Screen scraping and IPC

Question

Hi there,
We have a mainframe emulator which is implemented as a webapp. This webapp gets some data from mainframe say reservation #.
I tried creating a browser portlet for the webapp (mainframe app).
Now, there are 4 other JPF portlets which listen to the above webapp or browser portlet for reservation # . I' guess there is no way to share the data between browser portlet and other portlets. (Plz correct me if I'm wrong).
My question is:
1. Is there any way I can pass the data retrieved from external webapp into my portal framework i.e to other portlets
2. Will Screen scraping or streaming web page content help in this scenario.
Plz share your thoughts. Appreciate any help.
Thanks,
Sid

Answer 1

Sid,
It is possible, but you need to 'suck' the data from the mainframe app
into a JSP-portlet. You can do this in the backing context of the
JSP-portlet.
import javax.servlet.http.HttpSession;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import org.apache.beehive.netui.pageflow.PageFlowController;
import org.apache.beehive.netui.pageflow.annotations.Jpf;
import org.apache.beehive.netui.pageflow.Forward;
import org.apache.beehive.netui.pageflow.scoping.ScopedServletUtils;
@Jpf.Controller(simpleActions = { @Jpf.SimpleAction(name = "begin", path
= "retrieveParams.do") })
public class PfIpcTestController extends PageFlowController {
     private static final long serialVersionUID = 1961633610L;
     @Jpf.Action(forwards = { @Jpf.Forward(name = "success", path =
"displayParams.jsp") })
     public Forward retrieveParams() {
          HttpServletRequest request =
ScopedServletUtils.getOuterRequest(getRequest());
          String cloneMessage = request.getParameter("_cloneMessage");
          CloneMessage msg = new CloneMessage();
          if( cloneMessage != null )
               System.out.println("Inside retrieveParams: cloneMessage="+cloneMessage);
               msg.setTheMessage(cloneMessage);
          else
               msg.setTheMessage("No clone message received as URL parameter");
          Forward forward = new Forward("success");
               // Adding the message as an output form isn't strictly
               // required but is handy if another application (or this
               // pf) wants to register a handler on this action and
               // get this payload
          forward.addOutputForm(msg);
          forward.addActionOutput("_cloneMessage", msg);
          return forward;
     * Callback that is invoked when this controller instance is created.
     @Override
     protected void onCreate() {
     * Callback that is invoked when this controller instance is destroyed.
     @Override
     protected void onDestroy(HttpSession session) {
     @Jpf.FormBean
     public static class CloneMessage implements java.io.Serializable {
          private static final long serialVersionUID = 838010769L;
          private String theMessage;
          public String getTheMessage() {
               return theMessage;
          public void setTheMessage(String theMessage) {
               this.theMessage = theMessage;
This way you clone the content of the original page, and bring it in the
context of the WLP. Now you can create IPC. The only thing you need to
do is to post the user clicks back to the backing file which the submits
the correct values to the mainframe app.
Best Regards,
Frank van den Nieuwboer
Hi there,
We have a mainframe emulator which is implemented as a webapp. This webapp gets some data from mainframe say reservation #.
I tried creating a browser portlet for the webapp (mainframe app).
Now, there are 4 other JPF portlets which listen to the above webapp or browser portlet for reservation # . I' guess there is no way to share the data between browser portlet and other portlets. (Plz correct me if I'm wrong).
My question is:
1. Is there any way I can pass the data retrieved from external webapp into my portal framework i.e to other portlets
2. Will Screen scraping or streaming web page content help in this scenario.
Plz share your thoughts. Appreciate any help.
Thanks,
Sid