocketSoap_SetParameterNameSpace
• Sets the NameSpace for the parameters (arguments)
  used in the SOAP message.
• PocketSoap_SetEndPoint
• The endpoint URL, e.g. http//services.xmethods.ne
  t/soap
• PocketSoap_SimpleCall
• Execute a synchronous call to the previously
  specified EndPoint URL.
• This version takes a single parameter and returns
  a single value.

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Pocket PowerBuilder v1.0 PocketSOAP

• PocketSoap_Call
• Execute a synchronous call to the previously
  specified EndPoint URL. This general call is for
  an argument list with arbitrary number of
  name/value pairs.
• PocketSoap_GetResult
• Retrieve the single result (or the first if many)
  from the previous call.
• PocketSoap_GetResults
• Retrieve the (possibly multiple) results from the
  previous call into a DataWindow friendly string.
• PocketSoap_SetSoapAction
• Sets the SoapAction used in the SOAP message.

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Pocket PowerBuilder v1.0 PocketSOAP

• The 3 important things we need to set are the
• EndPoint,
• Namespace
• Method.
• The EndPoint indicates a specific location for
  accessing a service using a specific protocol and
  data format.
• The Namespace indicates the specific Web Service
• The method is that method which we want to call
  within that Web Service.
• For example we can use the method
  PocketSoap_SimpleCall which executes a
  synchronous call to the EndPoint URL with a
  single argument.
• This argument is a name/value pair and is
  optional.

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Pocket PowerBuilder v1.0 PocketSOAP
Method

• string sMethod "getPFShareList"
• string sEndPoint "http//localhost10000/WEB
  SERVICES/SOAP"
• string sNameSpace "PFShareListAll/PFShareList"
• String sSoapAction "PFShareListAll/PFShareList.
  getPFShareList return,java.lang.String,return"
• int cRetBufLen 128
• string sArgs
• string sResult
• long lHandle
• int iRet
• // create set attributes on for the soap call
• iRet PocketSoap_Create( true, REF lHandle )
• wf_message( iRet, "PocketSoap_Create")
• iRet PocketSoap_SetEndPoint( lHandle, sEndPoint
  )
• wf_message( iRet, "PocketSoap_SetEndPoint")
• iRet PocketSoap_SetSoapAction( lHandle,
  sSoapAction )
• wf_message( iRet, "PocketSoap_SetSoapAction")

Endpoint
NameSpace
1
2
3
4
5
6
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Pocket PowerBuilder v1.0 PocketSOAP

• For a more complex call there is another method
  called PocketSoap_Call, which takes arguments as
  name/value pairs, but represented as a single
  DataWindow friendly string.  
• Name1 t value1 t data-type1 rn
• Name2 t value2 t data-type2 rn
• Name3 t value1 t data-type1 rn
• Etc
•  
• PocketSOAP will take care of generating the SOAP
  message parsing the response.

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Pocket PowerBuilder v1.0 PocketSOAP

• The SOAP call and the response from the server
  can be viewed by using the SOAP Util tool from
  Apache (http//www.apache.org) This is started by
  using the command line
•  
• java org.apache.soap.util.net.TcpTunnelGui 10000
  ithain-home 8080
•  
• This allows the tool to intercept all requests
  that are made to localhost10000, display them
  then reroute them to ithain-home8080.
• Like wise the tool intercepts the response from
  ithain-home8080, display them
  and reroute them back to the caller.

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Pocket PowerBuilder v1.0 PocketSOAP
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Pocket PowerBuilder v1.0 PocketSOAP

• For EAServer 4.x we need to set the SoapAction
  attribute.
• This is due to that fact that in EAServer 4.x we
  are using the SoapAction attribute, within our
  proprietary implementation of Web Services,
  though this is compatible with other
  implementations such as Apache.
• That being said other implementations also
  require SoapAction.
•  
•  

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Demonstrations

• Pocket PowerBuilder calling a Web Service on
  EAServer via PocketSOAP. Web Service is an EJB
• Pocket PowerBuilder calling a Web Service from
  XMethods via PocketSOAP
•  
•  

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Demonstration 1
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Demonstration 1

• public String getPFShareList() throws
  javax.ejb.EJBException
• String ShareList .
• try
• javax.naming.Context ctx new
  javax.naming.InitialContext()
• javax.sql.DataSource ds (javax.sql.DataSource)
  ctx.lookup("javacomp/env/jdbc/Portfolio")
• con ds.getConnection()
• stmt con.createStatement()
• rs stmt.executeQuery("SELECT FROM
  DBA.SYMBOL SYMBOL ORDER BY symbol_cd")
• while (rs.next())
• ShareListrow rs.getString("symbol_cd")
  ","
• ShareListrow rs.getString("symbol_ln")
  ","
• ShareListrow rs.getString("symbol_current_
  price")
• row 1
• catch (Exception e)
• System.out.println("getPFShareList Exception"
  e.toString())
• finally
• try

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Demonstration 1
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Demonstration 1
EAS
Components
PPB
Application
WEB
WEB
PocketSOAP
SOAP
Component
WSDL
Listener
X
WS
UDDI HOST
Manager

Gen WSDL, Proxy
WS

Register User
-
Defined Types
GUI
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Demonstration 2

• Against a Web Service on XMethods
• Shows use of more complex data type
•  
•  

string sMethod "BabelFish" string sEndPoint
"http//services.xmethods.net80/perl/soaplite.c
gi" string sNameSpace "urnxmethodsBabelFish" st
ring sResult int cRetBufLen 2048 long
lHandle int iRet string sArgs   //en_fr,
en_es, en_de, en_it sArgs "translationmodet"
ddlb_language.text sArgs "rnsourcedatat"
sle_xlat_src.text   iRet PocketSoap_Create(
true, REF lHandle ) iRet PocketSoap_SetEndPoint
( lHandle, sEndPoint ) iRet PocketSoap_Call(
lHandle, sNameSpace, sMethod, sArgs )   sResult
Space( cRetBufLen ) iRet PocketSoap_GetResult(
lHandle, cRetBufLen, REF sResult)   mle_xlat.text
mle_xlat.text "rn---------" "Result "
sResult   iRet PocketSoap_Destroy( lHandle )
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Futures

• EAServer 5.0
• No need to loose sleep with regard to the current
  usage of SOAPAction in EASevrer 4.x, as within
  the next version of EAServer, EAServer 5.0 the
  implementation of Web Services will be Axis and
  then we need not set the SoapAction at all.
• FYI, within EAServer 5.0 components can be
  exposed as Web Services in a slightly different
  way. Firstly by a command line tool called
  wstool.
•   wstool exposeComponent PFShareListAll/PFShareLis
  t
• Or secondly via an Eclipse based plugin. Either
  way will expose that component as a Web Service.
  The only difference to the code example above
  will be that the namespace changes to
  PFShareListAll_PFShareList and the endpoint to
  http//localhost10000/ws/services.

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Futures

• Pocket PowerBuilder
• OLE Object for interaction with COM
• wrapper will be unnecessary
• calling code will change

OLEObject soap, t Long ll_status String
ls_retVal String ls_url ls_url
http//localhost8080/.. Soap CREATE
OLEObject T CREATE OLEObject ll_status
soap.ConnectToNewObject(PocketSOAP.Envelop.2) ll
_status t.ConnectToNewObject(PocketSOAP.HTTPTra
nsport.2) Soap.EncodingStyle
Soap.methodName subtract Soap.Parameters.C
reate(a1, 6) Soap.Parameters.Create(21,
10) t.Send(ls_url, soap.serialize) Soap.parse(t)
ls_retVal String(soap.Parameters.Item(0).Value)
DESTROY soap DESTROY t
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Futures

• Pocket PowerBuilder - TBD
• Remote Debugging
• Native Support for INK, Voice, Today, Mail, etc
• More Native Database Drivers and Object Store
• PBNI
• PB9 DataWindow and EditMask
• Native Support for Web Services
• Smart Phone Support
• Native Support for Microsoft Compact Framework

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Futures
Pocket PowerBuilder vx.x
Pocket PowerBuilder vx.x
Pocket PowerBuilder v1.0
Q104
Q403
Q204
Q303
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Conclusion

• Over the last few years we have been telling you
  to partition your applications and take advantage
  of your favorite Application Server (EAServer)
• You will probably want to reuse that code.
• Pocket PowerBuilder is another reason to do this
  PDA different to Client/Server.
• The PDA occasionally connected model using Web
  Services is just like calling NVOs . But taken
  to the extreme !

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Conclusion

• PocketSOAP can be used and is accessible via a
  Pocket PowerBuilder interface.
• This allows Pocket PowerBuilder to call Web
  Services, enabling the reuse of components, such
  on EAServer.
• So connect to your App Server send the minimum
  amount of data via a PocketSOAP, let the App
  Server do all that hard stuff and send the result
  back

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Q A

• ian.thain_at_sybase.com
• Technical Evangelist / Software Engineer
• Check out PBDJ for Pocket PowerBuilder articles