How wwAsyncWebRequest works

Asynchronous events can be used for many operations that take a while to run. The basic idea behind them in a Web application is:

Browser submits a request to the server
Server picks up request and submits it to the event queue
Server returns a 'I'm working on it' to the browser which is refreshed every x seconds
External application picks up the event and starts processing it
Optionally external app updates the status of processing as available
When done external app updates the event as completed
Web Server app meanwhile keeps checking for completion
When complete the Web Server app picks up the completed result (XML, a data file somewhere, or maybe a PDF or HTML string etc)
Web Server can optionally perform more processing on the returned data
Web Server then returns the result to the client browser

The following code sequence demonstrates how events
can be set by clients and processed by servers:

Client initiating the Event:

SET PROCEDURE TO wwAsyncWebRequest ADDITIVE
SET PROCEDURE TO wwXMLState ADDITIVE


*** Event Initiator code (Web App most likely)
o = CREATEOBJECT("wwAsyncWebRequest")

*** SubmitEvent saves the request
lcId =  o.SubmitEvent("Test Data","Sumbited at: " + TIME())

*** If you want to add additional data you can use dynamic properties
o.SetProperty("Name","Rick")
o.SetProperty("Report","custlist")
o.SetProperty("Time",DATETIME())
o.SetProperty("SQL","select * from TT_Cust")

*** Or your can set properties on the even object directly
o.oEvent.UserId = "rstrahl"
o.oEvent.Title = "Test Event"

*** If you make manual changes make sure to Save
o.SaveEvent()

Server receiving the event:

*** Pass in an event id somehow
LPARAMETERS lcID

Application.Visible = .F.

IF EMPTY(lcID)
   RETURN
ENDIF

SET PROCEDURE TO wwUtils ADDITIVE
SET PROCEDURE TO wwXMLState Additive
SET PROCEDURE TO wwAsyncWebRequest Additive
SET CLASSLIB TO wwXML ADDITIVE

loAsync = CREATEOBJECT("wwAsyncWebRequest")

*** Load the Event
IF !loAsync.LoadEvent(lcID)
   RETURN
ENDIF   

WAIT WINDOW "Simulating long request taking 20 seconds..." TIMEOUT 20

lcSQL = loAsync.GetProperty("SQL")

*** Run the SQL Statement
&lcSQL INTO Cursor TTCustList

*** Do something with the output - in this case turn into XML
loXML = CREATEOBJECT("wwXML")
lcXML = loXML.CursorToXML()

*** Close out the request and pass the return data
*** into the ResultData property
loAsync.CompleteEvent(lcID,lcXML)

*** EXIT app
RETURN

While waiting for the request to complete on the server the client code polls the server. The polling code can look like this:

IF loAsync.CheckForCompletion(lcID) = 1
         *** Display result - XML document return in this case
         Response.ContentTypeHeader("text/xml")

         *** Retrieve the data from the server and display as XML
         Response.Write(loAsync.oEvent.ReturnData)

	  *** Alternately you could read any other fields of the oEvent object
         *** or any property set by the server application with GetProperty()
         RETURN
ENDIF
     
*** Create the waiting output page
lcBody = "<hr><b>Waiting for report to complete" + ;
         REPLICATE(". ",loAsync.oEvent.ChkCounter + 1) + "</b><hr><p>" + ;
         "This report is now running in another process while leaving the "  +;
         "Web Connection instance running free to process other requests. " + ;
         "It polls back every few seconds to check for completion and when done " +;
         "picks up the result data to be displayed in this case a simulated " + ;
         "long running report..."

*** Create the 'Waiting...' page. Note the Refresh and Refresh URL parameters
*** The URL contains a counter so we can abort after x number of tries.
THIS.StandardPage("Running Report",lcBody,,;
                  lnPageRefresh,"AsyncWebRequest.wwd?Action=Check&RequestId=" + lcId)