REST API External Data Sources

LiveCompare’s Web Services API is asynchronous. As shown in the Running a Workflow from an External Program - Adder Example help topic, a Web Services client program that consumes a workflow must poll for a result from the Web Services API. While this approach allows a Web Services client to call a workflow as it would any other function, the asynchronous nature of LiveCompare’s Web Services API can complicate client-side programming.

In many cases, third-party applications only require access to the data returned by LiveCompare, which may be stored in an External Data Source. External Data Sources may be defined as REST API; these are available to Web services clients via a REST (Representational State Transfer) API. When a REST API External Data Source is created in LiveCompare, it may be accessed synchronously using either of the following URLs, which are available to the Web Services client:

http://<LiveCompare server name>/livecompare/xds/<GUID>.xdsx?schema

http://<LiveCompare server name>/livecompare/xds/<GUID>.xdsx

  • URLs with the ?schema qualifier return the metadata for the External Data Source’s table in the JSON Table Schema format.
  • URLs without the ?schema qualifier return the External Data Source’s table content in JSON format.

By default, REST API External Data Sources return a maximum of 1000 table rows.

Creating External Data Sources

Editing External Data Sources

External Data Source Details