A service binding is a definition that gives
details about how a requester accesses a service. The type of binding
depends on how the requested service is deployed.
Here are the types of bindings:
- SOAP binding. In this case, data is transferred across
the web in a text-based format called SOAP.
In
a Rich UI application or in EGL-generated Java™ code, you can define the binding in code
or in the EGL deployment descriptor. In EGL-generated COBOL code,
you can define the binding only in the EGL deployment descriptor.
For
details about SOAP, see “Architectural styles in web services."
- REST binding. In this case, data is transferred across
the web in a text-based format but not in a SOAP format.
In a Rich
UI application, you can define the binding in code or in the EGL deployment
descriptor. Outside of Rich UI, you can define the binding in the
EGL deployment descriptor only.
For details about REST, see
“Architectural styles in web services” and “REST
for the developer.”
- EGL binding. In this case, binary data is transferred in
a format that is specific to EGL. With an EGL binding, the connection
is relatively fast, but non-EGL-generated code cannot access the service.
The
product supports EGL binding as follows:
- A Rich UI application can access a dedicated service,
which is an EGL service that is local to the Rich UI proxy. The application
cannot access other EGL services. The deployment descriptor is not
used for accessing a local EGL service from a Rich UI application.
For details about how to bind to a dedicated service, see “Declaring
a variable to access a dedicated or local EGL service.”
- Other EGL-generated logic can access an EGL service, and you define
the binding in the EGL deployment descriptor.
- Native binding. In this case, data is transferred in a
binary format that provides direct access to an IBM® i service program.
The product supports
native binding as follows:
- A Rich UI application cannot access the service program directly,
but a dedicated service can.
- Other EGL-generated logic can access an EGL service, and you define
the binding in the EGL deployment descriptor.