Software AG’s Natural language and development environment for the mainframe (IBM z/OS and CICS) offered many nice improvements over COBOL for mainframe software development. Software AG developed a nice market niche in the mainframe development tools market, and millions of lines of code were developed and continue to run till today.
Like IBM’s version of COBOL, the vendor has struggled to extend Natural’s lifespan and the life of the code written in it. Initially Software AG created a communication bridging tool (called EntireX), allowing bi-direction communication between the Natural environment and Web Services or MQ or Java or .Net.
But like IBM came out with “native” web services as part of CICS 3 and Enterprise COBOL, Software AG has web service enabled Natural. And web service enablement includes the handling of (simplified) XML.
From the code sample I was able to find, it appears that Natural IS NOT handling the building of the HTTP headers, requiring them to be manually added to the top of the XML document – a rather odd lack, but use of direct web services significantly simplifies integration into the environment.
Here’s the code sample I found, which was used as a base to build some internal test services by a Natural programmer I know…
| Description :
This example demonstrates how to call a SOAP service from Natural, using the REQUEST DOCUMENT statement, it then parses the output with the PARSE XML statement and presents a formatted view of the response.
The code is cross-platform, it works on both mainframe Natural as well as OpenSystems / LUW Natural alike.
Service used: http://www.webservicex.net/globalweather.asmx
Input asked for by the Natural program: City, Country
Output: weather details for the selected City + Country, or an error response ============================================== *
* more info about the services to call: www.webservicex.net.
*
* better cross platform solution
*
DEFINE DATA LOCAL
1 #REQUEST (A) DYNAMIC
1 #RESPONSE (B) DYNAMIC
1 #RC (I4)
*
1 #PATH (A) DYNAMIC
1 #NAME (A) DYNAMIC
1 #VALUE (A) DYNAMIC
*
1 HTTP-STATUS-TEXT (A60)
*
1 #ACTIVE_NAME (A16)
1 #REPLY
2 CITYNAME (A50)
2 COUNTRYNAME (A50)
2 LOCATION (A50)
2 TIME (A50)
2 WIND (A50)
2 VISIBILITY (A50)
2 SKYCONDITIONS (A50)
2 TEMPERATURE (A50)
2 DEWPOINT (A50)
2 RELATIVEHUMIDITY (A50)
2 PRESSURE (A50)
2 STATUS (A50) * ---------------------------------------------------------- XML-COPY-OF
1 #XML-COPY-OF (A) DYNAMIC
1 #FIND-TAG (A) DYNAMIC
1 #TAG-FROM (A) DYNAMIC
1 #TAG-TO (A) DYNAMIC
1 #TAG-END (A) DYNAMIC
1 #AT_SIGN (A1)
1 #EXCLAMATION_MARK (A1)
1 #APOSTROPHE (A1)
1 #QUOTATION_MARK (A1)
* ---------------------------------------------------------- XML-COPY-OF
END-DEFINE
*
INPUT // 'CityName...:' CITYNAME
/ 'CountryName:' COUNTRYNAME
// 'Example: Tokyo, Japan; Heidelberg, Germany'
*
COMPRESS
'<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>' -
'<SOAP-ENV:Envelope ' -
'xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" ' -
'xmlns:SOAP-ENC="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/" ' -
'xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" ' -
'xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">' -
'<SOAP-ENV:Body>' -
'<m:GetWeather xmlns:m="http://www.webserviceX.NET">' -
'<m:CityName>' CITYNAME '</m:CityName>' -
'<m:CountryName>' COUNTRYNAME '</m:CountryName>' -
'</m:GetWeather>' -
'</SOAP-ENV:Body>' -
'</SOAP-ENV:Envelope>' INTO
#REQUEST LEAVING NO
*
* For more information about the service have a look at:
* http://www.webservicex.net.
*
REQUEST DOCUMENT FROM 'http://www.webservicex.net/globalweather.asmx'
WITH
HEADER
NAME 'Request-Method' VALUE 'POST'
NAME 'Content-Type' VALUE 'text/xml; encoding=utf-8'
NAME 'SOAPAction' VALUE 'http://www.webserviceX.NET/GetWeather'
DATA ALL #REQUEST ENCODED CODEPAGE 'utf-8'
RETURN
HEADER NAME ' ' VALUE HTTP-STATUS-TEXT
PAGE #RESPONSE
RESPONSE #RC
*
IF #RC = 200
*
* cut out the response
#FIND-TAG := 'soap:Envelope/soap:Body/GetWeatherResponse/GetWeatherResult'
PERFORM XML-COPY-OF
*
* parse the response
PARSE XML #XML-COPY-OF INTO PATH #PATH VALUE #VALUE
DECIDE ON FIRST VALUE OF #PATH
VALUE 'CurrentWeather/Location/$'
#REPLY.LOCATION := #VALUE
VALUE 'CurrentWeather/Time/$'
#REPLY.TIME := #VALUE
VALUE 'CurrentWeather/Wind/$'
#REPLY.WIND := #VALUE
VALUE 'CurrentWeather/Visibility/$'
#REPLY.VISIBILITY := #VALUE
VALUE 'CurrentWeather/SkyConditions/$'
#REPLY.SKYCONDITIONS := #VALUE
VALUE 'CurrentWeather/Temperature/$'
#REPLY.TEMPERATURE := #VALUE
VALUE 'CurrentWeather/DewPointh/$'
#REPLY.DEWPOINT := #VALUE
VALUE 'CurrentWeather/RelativeHumidity/$'
#REPLY.RELATIVEHUMIDITY := #VALUE
VALUE 'CurrentWeather/Pressure/$'
#REPLY.PRESSURE := #VALUE
VALUE 'CurrentWeather/Status/$'
#REPLY.STATUS := #VALUE
NONE VALUE IGNORE
END-DECIDE END-PARSE
*
WRITE #REPLY.CITYNAME '-' #REPLY.COUNTRYNAME //
'Location ............' #REPLY.LOCATION /
'Time ................' #REPLY.TIME /
'Wind ................' #REPLY.WIND /
'Visibility ..........' #REPLY.VISIBILITY /
'Sky Conditions ......' #REPLY.SKYCONDITIONS /
'Temperature .........' #REPLY.TEMPERATURE /
'Dew Point ...........' #REPLY.DEWPOINT /
'Relative Humidity ...' #REPLY.RELATIVEHUMIDITY /
'Pressure ............' #REPLY.PRESSURE /
'Status ..............' #REPLY.STATUS /
*
ELSE
WRITE // 'HTTP-Status:' HTTP-STATUS-TEXT //
END-IF
*
* copy the content of a xml element
* works equal to a XSL copy-of
*
DEFINE SUBROUTINE XML-COPY-OF
* for the mainframe
IF H'41' EQ "A" THEN
#AT_SIGN := '@'
#EXCLAMATION_MARK := '!'
#APOSTROPHE := H'27'
#QUOTATION_MARK := H'22'
ELSE
#AT_SIGN := '?‚?§'
#EXCLAMATION_MARK := UH'0021'
#APOSTROPHE := H'7D'
#QUOTATION_MARK := H'7F'
END-IF
*
COMPRESS #FIND-TAG INTO #FIND-TAG LEAVING NO
COMPRESS #FIND-TAG '/' INTO #TAG-FROM LEAVING NO
COMPRESS #FIND-TAG '/'-H'FF' INTO #TAG-TO LEAVING NO
COMPRESS #FIND-TAG '//' INTO #TAG-END LEAVING NO
*
RESET INITIAL #XML-COPY-OF
*
PARSE XML #RESPONSE INTO PATH #PATH NAME #NAME VALUE #VALUE
DECIDE ON FIRST #PATH
/*( end tag
VALUE #TAG-END
*
* remove false xml header
EXAMINE #XML-COPY-OF FOR PATTERN '<?xml*?>' DELETE
*
COMPRESS '<?xml version="1.0" ?>'
#XML-COPY-OF INTO #XML-COPY-OF LEAVING NO
*
ESCAPE BOTTOM
/*)
/*( start tag
VALUE #FIND-TAG
IGNORE
*
/*( content
VALUE #TAG-FROM : #TAG-TO
*
DECIDE ON FIRST *PARSE-TYPE
VALUE "?"
COMPRESS FULL #XML-COPY-OF '<?' #NAME ' ' #VALUE '?>'
INTO #XML-COPY-OF LEAVING NO
VALUE #EXCLAMATION_MARK /* Comment.
IGNORE
VALUE "C" /* CDATA section.
IGNORE
VALUE "T" /* Starting tag.
COMPRESS FULL #XML-COPY-OF '<' #NAME
INTO #XML-COPY-OF LEAVING NO
VALUE #AT_SIGN /* Attribute (or ?‚?§ on mainframes).
IF #VALUE = SCAN(#APOSTROPHE) /* APOSTROPHE or QUOTATION_MARK
COMPRESS FULL #XML-COPY-OF ' ' #NAME '='
#QUOTATION_MARK #VALUE #QUOTATION_MARK
INTO #XML-COPY-OF LEAVING NO
ELSE
COMPRESS FULL #XML-COPY-OF ' ' #NAME '='
#APOSTROPHE #VALUE #APOSTROPHE
INTO #XML-COPY-OF LEAVING NO
END-IF
VALUE "/" /* Closing tag.
COMPRESS FULL #XML-COPY-OF '</' #NAME '>'
INTO #XML-COPY-OF LEAVING NO
NONE VALUE /* $ Parsed data.
COMPRESS FULL #XML-COPY-OF #VALUE
INTO #XML-COPY-OF LEAVING NO
END-DECIDE
/*)
/*( none
NONE VALUE
IGNORE
/*)
END-DECIDE
END-PARSE
END-SUBROUTINE
END |