If you’ve been developing client-side applications or functionality using SPServices and the SOAP Web Services, sooner or later you’ll want to move to REST instead. This class takes the patterns shown in the instructor's article series on ITUnity and his blog and makes it real with real-world examples. There are some things you can do now to prepare for this eventuality, whether it’s part of an upgrade to SharePoint 2013 or simply because you’ve got “legacy” code that uses SOAP instead of REST. We’ll go through the decision points, specific code examples, and better practices. You will learn : * Differences between SOAP and REST protocols * How to translate your most common SOAP calls to REST * Strategies for making the move less painful * Useful abstractions to lighten the load Features Covered: Client side scripting is a key skill for Office365 or any other version of SharePoint or Web development in general. By learning REST skills, you'll be prepared to build applications for Office365 and elsewhere. Recording available at: https://collab365.conferencehosts.com/confs/2015-1/C365053/ConfPages/SessionRoom.aspx

1. Online Conference
June 17th and 18th 2015
WWW.COLLAB365.EVENTS
Moving from SOAP to Rest:
You’ve Got to Do It Sometime

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Marc D Anderson
Sympraxis Consulting LLC
Email :
marc.anderson@sympraxisconsulting.com
Twitter : sympmarc
Facebook : marc.d.anderson
LinkedIn : marcanderson
• Co-Founder and President of Sympraxis Consulting LLC, located in the
Boston suburb of Newton, MA, USA. Sympraxis focuses on enabling
collaboration throughout the enterprise using the SharePoint
application platform.
• Over 30 years of experience in technology professional services and
software development. Over a wide-ranging career in consulting as
well as line manager positions, Marc has proven himself as a problem
solver and leader who can solve difficult technology problems for
organizations across a wide variety of industries and organization sizes.
• Author of SPServices
• Awarded Microsoft MVP for SharePoint Server 2011-2015

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Session Overview
• If you’ve been developing client side applications or functionality using SPServices
and the SOAP Web Services, sooner or later you’ll want to move to REST instead.
• This session takes the patterns shown in my article series on ITUnity and my blog
and makes it real with real-world examples. There are some things you can do now
to prepare for this eventuality, whether it’s part of an upgrade to SharePoint 2013
or simply because you’ve got “legacy” code that uses SOAP instead of REST.
• We’ll go through the decision points, specific code examples, and better practices.

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Why Move from SOAP to REST?
• SOAP
– Simple Object Access Protocol
– Created 1998 by Dave Winer et al for Microsoft
– Discoverability via WSDL
– XML-based
• REST
– Representational State Transfer
– OData protocols
– XML or JSON
– Much wider usage
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOAP#History, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representational_state_transfer

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Services Across SharePoint Versions
Deprecated
Deprecated
Endpoint
/_vti_bin/listdata.svc
/_api
Deprecated
TBD, but unified
None
SOAP REST

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SharePoint’s SOAP Services
Source: https://spservices.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=$().SPServices
SOAP

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Conversion Approaches
• Abstract data access (SPServices) calls
• Get familiar with promises and asynchronous calls (if
you aren’t already)
• Begin using JSON
• Convert individual calls – mix and match
• Start new development with REST – spackle with
CSOM or SOAP

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Abstract Data AccessSOAP

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Replace When ReadySOAP
REST

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How Does SOAP Map to REST?
SOAPREST

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Mapping GetListItems: The Nitty-Gritty
SOAP Option
(SPServices synonym)
REST Comments
ViewFields
(CAMLViewFields)
$select Choose the columns you would like to retrieve. With both SOAP and REST we get some
data we don’t explicitly request, but by specifying only the columns we need we can
reduce the payload sizes.
Query
(CAMLQuery)
$filter,
$orderby
Specify which items in the list we would like to return and how we would like them
sorted.
RowLimit
(CAMLRowLimit)
$limit Say how many items matching the Query we would like to receive. In SOAP we can
specify 0 to get all matching items; in REST we can omit the parameter to get all the
matching items. Otherwise, we can specify any integer as the limit.
ViewName
(CAMLViewName)
NA ViewName lets you choose the view you would like to get in the response. There’s no
REST equivalent here. I’ve always discouraged using this option in SOAP because it’s
too easy to change the view settings and cause unintended consequences.
QueryOptions
(CAMLQueryOptions)
NA In SOAP, this lets us specify some options that change how the data is returned to us.
For example, we can ask for all of the attachment URLs rather than just a Boolean
which tells us that there are attachments.
NA $expand This option in REST has no direct equivalent in SOAP. $expand allows us to indicate that
we would like the values for a relationship - rather than just the indices - using a
projection. This is important with Lookup columns and Person or Group columns.

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Generic Read Function

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SPServices: XML vs. JSON
JSON
SPGetListItemsJson
XML
GetListItems

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SharePoint REST: JSONJSON
REST

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Chrome App: Postman

16. We’ll look at live examples showing the different ways
we can request data, along with conversion approaches.

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Resources
• SharePoint 2013 – CRUD on List Items Using REST
Services & jQuery
• Get started with the SharePoint 2013 REST service
• Working with lists and list items with REST
• Use OData query operations in SharePoint REST
requests
• OData.org

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Stay tuned for more great sessions …