Understanding Key Mapping Using a Key Map File

19 Using the Oracle Reports Web Service 19-1 19 Using the Oracle Reports Web Service A Web service is an application that is built on standard Internet and XML technologies and has the following characteristics : ■ Includes public interfaces and bindings defined and described using XML. ■ Publishes these public interfaces and bindings across the network for use by other programs. A Web service accepts a request, performs its function based on the request, and returns a response. The request and the response can be part of the same operation, or they can occur separately, in which case the consumer need not wait for a response. Both the request and the response usually take the form of XML, a portable data-interchange format, and are delivered over a wire protocol, such as HTTP. Web service transactions are usually conducted between businesses. A business that is a provider of one service can also be a consumer of another service. A Web service consumer can also be a client device, such as a thin client connecting to the Web service provider over a lightweight protocol. This chapter discusses the Oracle Reports Web service and contains the following sections: ■ Overview ■ Getting Started ■ Oracle Reports Web Service Operations ■ Using RWWebServiceUtil to Test RWWebService

19.1 Overview

Oracle Reports provides several ways of submitting a job request to the server-infrastructure for processing: ■ rwservlet rwservlet translates and delivers a job request between HTTP and the Reports Server, such as when submitting from a Web browser or through the event-driven publishing API. ■ rwclient rwclient parses and transfers a command line to run a a report on a remote Reports Server. ■ Oracle Forms 19-2 Publishing Reports to the Web with Oracle Reports Services Oracle Forms is a rapid application development RAD tool, used to build highly scalable Internet database applications. Integrating the Oracle Reports technology into custom applications, especially Java applications, requires the implementation of the mechanisms used by rwservlet, rwcgi, rwclient, and Oracle Forms to submit jobs to the server from within those applications. The RWWebService servlet provides the necessary public interfaces and bindings, and is required to be exposed and to function as a Web service. This functionality enables any application developer to include Oracle Reports in their application.

19.2 Getting Started

This section outlines the steps necessary for: ■ Invoking the RWWebService Servlet ■ Viewing the WSDL

19.2.1 Invoking the RWWebService Servlet

To invoke the RWWebService servlet:

1. Start a Oracle WebLogic Server instance, where the Oracle Reports instance

resides.

2. Enter the following URL in the address field of your browser:

http:yourwebserver:portreportsrwwebservice This takes you to the RWWebService endpoint. The RWWebService endpoint page enables you to do the following:

a. View the Oracle Reports Web service WSDL.

b. Run any RWWebService command using a Web based UI.

19.2.2 Viewing the WSDL

The Web Service Description Language WSDL is an XML format for describing available services as a set of endpoints operating on messages containing either document-oriented or procedure-oriented information. The operations and messages are described abstractly, and then bound to a concrete network protocol and message format to define an endpoint.

1. Click the WSDL link on the RWWebService Web page to view the Oracle Reports

Web services WSDL document. 2. The last entry in the WSDL is the service description and contains the location of the WebService: soap:address location=http:yourwebserver:8888reportsrwwebservice Note: Oracle Reports Web service does not support dynamic discovery of the WSDL by publishing to the Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration UDDI server. Note: Use Internet Explorer to view the WSDL XML output.