Web Service Modules
This is a list of possible modules related to using web services. Web services allow automated communication between websites, for example to retrieve data or perform a given calculation or service. For example, getting the current weather data to display on a website is usually done through a web service to one of the providers of weather data.
Web services are important in the case of a Drupal web site geared towards science and technology since it allows the website to use features that may be written in other languages, such as Python from the SciPy website, or in Ruby from the RubyForge website, or the many Java analysis packages that have been developed. The only requirement is that these capabilities from these other languages or platforms have to be available using the appropriate web service protocol (e.g., SOAP or REST).
| Module Name | General Description | Use in an ELN |
|---|---|---|
| REST Provider | The REST Provider module provides a simple framework for creating RESTful web services using Drupal. It strives to be simple and unobtrusive, imposing as few constraints on developers as possible. Developers are free to create any kind of RESTful web service, not just "Drupalesque" services. This module also takes care of some of the more tedious aspects of creating a RESTful web service. | Useful for interfacing with outside web services for data analysis, such as simulations. statistics or visualizations. The exact implementation would be dependent upon the exact service that was being used. |
| SOAP Client | The SOAP Client provides a wrapper and simple unified API to the NuSOAP and PHP5 SOAP extension and allow the other modules to access SOAP-based web services on any servers on the internet. | Like the REST Provider, this is useful for interfacing with outside web services for data analysis, such as simulations. statistics or visualizations. SOAP is a different protocol that provides some extra features with some associated extra complexity as compared to the REST protocol. |