| 1 Document Information |
| This section details the audience, assumptions, contributions, and conventions used in this document. |
| 1.1 Overview |
| This document is designed to help developers implement CornerDrugstore.com Web Services into their applications. |
| 1.2 Who Should Read this Guide? |
| This document is useful for developers who want to create applications capable of interacting with CornerDrugstore's tools to provide more robust offerings on third-party Web sites. |
| 1.3 Document Assumptions |
| This document assumes the reader has working knowledge of XML, SOAP or HTPP Get/Post, XSL/XSLT, and an understanding of how to integrate dtat into an application or Web site. Additionally, the reader should be familiar with the terms described in section 1.4. |
| 1.4 Concepts Used in this Document |
| This section lists terms relevant to this product, and provides definitions for those terms. Some of these definitions come from http://www.webopedia.com/. |
| SOAP Simple Object Access Protocol provides a way for applications to communicate with each other over the Internet, independent of platform. Unlike OMG's IIOP, SOAP piggybacks a DOM onto HTTP (port 80) in order to penetrate server firewalls, which are usually configured to accept port 80 and port 21 (FTP) requests. SOAP relies on XML to define the format of the information and then adds the necessary HTTP headers to send it. SOAP was developed by Microsoft, DevelopMentor, and Userland Software and has been proposed to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) as a standard. |
| XML Short for Extensible Markup Language, a specification developed by the W3C. XML is a pared-down version of SGML, designed especially for Web documents. It allows designers to create their own customized tags, enabling the definition, transmission, validation, and interpretation of data between applications and between organizations. |
| API Abbreviation of application program interface, a set of routines, protocols, and tools for building software applications. A good API makes it easier to develop a program by providing all the building blocks. A programmer puts the blocks together. Most operating environments provide an API so that programmers can write applications consistent with the operating environment. Although APIs are designed for programmers, they are ultimately good for users because they guarantee that all programs using a common API will have similar interfaces. This makes it easier for users to learn new programs. |
| URI Short for Uniform Resource Identifier, the generic term for all types of names and addresses that refers to objects on the World Wide Web. A URL is one kind of URI. |
| DTD Short for document type definition. A DTD states what tags and attributes are used to describe content in an SGML document, where each tag is allowed, and which tags can appear within other tags. For example, in a DTD one could say that LIST tags can contain ITEM tags, but ITEM tags cannot contain LIST tags. In some editors, when authors are inputting information, they can place tags only where the DTD allows. This ensures that all the documentation is formatted the same way. |
| XSD XSD (XML Schema Definition), a Recommendation of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), specifies how to formally describe the elements in an Extensible Markup Language (XML) document. This description can be used to verify that each item of content in a document adheres to the description of the element in which the content is to be placed. |
| WSDL Short for Web Services Description Language, an XML-formatted language used to describe a Web service's capabilities as collections of communication endpoints capable of exchanging messages. WSDL is an integral part of UDDI, an XML-based worldwide business registry. WSDL is the language that UDDI uses. WSDL was developed jointly by Microsoft and IBM. |
| Java Java is an object-oriented language similar to C++, but simplified to eliminate language features that cause common programming errors. Java source code files (files with a .java extension) are compiled into a format called bytecode (files with a .class extension), which can then be executed by a Java interpreter. Compiled Java code can run on most computers because Java interpreters and runtime environments, known as Java Virtual Machines (VMs), exist for most operating systems. Bytecode can also be converted directly into machine language instructions by a just-in-time compiler (JIT). |
| Perl Short for Practical Extraction and Report Language, Perl is a programming language developed by Larry Wall, especially designed for processing text. Because of its strong text processing abilities, Perl has become one of the most popular languages for writing CGI scripts. Perl is an interpretive language, which makes it easy to build and test simple programs. |
| .NET A Microsoft operating system platform that incorporates applications, a suite of tools and services and a change in the infrastructure of the company's Web strategy. There are four main principles of .NET from the perspective of the user: |
| PHP PHP Hypertext Preprocessor is a server-side, HTML embedded scripting language used to create dynamic Web pages. In an HTML document, PHP script (similar syntax to that of Perl or C) is enclosed within special PHP tags. Because PHP is embedded within tags, the author can jump between HTML and PHP (similar to ASP and Cold Fusion) instead of having to rely on heavy amounts of code to output HTML. And, because PHP is executed on the server, the client cannot view the PHP code. PHP can perform any task any CGI program can do, but its strength lies in its compatibility with many types of databases. Also, PHP can talk across networks using IMAP, SNMP, NNTP, POP3, or HTTP. PHP was created sometime in 1994 by Rasmus Lerdorf. During mid 1997, PHP development entered the hands of other contributors. Two of them, Zeev Suraski and Andi Gutmans, rewrote the parser from scratch to create PHP version 3 (PHP3). |
| ASP A specification for a dynamically created Web page with an .ASP extension that utilizes ActiveX scripting -- usually VB Script or Jscript code. When a browser requests an ASP page, the Web server generates a page with HTML code and sends it back to the browser. So ASP pages are similar to CGI scripts, but they enable Visual Basic programmers to work with familiar tools. |
| XSL Short for Extensible Style Language, a specification for separating style from content when creating HTML or XML pages. The specifications work much like templates, allowing designers to apply single style documents to multiple pages. XSL is the second style specification to be offered by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The first, called Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), is similar to XSL but does not include two major XSL innovations -- allowing developers to dictate the way Web pages are printed, and specifications allowing one to transfer XML documents across different applications. W3C released the first draft of XSL in August 1998, and promotes the specifications as helpful to the Web's speed, accessibility, and maintenance. |
| XSLT Short for Extensible Style Language Transformation, the language used in XSL style sheets to transform XML documents into other XML documents. An XSL processor reads the XML document and follows the instructions in the XSL style sheet, and then it outputs a new XML document or XML-document fragment. This is extremely useful in e-commerce, where the same data need to be converted into different representations of XML. Not all companies use the exact same programs, applications and computer systems. |
| 1.4 Document Conventions |
| Commands and keywords appear in boldface. New, important terms are italicized when accompanied by a definition or discussion of the term. Please note is used to denote additional helpful suggestions or important notices. |
| 2 Introduction |
| 2.1 What are Web Services? |
Web services are applications whose logic and functions are accessible using standard Internet protocols and data formats such as Extensible Markup Language (XML) over Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), and SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol). Like component-based development, Web services represent black-box functionality that can be reused without worrying about how the service is implemented. Why should developers should be intereseted in Web Services? Interoperability - Any Web Service can interact with any other Web Service and can be written in any language. Ubiquity - Web Services communicate using HTTP and XML. Any connected device that supports these technologies can both host and access Web Services. Low Barrier to Entry - The concepts behind Web Services are easy to understand, and developers can quickly create and deploy them using many tool-kits availble on the web. Industry Support - Major content providers and vendcors are supporting the Web Services movement.
Most Web services make use of either SOAP or XML over HTTP (also known as REST) to make requests and deliver responses via the Internet. |
| 3 CornerDrugstore.com Health Content Web Services |
| 3.1 Health News Web Service Documentation |
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| 4 Appendices |
| Additional Information about CornerDrugstore.com Web Services. |
| 4.1 Appendix A: References and Resources |
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This section contains additional resources for information on Web Services, XML, and SOAP. Web Services Resources XML Resources SOAP Resources |
| 4.2 Appendix B: Document Control |
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This section shows the version, date, author, and change description for this document. Version: 2.0 Date: 5/03/2007 Description: Removed Health Content Webservices and Prescription Webservices Version: 1.5 Date: 9/14/06 Description: Removed Authorization Webservice and SubmitRefill_1_0 Version: 1.0 Date: 3/24/03 Description: Initial Document; Authorization and Health Content Webservices documentation. |