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jkard's avatar
jkard
Visitor
14 years ago

Calling a Web Service - roUrlTransfer

Good day!

I'm trying to call a web service, and am not really finding a straight forward example on how to do this anywhere. I've seen an example in the demo projects, but I was hoping for something stupidly simple and outlined. The PDF's don't have any demo code, so I'm kind of at a loss. Is there any projects or sample code that just list the steps outright?

Here is what I'm trying to do:

1. Create a roUrlTransfer object
2. Call a web service
3. Capture the returning XML

Seems pretty simple, but I can't find anything that details the steps. Help??

Thanks
Jay
Roku Developer Program

7 Replies

  • jkard's avatar
    jkard
    Visitor
    14 years ago
    No responses, so maybe too big of a question to ask. Let me post what I have been working on today, and perhaps you can tell me what's correct/incorrect?

    Function TestWebServiceCall() As String

        'Set the Web Service URL - (JUST A WEB SERVICE I FOUND FOR TESTING PURPOSES)
        webServiceURL = "http://local.yahooapis.com/MapsService/V1/geocode?appid=YD-9G7bey8_JXxQP6rxl.fBFGgCdNjoDMACQA--&street=701+First+Ave&city=Sunnyvale&state=CA "

        'Set Attributes
        webTransfer = CreateObject("roUrlTransfer")
        webTransfer.SetPort(CreateObject("roMessagePort"))
        webTransfer.SetUrl(webServiceURL)
        webTransfer.AddHeader("Content-Type","application/x-www-form-urlencoded")

        ??????????
        XmlTransfer = webTransfer.GetToString()

        Return XmlTransfer

    End Function


    Any thoughts as to how to improve this and make it fit my goal? Is this the right path?

    Thanks!
    Jay
  • RokuChris's avatar
    RokuChris
    Roku Employee
    14 years ago
    Depending on the level of control you need over the transfer, there are several different ways to do this. roURLTransfer is documented in the Component Reference document in the SDK. The simplest way to fetch the contents of a URL would look like this:

    xfer = CreateObject("roURLTransfer")
    xfer.SetURL("http://api.example.com/someMethod")
    result = xfer.GetToString()
  • jkard's avatar
    jkard
    Visitor
    14 years ago
    "RokuChris" wrote:
    Depending on the level of control you need over the transfer, there are several different ways to do this. roURLTransfer is documented in the Component Reference document in the SDK. The simplest way to fetch the contents of a URL would look like this:

    xfer = CreateObject("roURLTransfer")
    xfer.SetURL("http://api.example.com/someMethod")
    result = xfer.GetToString()


    Thanks Chris,

    So I built the following, and it's not returning anything, even though I can see the web service works. What should I be expecting from this, should I see the XML string? Right now, nothing is 

    Function TestWebServiceCall_2() As String
        xfer = CreateObject("roURLTransfer")
        xfer.SetURL("http://local.yahooapis.com/MapsService/V1/geocode?appid=YD-9G7bey8_JXxQP6rxl.fBFGgCdNjoDMACQA--&street=701+First+Ave&city=Sunnyvale&state=CA ")
        result = xfer.GetToString()
        Return result 
    End Function

    Print(TestWebServiceCall_2())


    Thanks
    Jay
  • RokuChris's avatar
    RokuChris
    Roku Employee
    14 years ago
    "jkard" wrote:
    So I built the following, and it's not returning anything, even though I can see the web service works. What should I be expecting from this, should I see the XML string? Right now, nothing is 

    Function TestWebServiceCall_2() As String
        xfer = CreateObject("roURLTransfer")
        xfer.SetURL("http://local.yahooapis.com/MapsService/V1/geocode?appid=YD-9G7bey8_JXxQP6rxl.fBFGgCdNjoDMACQA--&street=701+First+Ave&city=Sunnyvale&state=CA ")
        result = xfer.GetToString()
        Return result 
    End Function

    Print(TestWebServiceCall_2())


    Two things. 1) That trailing space in your URL could be the problem. 2) The call to TestWebServiceCall_2() is just hanging out in space. It should be inside your Main() for it to work.
    Function TestWebServiceCall_2() As String
        xfer = CreateObject("roURLTransfer")
        xfer.SetURL("http://local.yahooapis.com/MapsService/V1/geocode?appid=YD-9G7bey8_JXxQP6rxl.fBFGgCdNjoDMACQA--&street=701+First+Ave&city=Sunnyvale&state=CA")
        result = xfer.GetToString()
        Return result 
    End Function

    Sub Main()
        Print(TestWebServiceCall_2())
    end Sub
  • jkard's avatar
    jkard
    Visitor
    14 years ago
    Ah! Looks like it was the extra space at the end, nice catch! I actually was calling the method from Main(), but forgot to include that, sorry for the confusion.

    So the next question would be, now that I have the XML in a string, can I pass it to a XML object for parsing?

    Thanks Chris!

    Jay
  • RokuChris's avatar
    RokuChris
    Roku Employee
    14 years ago
    "jkard" wrote:
    So the next question would be, now that I have the XML in a string, can I pass it to a XML object for parsing?


    Yep. roXMLElement is documented along with some example code in the BrightScript Reference Manual.