Three types of Business Central objects can be published as web services: pages, queries, and codeunits. The essential purposes are as follows:
- Pages provide access to the associated primary table. Use card pages for table access, unless there is a specific reason to use another page type.
- Codeunits provide access to the functions contained within each codeunit.
- Queries provide rapid, efficient access to data in a format that is especially compatible with a variety of other Microsoft products, as well as products from other vendors.
An XMLport can be exposed indirectly, as a codeunit parameter. This provides a very structured way of exposing Business Central data through a web service. (See AJ Kauffmann's blog series on XMLports in web services, at http://kauffmann.nl/index.php/2011/01/15/how-to-use-xmlports-in-web-services-1/.) There is an example later in this chapter.)
When a page has no special constraints, either via properties or permissions, there...
