Is it possible to access a html based web service from a pdf form?

Question

I was wondering if it is possible to send a query from livecycle to web service and parse the return data.
An quick example of what I am thinking is querying a database like wolfram alpha using their html query.
It is in the format http://api.wolframalpha.com/v2/query?input=pi&appid=XXXX. where "pi" is the query and XXXX is the specific user id
The website then returns a xml file.
Is there anyway to send out that html with any query from a text field and process the response?
Thanks!

Answer 1

Hi,
Naseko is right in using the formcalc get function, and I use this for accessing information from google calendar, you can also call the formcalc get function from JavaScript as described here http://blogs.adobe.com/formfeed/2009/02/calling_formcalc_functions_fro.html.
The main problem I have is with the yellow message bar message and popup saying do you want to allow access to api.wolframalpha.com (or whatever).  I think you can get around this by certifing the form, but I don't have access to the servre products to do that.
Anyway, if it helps have a look at https://workspaces.acrobat.com/?d=vFcW-9OVSm*BdV6GyFfUIg you will need to modify the button click code to specify your own appid but the code is simple enough;
var response = FormCalc.Function.Get("http://api.wolframalpha.com/v2/query?appid=<<appid>>&input=capital%20of%20australia");
response = response.replace(/^<\?xml\s+version\s*=\s*(["'])[^\1]+\1[^?]*\?>/, "");
var responseNode = xfa.datasets.createNode("dataGroup", "response");
responseNode.loadXML(response, false, false);
var answer = responseNode.resolveNode("queryresult.pod.(title.value=='Result')").subpod.plaintext.value;
console.println(answer);
So this code sends a query "capital of australia" and gets a response "Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia"
Replace <<appid>> with your appid and look at the linked sample to see how FormCalc.Function.Get works.
Also, expect Designer to crash a few times while getting it to work.
Hope this helps,
Bruce