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Target audience:

CAST Administrators

Summary: This document provides technical information about the extension called "Universal Linker" (com.castsoftware.wbslinker).

Extension ID

com.castsoftware.wbslinker

What's new?

Please see Universal Linker - 1.6 - Release Notes for more information.

Description

The "Web Services Linker" (com.castsoftware.wbslinker) extension is a "dependent" extension that automatically creates links for "web services" between client and server components by following a particular protocol based on objects and names. The extension can be downloaded on its own as a standalone extension, however, it is usually automatically downloaded as a dependency with other extensions such as:

For example for the AngularJS extension:


What does it do?

The Web Service Linker automatically creates cross-technology call links between client (front end) and server (back end) objects. For example, AngularJS front end connected to JEE/Spring MVC back end (click to enlarge):


How does it do it?

End-users do not need to interact or configure the Web Services Linker extension, all configuration is automatic.

The Web Services Linker supports two modes:

  • REST services
  • WSDL/SOAP services

The connection is made via four "root" objects:

HTTP GET Service

HTTP DELETE Service

HTTP POST/SOAP Service

HTTP PUT Service

Note that you can view a list of errors and warnings that may potentially be returned during an analysis in Universal Linker - 1.6.

REST services

The Web Service Linker searches for objects stored in the CAST Analysis Service schema whose type inherits from CAST_ResourceService or CAST_WebServiceLinker_Resource. These objects represent queries to web services on the client side. Then it searches for the web services on the server side: these are objects whose type inherits from CAST_WebService_Operation or CAST_WebServiceLinker_Operation.

When a match is found using the properties CAST_ResourceService.uri / CAST_WebServiceLinker_Resource.uri and CAST_WebService_Operation.identification.name / CAST_WebServiceLinker_Operation.identification.name and type of both objects, then a link is created.

Matching algorithm

The matching is done between using the properties CAST_ResourceService.uri / CAST_WebServiceLinker_Resource.uri and CAST_WebService_Operation.identification.name / CAST_WebServiceLinker_Operation.identification.name.

Before matching, the Web Services Linker transforms the CAST_ResourceService.uri using following rules, in this order:

  • It replace all "//" with "/{}/" except "//" after ":" (to avoid replacing "http://"), supposing that a parameter was intended between both "/" (REST format).
  • It removes everything after "?" in the uri (to suppress uri parameters part which are not part of REST format parameters).
  • It adds a "/" at the end of uri when not present
CAST_ResourceService.uriAfter transformation

https://www.castsoftware.com/offices//phone//

https://www.castsoftware.com/offices/{}/phone/{}/

https://www.castsoftware.com/offices//phone/

https://www.castsoftware.com/offices/{}/phone/

https://www.castsoftware.com/offices//phone

https://www.castsoftware.com/offices/{}/phone/

https://www.castsoftware.com/offices/{}/phone

https://www.castsoftware.com/offices/{}/phone/

https://www.castsoftware.com/offices?office=1

https://www.castsoftware.com/offices/

 The result is then compared to CAST_WebService_Operation.identification.name / CAST_WebServiceLinker_Operation.identification.name using the endswith function, ignoring the uri part corresponding to the operation name part whose value is {}.

CAST_ResourceService.uriCAST_WebService_Operation.identification.nameMatch: Yes/No
.../path1/path2/path3/path4/path3/No
.../path1/path2/path3/{}/path3/{}/Yes
.../path1/path2/path3/path2/path3/Yes
.../param1/value1/param2/value2/.../param1/{}/param2/{}/Yes

Examples of matches

A client side url like:

  • "https://maps.yahoo.com/place//?addr=Meudon%2C%20Ile-de-France%2C%20France"
is transformed as:
  • "https://maps.yahoo.com/place/{}/".
It will match a server side operation whose name is "place/{}/"

Examples

Server side

The Analysis Service schema contains an object CAST_WebService_GetOperation named /users/

@RequestMapping("/users")
public class UserController {
    
    @RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.GET, produces = "application/json; charset=utf-8")
    @ResponseBody
    public PagedResources<UserResource> collectionList(...){
	   ...
    }

Client side

The Analysis Service schema contains an object CAST_AngularJS_GetResourceService whose property CAST_ResourceService.uri equals 'resources/scenarios/{}/'

return $resource('resources/scenarios/:id', {'id':'@id'}, {
	'query': { method: 'GET', isArray: false },
	'save': {method:'POST', isArray: false },
	'update': {method:'PUT', isArray: false },
	'notify': {method:'PUT', params: {notify: true}, isArray: false },
	'remove': {method:'POST', isArray: false, headers:{'X-HTTP-Method-Override':'DELETE'}}

WSDL/SOAP services

WSDL is generally used in the context of SOAP web services: calls are to an operation, and operations are identified by :

  • operation name
  • port type

Samples

Client side

BPEL

Invocation of EmployeeTravelStatusPT.EmployeeTravelStatus:

<invoke partnerLink="employeeTravelStatus" 
	portType="emp:EmployeeTravelStatusPT" 
	operation="EmployeeTravelStatus"
	inputVariable="EmployeeTravelStatusRequest" 
	outputVariable="EmployeeTravelStatusResponse" />

Server side

JAX-WS

Reception of operation EmployeeTravelStatusPT.EmployeeTravelStatus:

import javax.jws.WebService;

@WebService(targetNamespace = "http://superbiz.org/wsdl")
public class EmployeeTravelStatusPT {

    public int EmployeeTravelStatus(int add1, int add2)
    {
        
    }
}

BPEL

Reception of operation TravelApprovalPT.TravelApproval:

<receive partnerLink="client" 
	portType="trv:TravelApprovalPT" 
	operation="TravelApproval" 
	variable="TravelRequest"
	createInstance="yes" />

Cross-Technology Transaction

Front-End/Service Exit PointBack-end/Service Entry Point
  • Web Technologies
    • HTML5/Javascript or TypeScript
      • Web Socket Service (WebSocket)
      • XMLHttpRequest Service (XMLHttpRequest)
      • Http Request Service (HttpRequest, Fetch, Axios, SuperAgent)
    • AngularJS
      • AngularJS Service ($resource)
      • Restangular Service (Restangular)
      • Http Service ($http)
    • Vue.js
      • Axios
      • Vue-resources
      • Fetch
    • jQuery
      • jQuery Service ($.ajax, $.get, $.getJSON)
      • SAPUI5 Service.
  • Mobile
    • iOS (Objective-C, Swift)
      • NSURLConnection, NSURLSession
      • AFNetworking
    • Android
      • HttpClient
      • HttpURLConnection
      • AsyncTask
  • .NET
    •  ASP.NET
      • SOAP Resource (SoapDocumentAttr, WebMethodAttr)
      • Razor HttpRequest
  • JEE
    • Java
      • URLConnection, HttpURLConnection 
    • Spring
      • Rest Template
      • Web Util
      • Social Support
      • Web Reactive
    • Apache
      • WebClient
      • HttpClient
      • Utils URIBuilder
      • Wink Resource
      • Wink RestClient
    • Other
      • Retrofit2
      • RestHub Client
      • Feign
  • Kotlin
    • Retrofit
  • Other
    • Python
      • Urllib, Urllib2,
      • Httplib, Httplib2,
      • aiohttp, Flask
  • Node.js (with JavaScript or TypeScript)
    • Express Service (Express)
    • Http Service (Http)
    • Loopback
    • Hapi.js
    • Sails.js
    • Restify
    • Seneca, MQTT (messaging)
    • AWS Lambda
  • JEE
    • JAX-RS
      • Client Builder
      • WebTarget
      • Invocation
      • Reasteasy
      • WebResource
    • SpringMVC (@Request/Put/Post/Get/Mapping)
  • .NET
    • WCF Operation (OperationMethod)
    • Web API
  • ASP.NET
    • SOAP Operation (WebServiceAttribute)
  • Python
    • aiohttp, Flask