Note that, in the request, "pigui" asked about extra-access to know where to store their WS-related code.... Martin?

Ciao

we have developped for two years web services for Moodle 1.8.2, under PHP5.
They are available on http://www.assembla.com/spaces/MoodleWSPourGenDep.
On this site, you'll find also a PHP client and a Java client to test these web services and see how to use them.

These web services have been developped during a project name Bricoles and the PhD Thesis in Computer Science and Learning Sciences of Pierre-André Caron. See http://noce.univ-lille1.fr/projets/bricoles/ for the project and http://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-00156376 for the thesis.
The goal of these web services is to help learning design using Model Driven Engineering.
We (NOCE research team) have developped a Model Driven Learning Engineering workshop, including two free tools :

• ModX that allows to build learning design metamodels and model
• GenDep that allows to deploy a learning setup model on a learning platform.
  GenDep uses web services to communicate with the learning platform.
  GenDep already exploits Moodle, Ganesha, Claroline and Wiki MST webservices to deploy learning setups.

ModX and GenDep are available at : http://noce.univ-lille1.fr/projets/ModX/index.php

We have presented our project at french-speaking Moodlemoot 2007 and we will present the evolution of our work at french-speaking Moodlemoot 2008.

We are currently studying how to articulate our web services with those described in this issue.

Most of the operations he is currently supporting are not in mine and conversely.

We are really waiting for Ludo's implementation of " STANDARD list of CORE web service function" to start reducing our lower layer (server.class.php) that currently speaks (most of the time) to Moodle core API and in some rare cases do direct SQL calls ( such as when retrieving last activities in a course).

In the meantime we will focus on "merging" our high layer implementations that will finally propose about 80 operations, why names and parameters as per current OK WS 1.5.10 revision ( see wspp directory in CVS contrib/patches/ws )

More to come in future weeks.

If you can read french, our two communications at the Freench MM2K8 are here

http://moodlemoot2008.vet-nantes.fr/moodle/course/view.php?id=34

http://moodlemoot2008.vet-nantes.fr/moodle/course/view.php?id=56

Cheers.

I went to have a look to the contrib folder in patches/dfws.
Tell me when I'm wrong:

• Functions defined in the Moodle 2.0 specification are in the "apis" repository
• "inout" repository contains all way to access to these functions (SOAP, XML-RPC, REST)
• The repository mod is for module web services (not in the Moodle 2.0 specification yet)
• There is an api.php, connect.php and lib.php file in the project root repository.

It's apparently not the last version of your work, can I get an access to the last version?
Who works on what exactly?
Do we really need all this code for Moodle 2.0? (it could be a stupid question but I read somewhere that it was first based to work with Moodle 1.8)
Does the last code version follow the Moodle 2.0 specification?

For information, I'm still a recent Moodler, and not an expert in web services yet.
I'm a bit confuse, I'd really appreciate more information.

Have you a way to communicate easily? You can contact me on skype, my skype account is jerome.mouneyrac@skype.com

Last point, I can not access to the two French discussions. I created a "jerome" account on the French Moodlemoot website but I'm not allowed to access to these conversations.

Thanks a lot for your help.

I finally succeeded to get dwfs running against a test Moodle 1.9 ... First the webservice directory MUST be at the "root" of the Moodle installation, nowhere else ...

The excellent point about this implementation is that the WSDL required by SOAP client in generated "on the fly" by collecting all datatypes and functions declarations from the files present in directories apis/* and mod/* , but they use the outdated nusoap library. A possible issue will be performance since the WSDL will be recomputed at each call.

Currently I got some answers from :

• http://mymoodle/webservice/inout/direct/client.php after editing line 4 of this script to give an admin login/password or an user with manual access. The call mdl_course_get_courses_by_user gives no anwser for user id 4, where it should give 2 courses...

• the python SOAP client navega.py do work, but again I got no answers at get_my_courses.

• http://mymoodle/webservice/inout/soap/client.php does not run due to a broken nusoap.php file in webservice/inout/soap/nusoap , an hardcoded URL string and a wrong second argument (true)...

It is still unclear to me why there is two entry points (connect.php and inout.php ) and how the security is implemented , i.e how a single call to connect is required before jumping to inout.php and how inout.php reject unconnetd operations... but I am still searching

By quickly peeking in apis directory, I noticed that all functions that address creating or deleting Moodle entities (course, user...) do not check for roles... and call directly the delete_course() or delete_user() APi functions.

As far as the specifications are concerned it is true that the functions do not have yet the proposed names
but that could be easily solved. A more important problem is the parameters ; the calls only use Moodle internal IDS to identify the objects, where it is clear that for external information systems, these values are irrelevant. External system should not keep track of these numbers and talk to Moodle using "idnumbers" at least for users and courses. We have suggested in the specs that all calls should include a parameter stating what field of Moodle should be used to identify something, with a default to "idnumber".

I think Ludo's team should concentrated on writing the code in apis/ and mods/ directory, with the help of Moodle core developers, that are the most competent people on that matter, using the inout/direct/* scripts to test them out and let others take care of the real clients. Currently, people that already have implemented WS for Moodle ( Frederic and me for SOAP and Linux Box Corporation for XML-RPC) and eager to replace their "low level layer" that talks directly to Moodle API or do SQL calls by a set of well established functions located in Ludo's apis/ and mod/ directories

My 2 cents...

Cheers

Python client navega.py do work as expected if you add the table mdl_api_session to Moodle database.
Copy & paste webservice/webservice/inout/soap/base_de_dades.txt file content into phpmyadmin

CREATE TABLE mdl_api_session (
id bigint(10) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,
userid bigint(10) unsigned NOT NULL default '0',
username varchar(100) NOT NULL default '',
ip varchar(25) NOT NULL default '',
content text NOT NULL default '',
session_id varchar(40) NOT NULL default '',
expires bigint(10) unsigned NOT NULL default '0',
PRIMARY KEY (id)
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 COMMENT='Store session data from usemdl_api_sessionrs migrating to other sites' AUTO_INCREMENT=1

So I start to understand how security is implemented. Operation mdl_config_login located in connect.php add a record to mdl_api_session table and that record is fetched back by inout.php and deleted by a call to mdl_config_logout operation.

In a prod version, database updates should be done by standard Moodle manipulations .

A+

I played harder on current dfws implementation and start to have some good results with it ...

Attached a modified version of cvs:/moodle.org/contrib/patches/dfws/webservice.
Unpack it at the root of you Mooalde and read the README_IMPORTANT.TXT for security.
--------------------------------------------------------------------

• My goal was ONLY to try to understand how it works and check that adding operations
  was easier than in other implementations. That is TRUE !

• a basic api for categories has been added in apis/ to test adding operations.
  Currently there is only one entry : mdl_category_get_categories(parent,recurse). DONE

• UTF-8 encoding of the WSDL is enforced if Moodle's database is unicode. DONE

• the current "security mechanism" by requiring first a call to mdl_config_login(user,pwd)
  and then passing back the sessionid to all calls to inout.php has been removed since it does not work.
  Anymore can call an inout operation that do not return a "complex type" such as mdl_user_add_instance
  without authentfication. DONE

I would suggest that the sessionid be added as the first parameter to all calls
but mdl_config_login and tested against the database... like it is currently done in OK Tech WS implementation. TODO

-since there is currently TWO entry points (connect.php and inout.php) the service names MUST be different
to allow automatic classes generation by wsdl2xxx utilities without overwriting ...DONE

• for testing SOAP clients, see the directory inout/soap/testing and the file README_IMPORTANT.TXT.

Can an user with admin privileges remove the previous version. Thkx

I like the idea of passing an array of "field" -> value like:

array (
'idnumber' => '434343',
'email' => 'martin@fred.com',
'id' => '3'
)

Where they are processed in order. Does that make sense to all?

delete user with idnumber 434343
delete user with email martin@fred.com
delete user with id 3

Obviously this could delete a lot of users at once:

array (
'firstname' => 'Martin'
}

Perhaps we should allow wildcards too:

array (
'lastname' => 'Doug%'
}

So if you mean delete user whose idnumber is 434343 AND email=fred@xxx AND id=3 ??? :In that case is it too much demanding on the external SIS that will likely not know anything about Moodle internal ids and does not want to know about them.

And if you mean user whose idnumber is 434343 OR email=fred@xxx OR id=3 , it does not make sense to me either since, when writing processes to sync Moodle with my SIS it is very unlikely that I shall scan my database twice, once for idnumber and one for email. If in my place idNumber are the "primary key", I shall use it anywhere, if it is the email, I shall uses is instead, but never both...

I think Ludo's question is more :

-Shall we have ONE public operation delete_users (array of some info, corresponding field name in Moodle ) that could be called as :
res = delete_users (array(1,2,3), 'id')
or res = delete_users (array('CS27001','CS27002',...), 'idnumber')
or res = delete_users (array(jack@here,fred@ther,...), ,'email')
or res = delete_users (array(jack,fred,...), 'username')

• Or shall we have four public operations :

res = delete_users_byid (array(1,2,3')
or res = delete_users_byidnumber('CS27001','CS27002',...)
or res = delete_users_byemail (array(jack@here,fred@ther,...)
or res = delete_users_byusername (array(jack,fred,...)

and make delete_users private to avoid devastating calls such as delete_users (array(1),'confirmed') or delete_users(array('patrick'),'firstname')... unless you feel that it should be allowed

Also the question of wildcards should be addressed (permitted or not) such as delete_users (array('CS%','idnumber) ....

To me it should not be permitted to delete_users for safety reasons ; it that case we should request a true identifying id (unique in database) ;
in contrast it should be allowed in get_users . I shall be happy with a get_users(array(1),'deleted')

Cheers.

delete_users ('id', array(1,2,3) )

I'm not keen on one function per field ... that would get unmanageable rather quickly!

http://www.osoa.org/display/PHP/SCA+with+PHP

1 y ago, when i started implementing a prototipal impl of a gateway between moodle and a student information system i thought it was the way; now i think it can be the way for moodle too.

what do you think about it?

mbertazz

I quickly peeked at SCA site and indeed found some nice features such as automatic generation of a WSDL from a set of well commented php classes and functions, something Ludo is currently doing using the "old" nusoap library for his sample SOAP server, and me by hand (

So SCA could indeed be used to write the high level ws connectors Ludo is talking about. They claims to support a fair amount of protocols such as :

binding.ebaysoap Binding Documentation
binding.jsonrpc Binding Documentation
binding.message Binding Documentation
binding.restresource Binding Documentation
binding.restrpc Binding Documentation
[binding.simpledb Binding Documentation]
[binding.soap Binding Documentation]
binding.xmlrpc Binding Documentation

However I also noticed on their download page : "SCA is in its early stages while SDO has achieved a stable state. " , and that nothing has been released since august 2007...

Cheers.

I would like to discuss about get_user and get_course. It's important to define what are User and Course objects.

http://potato.lsi.upc.edu/api/

Would it make sense to add a "reset_courses" function to the list of standard core functions?

One of the requirements in our moodle implementation is to reset all courses by category at the end of a term. Since we have over 500 courses, resetting these manually would have been an administrative challenge.

We use the Ok Tech WS to control enrolments and retrieve grades into our SIS and have modified some of their functions to work with collections of courses under a category. We added a simple reset_courses() web method and since it it was a good solution for our requirements, I thought it might be a candidate to add to the list of standard webservices core functions...

Could you disclose yours modifications to OK Tech Implementation ? They could benefit to others while waiting for the official Moodle 2.0 API layer. Especially the grade part that has not been tested in production to my knowledge.

Thks.

I posted the modifications to the Web Services forum here:

http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=102511

Hope this will be of some benefit...

http://docs.moodle.org/en/Development:Quiz_web_services

What is the status of web services for Moodle 2.0 currently? I've seen http://cvs.moodle.org/contrib/patches/ws/ ,which looks nice, but it's only an implementation for SOAP, unless I'm missing something.

We'd like to contribute what we do, but we're not sure how best to proceed now though. Assuming we develop these services using XML-RPC, where would these fit in in the CVS repository?

A little background:
For versions 1.4 and 1.5 of Moodle we developed a flash client for a customer; the flash client then talked to the Moodle via a custom script; the output was in IMS-QTI 2.0 format. This allows for the creation of very nice professional-looking "quizzes"; the user management, quiz and question details are handled in Moodle. This has proven to work very well. A couple of examples (in German / French only, sorry) can be seen here:

http://creaviva.lernfrage.ch/froodle/creaviva/100001-anonym-de-new-go
http://cleverunterwegs.lernfrage.ch/froodle/home/10011-anonym-fr-false-go

Back then, we had to modify the quiz handling and the question fields a bit (e.g. adding overall feedback). We'd like to update to using Moodle 1.9 / 2.0 and later, and get away from having to make core hacks to Moodle. The customer has agreed to opensource the updated IMS-QTI2-rendering flash client (which we will also contribute to the Moodle community, assuming that there's some way to get the necessary information from Moodle without having to make core hacks). We'd like to be able to get the necessary quiz information using a standard interface, that will not greatly change for each new version of Moodle. So, we're proposing to develop these: http://docs.moodle.org/en/Development:Quiz_web_services .

We would appreciate some feedback. We have a project scheduled to start soon, and would very much like to be able to develop something that the greater Moodle community can profit from.

Best regards,
Brian

• A rest server is in /webservice/rest
• A rest client is in /webservice/rest/client
• Some User core functions are in /user/api.php
• The web service description for these functions are in /user/wsapi.php

The /webservice/rest folder also contains a lib.php file that check the web service description in order to call the core function.

Some explanation about the process can be find here: http://docs.moodle.org/en/Development:Do_we_need_named_parameters#Web_Services_.2F_Moodle_API

If you like to run it, go to: http://your_moodle/webservice/rest/testclient/

All feedback are welcome.

• few updates on the documentation: http://docs.moodle.org/en/Development:Do_we_need_named_parameters#Web_Services_.2F_Moodle_API
• SOAP and REST client/server have been updated and works for basic get/create/delete/update functions.
• SOAP has now a wsdl generator
• A setting to enable/disable web services has been added into the administration

Many stuff still need to be implemented before to reach a "stable" API:

• access control (with token, session)
• SOAP: call the generator automatically and only when necessary, manage token with SOAP
• ful test of client/server for the user basics functions (optional parameters need to be tested, core functions reviews)
• implement an entire module core api and ws functions, as the forum.
• need to implement a third web service protocol
  ...

At this moment Petr will be working on access control and some core functions, Ludo team's soon on module forum web services, and I on SOAP, the full test and others stuff. I'll organize a talk between all of us.

I noticed that since few days, updates to /webservice directory and /lib/moodlewsapi.php and all
*/api.php and µ:wsapi.php are not anymore mirrored to the european mirrors (with anonymous login) I use to use for automatic nightly checkouts of latest updates.

I have to use my cvs account on cvs.moodle.org to retrieve your work on web services and thus I have to do it manually every morning to keep the pace ... Surprisingly these updates are nevertheless available by anonymous http access on http://cvs.moodle.org .

Is this intentional ?

I am glad to learn that a wsdl generator is in progress, since in my SOAP implementation I have a wsdl2php.php script that generates php client classes "a la" java or python.

Cheers.

Brian King: I'm sending an email to you, sorry for this late answer.

Web Service API design: I think it's good, we should keep the description array as it's easy to understand by developers. The only thing still needed to be defined is: how to we define an array/object parameter? It could be good to support it if we want to support multiple operations at the same time: delete_users(id1, id2, id3,...)).
I said it "could be" because at this moment no servers in HEAD need the description array for this kind of web service function. The current SOAP/XMLRPC servers support this kind of function but use phpdoc. And I'm not sure that a RESTful server would support this kind of function.

REST protocol: I don't know yet how RESTful protocol support multiple operations. Moreover for implementing a real RESTful server we would need to improve the description array (web service API need to know if the web service function is GET/POST/PUT/DELETE).

SOAP protocol: I like the zend_soap server (and zend WSDL generator) in HEAD. With an accurate documentation generator, it should be easy to create a client.
I think we should remove the PHP soap client/server that I created, as well as the WSDL generator.

XMLRPC protocol: same as SOAP

AMF: I need to have a better look, for later.

As usual any comments are welcome, I'm most that listening for advices on the REST protocol and also the support of array in the description (web service API design)

Thanks

Here it how we need to write the phpdoc:

• @param array|struct $params - no change to this line
• @subparam string $params:student->name - student name

':' colon character indicates that the left word is considered as a non associative array
'->' arrow indicates that the left word is an object/associative array

However when we generate the description array, the non associative arrays are translated by associative arrays with all key starting by 'multiple:'. For example the description array for the above phpdoc would be:
description['functionname'] = array('params' => array('multiple:student' => array('name' => string)))

I'll update the Moodledocs with more information.

------------------------------------------
To be done for 2.0 release
------------------------------------------

• write all external API file (+ add clean_parameter())
• implement the token generation/checking with Moodle 2.0 Session into webservice/lib.php

-------------------------------------------
Under decision
------------------------------------------

• our REST sever is not RESTful and use POST parameters. After discussion with Martin, it could be good to use only GET params for the "REST" server. However if many of you wanna a RESTful server it could be implemented. We would need to add an annotation to all function phpdoc (example: @httpmethod GET, @httpmethod PUT, @httpmethod POST, @httpmethod DELETE)

------------------------------------------
Optional
------------------------------------------

• implement AMF server => generate PHP value object class from the phpdoc (use @subparam and @subreturn annotations)

Soap is not working.... there are some problems with the token.
I'm always geting 2147483647 (the bigest integer) instead of the hardcoded 465465465468468464.

The token must be a lower int value or a string.

Pigui.