Restful services with ColdFusion

1. Powerpoint TemplatesPowerpoint Templates
ColdFusion and APIs
Kevin Schmidt
kevin.schmidt@ikariaconsulting.com
@kevpocalypse

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Who am I?
Kevin Schmidt
Managing Partner
Email:
kevin,schmidt@ikariaconsulting.com
Twitter:
@kevpocalypse

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About REST
What is REST?
REST (REpresentational State Transfer) is an architectural style, and
an approach to communications that is often used in the development
of Web services.
Why REST?
The use of REST is often preferred over the more heavyweight SOAP
(Simple Object Access Protocol) style because REST does not
leverage as much bandwidth, which makes it a better fit for use over
the Internet. The SOAP approach requires writing or using a provided
server program (to serve data) and a client program (to request data).

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REST Details
REST Contraints:
 Decouples consumers from producers
 Stateless existence
 Able to leverage a cache
 Leverages a layered system
 Leverages a uniform interface
REST Verbs:
•POST - Create
•GET - Read
•PUT - Update
•DELETE – Delete
Want to Geek Out?
Roy Fielding’s Dissertation:
http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/rest_arch_style.html

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ColdFusion and REST
You can create REST services by defining certain attributes in the tags
cfcomponent, cffunction, and cfargument and publish as REST
resources.
•Follows HTTP request-response model: Beyond having HTTP as a medium,
the service lets you follow all HTTP norms. The components published as REST
services can be consumed over HTTP/HTTPS request. The REST services are
identified with URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) and can be accessed from a
web page as well as by specifying the URI in the browser's address bar.
•Supports all HTTP methods : The REST enabled CFCs support the following
HTTP methods: GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, HEAD, and OPTIONS.
•Implicit handling of serialization/deserialization: ColdFusion natively supports
JSON and XML serialization/deserialization. So client applications can consume
REST services by issuing HTTP/HTTPS request. The response can either be
serialized to XML or JSON format.
•Publish web service as both REST service and WSDL service: You can create
and publish the same ColdFusion component as a REST service and WSDL
service.

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ColdFusion and REST
Creating the REST web service
You can create and publish a ColdFusion component or any functions in a
component as REST resource.
To create a CFC as REST web service, specify either of the following in the tag
cfcomponent: restPath or rest.
In cffunction, set the attribute access to remote for the functions that you have to
expose as REST resource.
Example:
<cfcomponent rest="true" restpath="/person">
<cffunction name="getAll” returntype="string” access="remote” httpmethod="GET”
produces="application/json”>
<cfset var response = Application['PersonGateway'].getAll() />
<cfreturn serializeJSON(response) />
</cffunction>
</cfcomponent>

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ColdFusion and REST
Registering an application with the REST service
After you create the CFC you want to REST-enable, specify the folder
for registering as web service either using the autoRegister Application
setting, the function restInitAplication() or in the ColdFusion
Administrator or using the ColdFusion Admin API.
If you are in a shared environment:
<cfset this.restsettings.autoregister = true />
restInitApplication(rootPath[,serviceMapping[,options]])
These options not require administrator privileges.

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ColdFusion and REST
Sample URI:
http://localhost:8500/rest/restTest/restService
URL Component Description
http://localhost:8500 Base URL which includes the IP address and port of the ColdFusion server.If you
deploy ColdFusion as a JEE application, the URL will contain a context root, for
example,
http://localhost:8500*/cfusion*
rest Implies that the request sent is a REST request.This default value can be
renamed by revising the context path in web.xml available at
cfusion/wwroot/WEB-INF and update the same mapping in
uriworkermap.properties file found at configwsconfig1.
restTest Application name or service mapping that you have used while registering the
service in ColdFusion Administrator. If you do not specify a service mapping in the
ColdFusion Administrator, then the application name is taken from Application.cfc.
restService Rest path you defined in the service. That is, the value of the attribute restPath in
the tag cfcomponent.

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ColdFusion and REST
Default Response Description
200 OK Sent if the response has a body.
204 No Content Sent if the response doesn’t have a body.
Default Response Description
404 Not Found Request URL is not valid
406 Not Acceptable No function in the REST service can produce the MIME
type requested by the client
415 Unsupported Media Type A resource is unable to consume the MIME type of the
client request
405 Method not allowed If the client invokes an HTTP method on a valid URI to
which the request HTTP method is not bound.
Custom responses can be created using the restSetResponse method for
success or <cfthrow type=“RestError”> for errors.

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ColdFusion API Manager
The API Manager includes the following functionalities, such as:
•Access control: The API Manager helps you to restrict certain APIs to
trusted subscribers and enforce usage for each users based on roles.
•Analytics: You can track the usage of an API across applications,
methods, and users.
•Portal: There are separate portals for an API administrator, publisher,
and subscriber with custom workflows.

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ColdFusion API Manager Architecture

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DEMO

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Questions? Comments? Insults?