Connecting to the service
In the following it is assumed you are using Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 to connect to the web service and build an application. Other tools will behave in a similar fashion.
The simplest method for connecting to the web service is to add a web reference to it.
The image here shows the process of adding a web reference to a VS2008 project.
Using the UI pages
In addition there are a variety of Silverlight web pages that perform operations on the contents of the web service, such as editing or running a questionnaire.
These have fixed size and can be embedded inside frames in your own web pages or windows applications.
These each have their own web services associated with them.
These UI pages take inline parameters that determine which rule set or processing map they operate on, and also influence what can be edited and how data is diplayed.
| Lacuna,Proc. Map, Metarule & Questionnaire |
userID |
Your web service ID |
No |
| Metarule |
ruleSetID |
The id of the rule set to edit |
No |
| Lacuna |
ruleID |
The id of the rule set to edit |
No |
| Questionnaire & Proc. Map |
mapID |
The id of the processing map to edit or use. |
No |
| Metarule, Proc. Map |
demoMode |
(True/False) If true, prevents changes being saved |
Yes |
The web service stores your rule sets and processing maps internally. There are a variety of web service calls that can be used to load and store rules and maps. Examples are:
| AddBlankMap |
Adds a new blank processing map to the collection. |
| AddBlankRuleSet |
Adds a new blank rule set to the collection. |
| GetMap |
Returns a processing map stored in the database based on the local name. |
| GetMaps |
Returns a summary of maps currently stored for this user, or for common use. |
| GetRuleset |
Returns a Metarule fuzzy rule set stored in the database given a local name. |
| GetRulesets |
Returns a summary of rule sets currently stored for this user, or in the common directory. |
| DeleteMap |
Deletes a processing map stored in the database based on the local name. |
| DeleteRuleSet |
Deletes a rule set stored in the database based on the local name. |
| LoadMap |
Loads a processing map using a local name. |
| LoadRuleset |
Loads a Metarule fuzzy rule set into the database given a local name. |
Details of these and other methods can be obtained from the API pages.
Workflow for using the XmlMiner Web Service
The XmlMiner set of web services is complicated and can be used in a variety of different ways.
See the XmlMiner workflow diagram (opens new window) for an overview.
Usages can be divided into three main areas:
- Data text and structure mining to a set of fuzzy rules
- Creating by hand, editing and testing rule sets
- Exploiting rule sets and collections of rule sets (processing maps) with new data or user interaction.
We've created a simple windows forms based application (see above) that illustrates the process of editing and evaluating a rule set. The code in this project could also be used on an active web page, and illustrates a common application where rule sets are used to customize an application for individual users, and where the users are permitted to modify their rules.