[rt-devel] RT SOAP and Java interface

[darren chamberlain]

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* Sebastian Cramer <sc at graf-schabernack.de> [2003-07-11 12:37]:
> darren chamberlain wrote:
> > > I'd like to build a Java interface for RT3 (since I could use it
> > > in a small project). I'm looking into interfacing for quite a
> > > while now and the only feasable way seems to be the rt-soap
> > > server.
> >
> > You might also want to take a look at the CLI (when it appear) -- it
> > will use a simple REST-based interface that should be much more
> > lightweight than the SOAP interface, and also probably better
> > intergrated (especially at first).
> 
> Is the CLI available in alpha/beta somewhere? I would like to take a
> little look. Even though I think SOAP would be nicer since it would
> add the possibility of accessing RT over a network connection...

The CLI isn't available yet (it's coming Real Soon Now, though).  But,
the neat thing about it is that it communicates over the network; the
program itself is a small network client (that's the REST[0] part of
what I mentioned above).  This has a couple of interesting implications:

  * You can deploy the perl CLI to a machine that doesn't have RT
    installed, since it doesn't require half of CPAN (unlike RT itself).

  * Since it communicates over the network, there is extensive server-
    side support for it (otherwise it wouldn't work).  

  * Since it communicates over the network using a simple, CGI-like
    protocol, there are very few extra libraries that need to be present
    on the client machine, no matter what the implementation language --
    no XML parsers, no SOAP libraries, just the ability to open a
    network connection and parse a query string.

As I mentioned before, I already intend to create RT libraries for
Python, at least (since it's what I will need), and likely C.  I imagine
that similar libraries for Java, C++, PHP, etc would be very
straightforward.

> > So, I think that a Java-based interface to RT would be grand, even
> > though I would probably never have the need to use it.  One of the
> > interesting things about this project would be that the SOAP
> > interface (if that was what you started using) would most likely
> > also be improved, in order to fully implement the Java interface.
>
> I will investigate a little more into Perl. Perhaps I can work a
> little bit on rt-soap-server (and the WSDL) but I'm afraid I might not
> be too much help...

I was thinking also about bug reports, feature requests, and testing,
and not just implementation help.  These are (arguably) as important as
code.

(darren)

[0] See http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/top.htm for
    the origin of REST, if you are unclear about what I mean by the term.

- -- 
So far as a man thinks, he is free.
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