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Questions tagged [web-services]

A "web service" is a software system designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over the World Wide Web.

A web service is an application that responds to requests using a protocol built on top of HTTP (see also ), the protocol of the World Wide Web. The term can also designate the application protocol itself.

Some web services follow the REST (representational state transfer - see also ) principle, where communication takes the form of requests from a client and matching responses from the server, and the server does not keep track of successive requests from a client (no sessions).

The W3C standardizes WSDL (see also ) to describe web service protocols and SOAP (see also ) to structure messages encoded in XML (see also ).

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SOAP vs REST (differences)

I have read articles about the differences between SOAP and REST as a web service communication protocol, but I think that the biggest advantages for REST over SOAP are: REST is more dynamic, no need to create and update UDDI(Universal…
Abdulaziz
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What are REST API error handling best practices?

I'm looking for guidance on good practices when it comes to return errors from a REST API. I'm working on a new API so I can take it any direction right now. My content type is XML at the moment, but I plan to support JSON in future. I am now adding…
Remus Rusanu
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Understanding REST: Verbs, error codes, and authentication

I am looking for a way to wrap APIs around default functions in my PHP-based web applications, databases and CMSs. I have looked around and found several "skeleton" frameworks. In addition to the answers in my question, there is Tonic, a REST…
Pekka
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How can I get the named parameters from a URL using Flask?

When the user accesses this URL running on my flask app, I want the web service to be able to handle the parameters specified after the question mark: http://10.1.1.1:5000/login?username=alex&password=pw1 #I just want to be able to manipulate the…
Alex Stone
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Maximum length of HTTP GET request

What's the maximum length of an HTTP GET request? Is there a response error defined that the server can/should return if it receives a GET request that exceeds this length? This is in the context of a web service API, although it's interesting to…
Mark Harrison
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How to call a SOAP web service on Android

I am having a lot of trouble finding good information on how to call a standard SOAP/WSDL web service with Android. All I've been able to find are either very convoluted documents and references to "kSoap2" and then some bit about parsing it all…
BobbyShaftoe
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HTTP POST and GET using cURL in Linux

I have a server application written in ASP.NET on Windows that provides a web service. How can I call the web service in Linux with cURL?
Randhi Rupesh
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Call a REST API in PHP

Our client had given me a REST API to which I need to make a PHP call. But as a matter of fact, the documentation given with the API is very limited, so I don't really know how to call the service. I've tried to Google it, but the only thing that…
Michiel
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SOAP or REST for Web Services?

Is REST a better approach to doing Web Services or is SOAP? Or are they different tools for different problems? Or is it a nuanced issue - that is, is one slightly better in certain arenas than another, etc? I would especially appreciate…
user13276
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What are the differences between WCF and ASMX web services?

I am totally confused between WCF and ASMX web services. I have used a lot of web services in my earlier stage, and now there is this new thing introduced called WCF. I can still create WCF that function as a web service. I think there will be…
shailesh
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Postman Chrome: What is the difference between form-data, x-www-form-urlencoded and raw

I am using the Postman Chrome extension for testing a web service. There are three options available for data input. I guess the raw is for sending JSON. What is the difference between the other two, form-data and x-www-form-urlencoded?
Rohan
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What is a web service endpoint?

Let's say my web service is located at http://localhost:8080/foo/mywebservice and my WSDL is at http://localhost:8080/foo/mywebservice?wsdl. Is http://localhost:8080/foo/mywebservice an endpoint, i.e., is it the same as the URI of my web service or…
karakays
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Best architectural approaches for building iOS networking applications (REST clients)

I'm an iOS developer with some experience and this question is really interesting to me. I saw a lot of different resources and materials on this topic, but nevertheless I'm still confused. What is the best architecture for an iOS networked…
MainstreamDeveloper00
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Recommendations of Python REST (web services) framework?

Is there a list somewhere of recommendations of different Python-based REST frameworks for use on the serverside to write your own RESTful APIs? Preferably with pros and cons. Please feel free to add recommendations here. :)
darius
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What is P99 latency?

What does P99 latency represent? I keep hearing about this in discussions about an application's performance but couldn't find a resource online that would talk about this.
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