Consuming REST Services
Description
REST APIs can be used in Alpha Anywhere apps in a variety of ways.
Discussion
Alpha Anywhere provides a number of methods for integrating third-party REST APIs into your application.
- ViewBox REST API Data Source
The UX component ViewBox control can make direct calls to a REST API endpoint to retrieve and display data.
- REST Reference Builder
The REST Reference Builder is an interface for building a RESTReference, which is an Xbasic class with methods for querying a REST API. RESTReferences built with the REST Reference Builder can be used any server-side Xbasic script to query an endpoint. Using the REST Reference Builder is preferable over the CURL Genie or other Xbasic functions because it abstracts away some of the more complicated aspects of calling an endpoint, reducing the Xbasic script to simply calling a method for the desired endpoint.
- CURL Genie
The CURL Genie can convert a CURL command for querying a REST API endpoint into the required Xbasic to call the endpoint in a server-side script.
- Xbasic HTTP* functions
The Xbasic HTTP* functions, specifically http_fetch(), can be used to query a REST service. Note that using HTTP* functions requires significant coding.
Videos
Populating a ViewBox Control from a REST API
In this webinar, we demonstrate how to build a ViewBox based an a REST API data source.