World: r3wp

The web and soap/http are in a sense REST applications (REST is just 
WS over HTTP) though both use a limited subset of REST arguments 
and have to work around as such.


The web is limited (by the HTML spec) to the verbs 'get and 'post, 
and post content types of 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded (default) 
or 'multipart/form-data (used to upload files).  For the most part, 
the web is RESTful as we usually only want to 'get resources.  However, 
other operations typically violate REST principles, as all other 
resource actions (create, update, delete) have to squeeze through 
the get/post/url-encode/multipart pipe.  The Rebol HTTP protocol 
as standard is designed to mimic this and requires patching to move 
beyond get/post/url-endode (even for multipart)


SOAP as I understand it, when using HTTP only uses 'post - the post 
content contains the actual request.  Where it varies from the web 
(and Rebol HTTP) is the need for the 'text/xml content type.


REST itself is limited only by HTTP.  It uses theoretically limitless 
HTTP (v1.1) verbs (though most common patterns use 'get, 'put, 'post 
and 'delete).  It uses any encoding.  It uses HTTP headers as parameters 
(eg. the 'Accept header specifies the desired return type).  Therefore, 
any HTTP protocol designed for REST will accomodate SOAP requests.

Probably more a pure HTML question, and showing my complete lack 
of HTML knowledge these days, but how would I go about automatically 
updating a device (an IP Phone in my case) that has a page (http://10.1.1.7/admin.html) 
with a whole bunch of phone numbers in separate fields and a submit 
button that posts changes back? I can generate the page with the 
data I want submitted back, but I can't work out how to mimic pressing 
the submit button from a specific URL.

is    result:  read/custom url ['POST  query-string]   on the right 
track?

Ashley, I may be missing your question.


Are you asking, how from an IP phone (like a SIP phone), you would 
"sync" your phonebook (contacts) from a website?

Almost ... I want to "push" my Address Book (on my iMac) to all the 
IP Phones in our office. I know the address of each IP Phone (10.1.1.x), 
and I can extract the data from Address Book easily enough ... what 
I havn't figured out how to do is replace the manual process of bringing 
up the admin page of each phone (in Safari), keying in the numbers 
and clicking the "Submit" button. Tom's suggestion may be on the 
right track, although I've got no idea what query-string is supposed 
to look like. May be time to dig the old HTML4 manual out! ;)

ashley, do they have a telnet/SSH interface?

you should be able to simulate even submit, no? Browser generates 
http action for it after all ... Maybe it would be good to watch 
packets in WireShark, or install FF plug-in for displaying http headers 
...

Web developer extension and FireBug are kind of must-have extensions 
....

Live HTTP headers is the one I use ....

Ashley  it looks just like what is after the ? in a GET to a  *.cgi?name="value"&N2="v2"

Ah, thanks. I'll give that a go.

ashley, look at the source for the page, and search for the <form> 
tag. if method="GET", as Tom said, look at the url after pressing 
the submit button and just do a read on a similarly composed url. 
if method="POST", you need to look at all the <input> tags, figure 
out what the query string would be, and send it via POST using read/custom. 
(you could also use wireshark or similar to look at the query string 
the browser is sending if you don't want to look for the <input> 
tags)

All works, "read/custom url reduce ['POST query-string]" did the 
trick! Thanks guys.

My little 64 line script now does the following:


 1) Read Address Book vCard file and extract a list of number/name 
 pairs (I prefix the numbers with 'n to assist with lookups)

 2) Read each Linksys SPA942 IP Phone's call history and create a 
 sorted list of number/frequency pairs

 3) Join these 2 lists and create a query string for matches and an 
 exception report for numbers without an address book entry
	4) POST merged and updated name/number pairs back to each phone


Script took 2 hours to write and debug, runs in 2-3 seconds and gives 
us the features of an advanced call management facility for free. 
Once again, REBOL to the rescue (my business partner shook his head 
when he saw this and just said, "but HOW can REBOL do all this???").

wow

amazing

Such things are unheard of around here.

:-) Good work, Ashley!

Great stuff. I did something similar once. REBOL is fantastic as 
"impossible gluelogic".

REBOL is GLUE! What about calling the new GUI something related to 
glue? Or just "GLUE".

It's also a refernce to the "special" talent of Carl in terms of 
mixing colors ;-)

:)

it's at times like that, that REBOL deserves advertising with a live 
demo.

the first time i saw his new styles, i had some glue in my eyes

is Henrik steel working on revamping ?

*still

oh you're here...

oh i have a better bad puns: GUI-lty

or worst, as u want

This is a quickie -- designed to make 'parse-xml output more parseable:

http://www.ross-gill.com/r/qxml.r

Any thoughts, comments?

; Usage:

do http://www.ross-gill.com/r/qxml.r
load-xml {<some xml="to">Try</some>}

** Script Error: pop has no value
** Where: load-xml
** Near: mk: insert mk: back mk

Sorry, forgot I'd assigned pop: :take -- try again.

A tag block will always be [tag! any [refinement! [string! | none!]] 
[string! | none! | block!]]

Cool.

Sorry, [tag! any [refinement! [string! | none!]] [string! | none! 
| some block!]]

Sorry!

I've changed this a little.  More or less parseable.

More consistent, I feel.  The result is now of the format: some [thing 
value]

Where 'thing is <tag> /attribute or # for text.  And value is [container] 
"text" or none

>> load-xml {<some xml="to">Try</some>}
==  [
	<some>
		/xml "to"
		# "Try"
	]
]

Hmm, missing bracket.

I thought about the # convention.  # can be used in parse literally. 
 It may have no semantic meaning, but is a very concise anchor.

Also, a tag with no attributes containing only text will only contain 
text:

>> load-xml "<try>This</try>"
== [
    <try> "This"
]

response: context [
	status: name: value: none
]

example: {<rsp>
	<status>Good</status>
	<payload>
		<value name="one">two</value>
	</payload>
</rsp>}

probe make response [
	parse load-xml example [
		<rsp> into [
			<status> set status ["Good" | "Bad"]
			<payload> into [
				<value> into [
					/name set name string! # set value string!
				]
			]
		]
	]
]

All the 'into values are a bit of a pain, but work can be broken 
up...

Note, this parser is destructive - ie. flattening will only provide 
an approximation of the original xml string.

So ymmv depending on need.

; Next, Quick DOM:

do http://www.ross-gill.com/r/qdom.r

Only one method at the moment - get-by-tagname


Note, this is not an attempt to implement W3 DOM.  Just a quick approximation 
for fast manipulation (hence the name).  It's object happy, not sure 
of the weight considerations as such.