How to make a call to service from site studio templates?

Question

Hi,
May be this is very basic but I am not able to figure out how to make a call to a service from site studio templates (hcsp). I have seen one example of service call in the dynamic list fragment. It makes a call to SS_GET_SEARCH_RESULTS service using executeService() method. But it doesn't take any parameters and also not very how returned results are captured.
I want to execute WCM_PLACEHOLDER service. It takes 2 main parameters dataFileDocName and templateDocName. The returned result is typically a html response.
The service typically is executed using http request and the url would be something like this
http://hd-pratapm/ucm/idcplg?IdcService=WCM_PLACEHOLDER&dataFileDocName=VIRTUSAINC&templateDocName=DETAILS_REGION_TEMPLATE
I think SS_GET_SEARCH_RESULTS service works in the similar fashion. I want to execute WCM_PLACEHOLDER service too using executeService() method. How to work with this? How can we pass parameters and capture returned results?
Regards,
Pratap

Answer 1

Hey Pratap,
If you are on a standard Site Studio template (page or subtemplate) you should be able to call the wcmPlaceholder idoc function directly. In fact calling the idoc function provides a lot more functionality then the service call (they locked down a few things in the service call since it is designed to be called from an external application).
The idoc call would look something like: <!--$wcmPlaceholder("Sales", "placeholderDefinitionDocName=placedef_salescontact")--> (taken from page 208 in this doc: http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E10316_01/SiteStudio/10gr4/Pdf/Site_Studio_10gR4_Designer_Guide.pdf)
As a general note when you are in idoc script and want to execute a service you call <$executeService()$> as you saw in the dynamic list. The parameters that the service runs on are in the data binder of the current request. To set parameters for an execute service you simply set idoc variables on the page before it. Example:
<!--$QueryText="dDocType <matches> `Document`" -->
<!--$executeService("GET_SEARCH_RESULTS")-->
As for the response when you execute an idoc function, like wcmPlaceholder, that returns a String the response is immediately output to the page in the location you called the function. This would be similar in concept to a jsp scriptlet that outputs a string <%=myResponseString%>
Hope that helps,
Andy Weaver - Senior Software Consultant
Fishbowl Solutions < http://www.fishbowlsolutions.com?WT.mc_id=L_Oracle_Consulting_amw_OTN_ECM >
Edited by: Andy Weaver on Jul 7, 2010 7:59 AM
Added response detail.