Web Services, Part III: WebService's Methods

In this column we continue our series on Web services. In Part I, we introduced you to this hot topic. In Part II, we showed you how to call Web services. In this column, we'll formally present the WebService behavior and its four supported methods. The WebService behavior is a critical component of the Web services revolution. It hides the mechanics and complexity of assembling and disassembling SOAP messages from the script programmer. All he or she needs to know is how to call the WebService behavior's methods. These methods can create objects, set defaults, call Web services, and analyze returned error messages. In this column, we'll show you the benefits of the Web service behavior and how to use it. We'll also show you how to use each one of WebService's methods.

WebService's methods are very important for calling Web services. They are the functions through which you can control and manipulate the WebService behavior. Together with WebService's objects, they are your only possible access to this behavior. Since you are not going to write SOAP messages by yourself, learn how to set these methods, what values they are returning, and what the inter-relationships are between them.

In this column you will learn:

• The benefits of the WebService behavior
• How to use the WebService behavior
• How to use the createUseOptions() method
• How to use the createCallOptions() method
• How to use the useService() method
• How to use the callService() method

Next: The benefits of the WebService behavior