Invoking Native Requests

Client applications submit a request to the LightWave Server™ process using a specially crafted HTTP URI, HTTP method, and HTTP request headers and body. The HTTP URI indicates the API being invoked and the NonStop system resource that the request should act upon. The HTTP method indicates the operation being performed on the resource. The HTTP headers and request body contains data and/or parameters necessary to complete the request. After processing the request, LightWave Server returns an HTTP response with headers and response body containing the results of the request.

Request Method Selection

The HTTP method used for each request determines the operation to perform on the resource. In general, the method correlates with the resource operation as follows:

Method	Operation
POST	Change the state of the resource. This method is used when creating or ending a transaction.
DELETE	Delete the resource. This method is used when aborting a transaction or aborting a Pathway dialog.

Request URI Construction

The Request URI uses the following general format:

CODE

/lightwave/api/{version}/{api-name}/{resource-parameters}

Path element	Description
version	The version of the API being invoked. Currently this value must be "v1" for all APIs.
api-name	The name of the API being invoked, which must be dialog or transaction.
resource-parameters	The resource-parameters value varies depending on the API being invoked. These parameters are documentation in the Native API Reference.

Examples

Some examples of API access using Method and URI combinations is shown below:

Method	URI	Description
POST	/lightwave/api/v1/transaction?timeout=30	Create a new transaction with a 30 second autoabort timeout. A transaction ID is returned in the response.
POST	/lightwave/api/v1/transaction/018968f900002a72f33b2b78a99b2536	Commit the transaction with the transaction ID 018968f900002a72f33b2b78a99b2536
DELETE	/lightwave/api/v1/dialog/0100000000000000	Abort a dialog.