I have been working on moving some of my software to a more SOAP
compatible interface. As I was doing it, it occured to me that a generic
function could be written, in PostgreSQL's new function manager that
allows multiple columns to be returned, that is a generic SOAP interface.
All one would need do is define what is expected from the SOAP call in
the "CREATE FUNCTION" statement. Then the generic SOAP function could
then read what is expected and return the XML/SOAP data as a set of
results as if it were a subquery.
What is needed is an efficient way to find the data types and names from
the functions definition. Does anyone know how to do that?
A small program could also parse a WSDL file and write a "CREATE
FUNCTION" script for the XML as well.
On the flip side, I am also working on a PostgreSQL SOAP interface,
where one does this:
http://somehost/postgresql?query="select * from table"
And a SOAP compatible resultset is returned.
On a more advanced horizon, one should be able to do this:
select * from localtable,
mysoap('http://remotehost/postgresql?query=select * from foo') as soap
where soap.field = localtable.field;
If we can do that, PostgreSQL could fit into almost ANY service
environment. What do you guys think? Anyone want to help out?
