Web Manipulator for REST Web Services

It was introduced in 10.95.3 for the first time.

REST services can have web manipulators. They are similar to data manipulators in GridWorX. Web manipulators are designed to execute a REST method on demand to perform some action in a "fire and forget" way, rather than querying and displaying data on a regular basis.

Web manipulators are best to use instead of web methods when you need to perform some action, such as writing a value, or get some limited data on a one-time or sporadic basis. Web methods continue to be the best choice when your goal is to display a set of data for a user.

Unlike web methods, web manipulators do not have configurations for refresh, schema, or return value. They allow the user to choose another REST method to refresh when the manipulator is executed, similar to GridWorX data manipulators.

Like GridWorX data manipulators, web manipulators are run when writing to the @@Execute tag. Parameter values for the web manipulator can either be included in the point name or written to specific parameter tags that are browsable under the web manipulator.

A web manipulator has two tags to get returned values. @@StatusCode contains the HTTP status code of the manipulator call. @@Data will contain the result of the REST method call. If the method returns an object, it is possible to get the value of individual properties by adding the property name to the @@Data point. For example, if the call returns this JSON object: { "Name": "Pressure", "Value": 12.8 }, the "Value" portion can be obtained with this tag: ws:folder.service.manipulator<>.@@Data.Value.