COMMON POWERUp 2023

Obtaining information from external systems or data servers has come a long way since the introduction of EDI in the 1980s! Today, publicly available web service APIs offer a much more flexible and easier-to-integrate method for pulling pertinent global data into your IBM i applications. Whether it be commodity prices, financial data, current weather information, demographic statistics or whatever else you can think of, there is no shortage of information available on the internet that could complement certain areas of your company's business, thus adding valuable real-time information to your various user applications.  

In this session we'll put this concept to work in a hands-on fashion. The presenter will use real-world API examples to demonstrate how IBM i developers, using SQL, can quickly access this valuable web service repositories and pull data into an RPG program or UI tool for their users. Attendees will see two simple 5250-based interactive examples in action, with source code they can try on their own systems.

Learning Objectives:
1. Basic definition of a REST API, and how it differs from SOAP
2. How to find a public web service API and understand its inputs and outputs
3. How to structure and execute an SQL statement to pull data from the web service