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<< Click to Display Table of Contents >> Navigation: General Functions > Configuring the MIE (Programmer's Guide) > Calling Web Services > Calling Sequence |
MIE web services are called using a structure that contains several elements. The calling structure depends on the web service being called, however each works much the same way.
The structure for calling the AAWeb web service, for instance, is named GenericCall, the definition for which is part of the web service (once you add the reference to the web service to your project, you will see GenericCall as a structure available to you).
GenericCall contains the following elements:
Element |
Required/Optional |
Definition |
aByte |
Required |
A byte array that contains the compressed/scrambled and optionally encrypted dataset that is being passed to the web service |
aByte1 |
Optional |
A second byte array that contains the compressed/scrambled and optionally encrypted contents of binary information that is to be passed to the web service. This is only used for web methods that expect binary information, such as passing a file. |
bEncrypt |
Required |
True if the contents of the two byte arrays are encrypted and the return results are also to be encrypted. False otherwise. If data is sent to the web service encrypted, it will be returned encrypted - and vice versa. |
CallingProgram |
Optional |
The name of your program that is calling the web service. |
CallingVersion |
Optional |
The version of your program that is calling the web service. |
Password |
Required |
Password for access to the MIE. Must be sent having first been passed through ESI's CRYPT function (available as one of the functions within MIEWebServices.dll) |
UserID |
Required |
UserID for access to the MIE. |
Once you have called the web service, it will return a structure (also defined within the web service, called GenericReturn). The structure contains, among other things, a byte array that represents a compressed and optionally encrypted dataset that contains the returned information. That byte array must be processed to recover the dataset so that your program may access the returned data. See MIEWebServices Support Module for more information on how to recover the returned dataset.
GenericReturn contains the following elements:
Element |
Definition |
aByte |
A byte array that contains the compressed/scrambled and optionally encrypted dataset that is being returned by the web service |
aByte1 |
A byte array that contains any binary data being returned by the web service (depends on the web service - this element may or may not be populated). An example would be the delivery of a file from the MIE. |
bEncrypted |
A boolean flag that indicates if the data in aByte and aByte1 is encrypted via ESI's 3DES encryption algorithm. |
ErrorCount |
Number of errors encountered by the method just called. |
ErrorMesssage |
Textual explanation of any errors encountered. |
IssueCount |
Number of issues encountered by the method just called. |
IssueMessage |
Textual explanation of any issues encountered. |
WebServiceVersion |
The version of the MIE Web Service that responded to the call. |