Open 4GL WebServices is a free initiative that introduces a wizard and framework for easy implementation. It's open-source, helpful for software development.
One of the most significant features of this software is that developers can select an existing PROGRESS procedure and produce the WSDL file and/or a proxy procedure that handles the SOAP call and translates between SOAP and PROGRESS datatypes. Additionally, Open 4GL WebServices also can handle the WS-I security recommendation, requiring a custom procedure to authenticate the user/password.
Another highlight of Open 4GL WebServices is that the generated proxy procedure is backed up by procedure templates (skeletons), allowing developers to choose how to deploy the webservice. The developer can choose between webspeed, a batch version to call it from a CGI, a socket-based version, or a custom template, etc. This software has been around for years, and while I had read some documents on how to build it, no one had released the complete solution as open source until now.
This software is an excellent alternative to the commercial version distributed by PROGRESS as it doesn't require Sonic MQ or the AppServer to run correctly. When it comes to installation, users can put the entire o4glws directory in the PROPATH and make a copy of o4glws.i file in any directory in the PROPATH of the deployment machine as it is needed to compile the deployed webservice adapter procedures.
The included files in Open 4GL WebServices are plenty, which include o4glwso4glws.i library included in every adapter, o4glwsprocDlg.w dialog to select the procedures to include in the webservice, o4glwsprocInfo.i temp-table definitions used by all programs, and much more.
The latest release of Open 4GL WebServices offers several noteworthy improvements, including the removal of an "Unable to use Namespace: []" message, correction of malformed web service addresses, fixing of a problem where the generated WSDL did not correctly describe the output parameters of Adapters, support for date parameters, optimization of speed for output tables, and much more.
Overall, Open 4GL WebServices is an excellent software solution that offers developers a comprehensive yet straightforward way to publish PROGRESS procedures as webservice, generating the WSDL and WS code without requiring the developer to learn XML or the framework itself.
Version 0.3: N/A