Consuming web services
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Consuming web services
ColdFusion MX provides two methods for consuming web services. The method that you choose
depends on your ColdFusion programming style and application.
The following table describes these methods:
One important consideration is that all consumption methods use the same underlying
technology and offer the same performance.
Note:
In ColdFusion MX and ColdFusion MX 6.1, if a WSDL file specifies multiple web services, you
can use only the first web service that is defined in the file. To access any other service, copy the file
and separate it into individual WSDL files for each service you use.
About the examples in this section
The examples in this section reference the BabelFish web service from AltaVista. BabelFish can
translate strings up to 5K in length from one language to another. You can read the WSDL file for
this web service in
“Reading a WSDL file” on page 711
.
If you add the BabelFish web service in Dreamweaver MX, you see the following description of it
in the Application panel.
For information on adding a web service in Dreamweaver, see
“Viewing a WSDL file using
Dreamweaver MX” on page 711
. For more information on BabelFish, see
http://babelfish.altavista.com/
.
Passing parameters to a web service
One type of information in the WSDL file defines the web service operations and the input and
output parameters of each operation, including the data type of each parameter. If you register the
web service in Dreamweaver MX, as shown in the previous section, you see that the data type of
both input parameters is string.
The following example shows a portion of the WSDL file for the BabelFish web service:
<message name="BabelFishRequest">
<part name="translationmode" type="xsd:string" />
<part name="sourcedata" type="xsd:string" />
</message>
Method
CFML operator
Description
CFScript
CreateObject
()
Consumes a web service from within a CFScript block
CFML tag
cfinvoke
Consumes a web service from within a block of CFML code
Summary of Contents for COLDFUSION MX 61-DEVELOPING COLDFUSION MX
Page 1: ...Developing ColdFusion MX Applications...
Page 22: ...22 Contents...
Page 38: ......
Page 52: ...52 Chapter 2 Elements of CFML...
Page 162: ......
Page 218: ...218 Chapter 10 Writing and Calling User Defined Functions...
Page 250: ...250 Chapter 11 Building and Using ColdFusion Components...
Page 264: ...264 Chapter 12 Building Custom CFXAPI Tags...
Page 266: ......
Page 314: ...314 Chapter 14 Handling Errors...
Page 344: ...344 Chapter 15 Using Persistent Data and Locking...
Page 349: ...About user security 349...
Page 357: ...Security scenarios 357...
Page 370: ...370 Chapter 16 Securing Applications...
Page 388: ...388 Chapter 17 Developing Globalized Applications...
Page 408: ...408 Chapter 18 Debugging and Troubleshooting Applications...
Page 410: ......
Page 426: ...426 Chapter 19 Introduction to Databases and SQL...
Page 476: ...476 Chapter 22 Using Query of Queries...
Page 534: ...534 Chapter 24 Building a Search Interface...
Page 556: ...556 Chapter 25 Using Verity Search Expressions...
Page 558: ......
Page 582: ...582 Chapter 26 Retrieving and Formatting Data...
Page 668: ......
Page 734: ...734 Chapter 32 Using Web Services...
Page 760: ...760 Chapter 33 Integrating J2EE and Java Elements in CFML Applications...
Page 786: ...786 Chapter 34 Integrating COM and CORBA Objects in CFML Applications...
Page 788: ......