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web-servicesmobileblackberryherokublackberry-10

How do mobile applications typically exchange small amounts of information with a server?

With very little experience designing mobile or web based systems, I really have no idea idea what sort of methods are generally used for exchanging information from an application on a phone with a web service on a server. In my scenario, the app is on Blackberry 10, and I think the web service will be run on Heroku.

I want to periodically exchange small amount of information between client apps and the server's web service. I have tried searching for how this might be done, but I have had no success in finding anything helpful. Any sort of information on how I can or should do this would be appreciated.

To clarify a little: I am particularly interested in how small amount of data are typically stored for transfer, and then what mechanisms are generally used for actually sending and receiving the information.

Solution

  • Typically, this is handled via HTTP calls through the mobile device's SDK. I have no idea what the objects are on blackberry, but the typical workflow looks like this:

    • Write a web service that does something (e.g. calculation, retrieve data, store data).
    • Publish web service to a web server. This web service has a URL. If you are following RESTful approaches to web services, there would be unique URLs for resources available through the web. Each function that the web service performs uses one of the common HTTP verbs, e.g. GET and POST. You use "GET" to retrieve data from the web via the URL. You use "POST" when you also want to send data to the web.
    • From the client SDK (e.g. iOS, Android, Windows Mobile, Blackberry), build an HTTP request through the standard objects that are components of the SDK. Sometimes there are open-source libraries that provide wrapper classes that make this process easier. This HTTP request should either just use the URL (in the event you want to make a GET request), or you should build the request via the "body" of the request with the data that you want to send to the server, in the event of a POST request.
    • Both types of requests typically produce a response from the server, which you then handle and parse using objects and events that are typically components of the SDK.
    • You then do whatever you want with the parsed response in the context of the client.

    Although the specifics of the implementation of this pattern can vary, the pattern is pretty consistent across all the major platforms; it's really the only way to do it.