# Consume web service from extension

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/consume-web-service-from-extension/104263>\
**Category:** Radiant CMS\
**Created:** [May 16, 2007, 4:16am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/consume-web-service-from-extension/104263 "2007-05-16T04:16:19Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Bill\_Rowell](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/d07c76/32.png) [@Bill\_Rowell](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Bill_Rowell)\
**Post date:** [May 16, 2007, 4:16am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/consume-web-service-from-extension/104263/1 "2007-05-16T04:16:19Z")

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Hey all,

I’m relatively new to Radiant CMS. I’ve had a little success with  
understanding how to develop extensions to do custom things for me in a  
new  
site I’m developing. One thing I’d like to be able to do is consume a  
web  
service I wrote in another Rails application from my extension. Is  
there  
any easy way to do this? I was trying to do some things from my page  
class  
for my extension, however it hasn’t worked out. I’d appreciate some  
pointers if anyone has any advice on the correct way to accomplish this.  
Thanks!

Regards,  
Bill

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**Author:** ![Bill\_Rowell](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/d07c76/32.png) [@Bill\_Rowell](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Bill_Rowell)\
**Post date:** [May 16, 2007, 5:50am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/consume-web-service-from-extension/104263/2 "2007-05-16T05:50:24Z")

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You might look at the LDAP extension for some ideas. KCKCC.edu uses  
(or used) the extension to hit an LDAP server on another machine. The  
concept is basically the same – wrap the external service in some  
object semantics you can live with, then write tags that allow you to  
display the data. Other than that, I have no experience interfacing  
with web services. If your backend Rails app is RESTful,  
ActiveResource should do the trick.

Sean

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**Author:** ![Bill\_Rowell](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/d07c76/32.png) [@Bill\_Rowell](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Bill_Rowell)\
**Post date:** [May 20, 2007, 9:39pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/consume-web-service-from-extension/104263/3 "2007-05-20T21:39:16Z")

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Sean,

I took a look at this and it was very helpful. It gave me some ideas to  
create a solution, which I’ve written about here:

[http://www.billrowell.com/2007/05/20/radiant-cms-web-services/](http://www.billrowell.com/2007/05/20/radiant-cms-web-services/)

-Bill