I'm trying to automate getting(posting) data from SAP CRM using my server (cURL/PHP+MSSQL), but have some problems with it.
There is no access allowed except this web interface.
I tried to use cURL, using POST fields from FireBug, but it returned only logon error.
Questions:
Is there any solution or API?
Has anybody tried it?
Thanks.
Yes, there are APIs, though you'll have to be more specific about exactly what data you want in order to say if a particular API to serve your needs exists. SOAP web services are an option that may provide the information you need and there are PHP SOAP libraries. You'll need to talk to your SAP team to get access to the system, and you will probably want to be much more specific about the exact data you need access to.
If your company has Gateway, you can also define OData APIs. And it is, of course, possible to define your own RESTful (or other) HTTP APIs using SAP's HTTP stack. Again, you'll need to talk to your SAP team about this.
Related
I'm having troubles to figure out how web services handle requests and send responses, and how my site/module will handle it. So these are my questions and bellow a little about why i am asking this:
What is the right way to send a request to web service?
How a web-service will usually answer a site requesting?
How a PHP site can send a request to a web-service? Is cURL the right way?
I'm a student who are learning PHP and a lot of other things, and my job now is create a Joomla Module to show information from a web service (probably created in java or something, probably created by me, when i learn java...).
I know i will use http requests to talk with the web service, but i worry im using it wrong (making a request to the url, like the browser).
So, i did a little example site and a example API. The api uses Slim microframework to create routes, access my database and return the content in json (what means: if i access 'api.com/api/something' in my browser i see a plain white page with a lot of json). I pretend this is my web service.
The example site send a request to the API with cURL, reads the content and decode the json and do things. It seems forced to me.
I have not much support to understand web services and if i am in the right way (or far from this).
I would appreciate your help.
You are on the right track. A web service is simply a processing or storage facility intended to be accessed by some other program just like a database or fileserver service.
What is the right way to send a request to a web service
It depends. The most common implementations use SOAP or REST which define additional semantics on top of the HTTP protocol. SOAP uses a single URL as a gateway to the service and more specific selection of the functionality and the relevant data is embedded within an XML payload presented via POST. HTTP is merely a bearer for the message exchange. In REST, the HTTP part is integrated into the semantics of the transaction.
The URL identifies the location of the data (or processing function)
The payload contains only data, usually presented as POSTed JSON or XML,
further REST uses the HTTP verb (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE) to indicate the requested action
the HTTP headers are used to convey transaction meta-data.
How a web service will usually answer a request
I'm not sure what you are asking here. It should report back on the state of the request, any relevant error messages and possibly some data.
The speciifics would be unique to the API and documented.
Is cURL the right way?
While it is possible to do a lot with the HTTP wrappers functionality in PHP, libcurl offers an lot more flexibility. So, yes this it would be hard to implement a REST client without using cURL, OTOH a SOAP client is (usually) less complex at the HTTP tier but life is a lot simpler if you use a SOAP library/framework to abstract the more complex protocol.
For future questions please have one question per entry.
What is the right way to send a request to web service?
That really depends on the web service, what they require. It can be as simple as a short text string, to sending a XML formatted or JSON formatted array. You need to research the relevant web service.
How a web-service will usually answer a site requesting?
Again it depends on the web service. They are not the same. A web service will have documentation on what it expects and how it will respond.
How a PHP site can send a request to a web-service? Is cURL the right way?
Curl is a good method and is usually the method used from within PHP.
Is there anyway to do this? I've looked in the google-api-php-client library but it's not there yet. Is there any other way or am I out of luck?
The search API is only enabled for Python Java and Go, as Mario pointed out.
I would look into the modules documentation and try to separate your logic. Your search API can be the only module that isn't in PHP. There is no other solution for your problem unfortunately.
The team promised that a REST API would be made available at Google I/O 2011. I haven't been able to find any follow ups since.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7B7FyU9wW8Y#t=2088
You CAN now access the Search API natively from PHP.
The library is in alpha but should make its way to release fairly soon.
It uses the Google Protocol Buffers so it's the same level of abstraction as the Python/Java/Go SDKs
https://github.com/tomwalder/php-appengine-search
Feedback appreciated!
I ran into this problem previously, so wrote a sample PHP+Python module pair to allow access to search via URL fetch to a Python module.
https://github.com/tomwalder/phpne14-text-search
I have a similar scenario as you. This might not be the best solution, but I've solved it as follows:
I've created a Python module using Google Endpoints API to expose a set of methods capable of sending and receiving JSON formatted data via HTTP GET or POST. These methods allow me create Documents and Indexes or do queries.
My PHP client, simply calls these urls and passes appropriate data.
So effectively I have a wrapper around the search API and the python stuff is hidden inside.
I want to code an Android client and a Windows.exe server application (possibly PHP., I am still trying to decide).
I have no problem with developing the server app, but have not yet done any Android coding. Mostly, though, I am unsure about how to communicate between client and server.
A client aapp will login to the server then at regular intervals send its location (GPS coords) to the server which will store the data in a MySql database,
A second Android app will display a historical trail of where the first user has been using Google maps, plus a little more functionality.
Since I am not serving HTML, I am wondering whether to use HTTP GET / POST or a proprietary protocol over TCP/IP. I would like to encrypt it, so SSL seems in order,
Is there any compelling reason to use one or the other of use HTTP GET / POST or a proprietary protocol over TCP/IP?
Would coding my Android app be easier if I used JSON as my data format (or something else?), irrespective of the protocl used to transfer the data?
Hmmm, since much of the data returned as a response to GET by one of the apps will be data used to draw a Google map with a series of points showing travel, could I do the heavy duty processing on the server & return the HTML (or JS) necessary to display it an dhave the app embedd a browser in its UI to display the map? (the UI will also disply more, but maybe I shoudl just make it browser based HTML & JS, rather thn an actual Jav Android app? As you can see, I am confused)
[Update] I want to code both the clients and the server and to host the MySql database. I would prefer no 3rd party frameworks unless they are excedding simply to use and play very well together with Delphi or PHP.
I may recommend you to use Wcf with poco entity that provide you security as you want and create client in android to consume it.here is simple example of using wcf in android-http://fszlin.dymetis.com/post/2010/05/10/Comsuming-WCF-Services-With-Android.aspx
I would strongly recommend the use of the newest Google Play Services with the Google Cloud Messaging... It takes out of you all that work.
Check out, see if you like ;D
Google Cloud Message: http://developer.android.com/google/gcm/index.html
There is also a great video of this year's Google I/O about the maps improvement on Google Play Services:
https://developers.google.com/events/io/sessions/325172829
Are you trying to create App that can be delivered from Google Play Store or a Andriod enable Web application? You Question is confusing in your need. If you are looking to create Andriod Apps then definitely PHP is not going to serve it up. Look for Andriod SDK and create your interface using that, then for Windows Server EXE you can do PHP based API or as suggested by other answers. But for User interface PHP is no. You need to read and understand the different between APP and Web App. or your question is not very clear on topic.
I am looking to build an API that I can deploy on my servers to monitor system load.
It will report to a central manager server that runs a client to display the information.
The issue I am struggling with is best to secure the API.
What I want is for the client to be the only software that can access the server and retrieve this information but I am unsure how to achieve this using PHP.
I also want the possibility of distributing the API and client for others to use on their servers so I don't want people to be able to access other people data if they are using the API also.
The client is also written in PHP using MySql and has a secure login.
This sounds like you're trying to solve the wrong problem.
I also want the possibility of distributing the API and client for others to use on their servers so I don't want people to be able to access other people data if they are using the API also.
The only right answer to this is authentication. You need to protect your API by giving each user access credentials known only to them.
Your API must never reveal any data that the client isn't allowed to see as per their authentication credentials. Trying to work around this danger by trying to somehow protect the client from prying eyes is not safe - somebody who has access to the client and can observe it running will be able to reverse engineer any traffic between it and the server given enough effort.
If the API is properly secured, it won't matter to you which client tool is used to access it. The requirement to limit API access to a certain program will go away.
if you use SSL, along with authentication (i use 3rd party auth google, fb, etc), create data /reports on the fly and have the data saved in a subdirectory OUTSIDE your web folder (instead of /var/www, /var/myStorage/currentSessionId/), then you basically guarantee the security that you want.
your php will only access a subdir that is named for the session it is running under.
here is my scenario, i am building a web application using PHP and MySQL. basically it is a real estate application. where i would like to share the data among several other platforms and devices, here is i what i intend to do
a) building the web app to be used with the browser using PHP, MySQL, and AJAX. (this will be my server)
b) extend the support and build a desktop application using POKKI.
c) extend the support and build an application for Androids and iOS devices.
d) all data transaction for the app should take place from the web server.
e) basically it will be server client application . where the server will be my web server and the clients will be iOS app, Android App Pokki etc.
i am not a hardcore programmer, although it has been more then 1 year since i started using PHP, and i do understand it to my use. i would like to know the best feasible solution on how to share the data among the different clients(POKKI, iOS App, Android App).
i would like to know.
a) do i have to connect to database directly from the client and access the data? is it possible? is it bad if i go this way?
b) do i have to create a public class with api sign up process? what would be the real scenario if i would like it to make it cross platform.
A Humble request to all of you to guide me on how does this things works. any articles, resources, links that can prove useful to me will also be appreciated.
thank you.
I think you should create an API which allows you to access the database strictly as you want it. Look at the twitter API for example and see how it allows third parties to access their data using simple requests.
So your site uses the DB directly where as all other applications you want to make will use the API ( which runs on ur web server)
This would allow you with the flexibility to have control who gets access and who doesnt ( only your own apps or even third parties etc etc) and allows you to build kick-ass applications without putting your actual database at risk.
Hope this helps!
1 - you should not allow client to access data directly - bad.
2 - sign up are easy with open id, let google or any other openid provider handle authentication, you deal with your own clean code without worrying about auth.
http://code.google.com/apis/accounts/docs/OpenID.html
You can create xml api and share the data from your server.
On different type of client you can eaisly parse the xml data and process it or show it.
In xml API if you want the restrict access then your can provide the restriction.
Please let me know if you have any issue
Thanks and Regards,
Ankur K Singh
take a look into getfrapi.com for building API.