Allowing client applications to programmatically access web sites

摘要

A method for creating a web service to programmatically access a network addressable location via an intermediate gateway includes analyzing a network at the location; generating, at the gateway, a service description file and an executable code for the network page; translating the service description file into a standard Web service format; deploying the service to the gateway, making the service available to a client application; providing a runtime process to enable the client application to automatically make a programmatic request of the location; translating the structure of the request to a syntax of location using SOAP; submitting the request to the location which executes the submitted request to obtain a response; translating the response to extract data satisfying the request; wrapping the extracted data in a SOAP envelope; translating the wrapped response to a host data structure of the client application; and compiling the executable code.