topic Calling an external web service from an Alfresco Web Script in Alfresco Archive

Calling an external web service from an Alfresco Web Script

nmcminn — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 20:09:47 GMT

Greetings all,I am currently working on a project that will be made MUCH easier if I can figure out a way to call a REST web service from a web script in Alfresco. It is my understanding that Alfresco web scripts are run in Rhino. Rhino supports a few built in functions, such as readUrl, that woul

Re: Calling an external web service from an Alfresco Web Script

chrisb — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 11:15:10 GMT

Hi Nathan,

Did you manage to do this in the end? I am also looking to make use of external web services from an Alfresco webscript but am having difficulty finding any concrete examples of the best way to go about this.

The forum post you link to gives a hint on the Alfresco sanctioned approach, namely:

The correct way to call Java from JavaScript is to create a Repository action class and then call that using the 'actions' object from JavaScript. Since only a server admin can add new JARs to the repo this is a safe route.

…but doesn't really go into much more detail. Is anyone aware of any more detailed guidance on going down the Repository action class route for accessing external web services (wiki examples maybe)?

Thanks

Re: Calling an external web service from an Alfresco Web Script

weisinger — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:54:53 GMT

Hi Nathan,

If you're using Alfresco webscripts, you should be able to use a remote connector to call into an external service.

There's a good example of how to build a dashlet here that calls into a Yahoo service to retrieve weather information, parses the data using E4X in JS, and then displays it in Share.

http://drquyong.com/myblog/?p=28

Is that the kind of thing you're looking for?

Dick Weisinger

Re: Calling an external web service from an Alfresco Web Script

chrisb — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 08:54:39 GMT

Thats a good link - thanks for sharing it.

Do you know if that approach using the "remote" connector works for webscripts running outside of the share environment (i.e. as part of the main Alfresco repo install)?

Chris

Re: Calling an external web service from an Alfresco Web Script

weisinger — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 20:55:56 GMT

Chris,

"remote" is a root-scoped object in the Surf Javascript API.
I don't think that it is available for use from the Alfresco explorer client.

To access the alfresco repository from share/surf, you can connect using "alfresco" instead of "http".

http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Surf_Platform_-_Freemarker_Template_and_JavaScript_API

Dick Weisinger

Re: Calling an external web service from an Alfresco Web Script

chrisb — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:34:36 GMT

Dick,

Thanks for clarifying that. Looks like I'll need to go down the Repository action class route.

Chris

Re: Calling an external web service from an Alfresco Web Script

a_evagelopoulos — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 15:59:20 GMT

and what about when the web service requires authentication?
is there any way to authenticate the user with connectors object?

Re: Calling an external web service from an Alfresco Web Script

dc_noze — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 09:24:01 GMT

Hi guys,
if someone is already interested, here http://forums.alfresco.com/en/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=27962#p101418 there is a solution on how to expose the remote object in the web client webscript api.
About authentication i have added the alf_ticket parameter to remote call.