In the
first twelve parts
of this series, I’ve introduced you to some of the many features available
within the IBM Data Studio integrated
development environment (IDE) that’s available for use with the IBM data servers. Specifically, I’ve shown you how to set
up and use database connection objects, how to generate an overview diagram of
your database architecture, how to build OLE DB functions that can be used to
easily integrate data from external data sources that have an OLE DB provider, how
to create an SQL statement using either the SQL Builder or the SQL Editor in IBM Data Studio, and how to take an SQL statement and
quickly turn it into a stored procedure. I’ve also shown you how to wrap both an
SQL statement and a stored procedure as a Web service, and how to test your Web
service using the Web Services Explorer.
In this
article, I’m going to introduce you to the Data Web Services Test Client that’s
available in IBM Data Studio Version 1.2 or later.
Getting ready for this article
I assume in this article that you performed the steps in “Part
12: Testing your Web Service using the Web Services Explorer”. From there,
all you need to do in order to follow the steps in this article is ensure that
the application server you defined and deployed your Web services to in Part
11 is started and running such that the Servers tab looks like
this:
I assume
that your Data Project Explorer view looks similar to the following view:
Why the need for the Data Web Services Test Client?
The Data
Web Services Test Client provides a number of advantages over the Web Services
Explorer for testing your Web services. For example, the Data Web Services Test
Client includes options for testing additional message protocols and binding
types such as JSON and HTTP POST, which just aren’t available with the Web
Services Explorer. In addition, the Data Web Services Test Client provides a
richer interface and visualizations of the request and response headers and
documents. With the Web Services Explorer, you had to navigate through
different views to see the request and response envelopes, and didn’t have easy
access to other key artifacts such as the WSDL file and more.
Perhaps
the best part is that the Data Web Services Test Client is deployed with your
Web services. In other words, you can open it on your Web server using a Web
browser; there is no need to install IBM
Data Studio. (If you recall, in the last part of this series I noted what I
like most about the Data Web Services Test Client: you can test services such
as a REST-based Web service using a browser without all of the manual steps
required by the Web Services Explorer.) Of course, you can use the Data Web
Services Test Client within IBM Data
Studio too, if you have this software installed. Depending on your role in your
organization, this may be a benefit. I’ll show you how to test the Web service
we built in the last part of this series using the Data Web Services Test
Client launched both ways--from within IBM
Data Studio, and separately from a Web browser.
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