Web services an overview

It has always been possible to extend Moodle via code (PHP and Javascript). Due to Moodle's open source code base, there has been no limit to the amount of code a developer is able to modify or extend. For you as an administrator, this is not a satisfactory situation, as you have no control over what parts of Moodle are being changed and, equally important, what data is being accessed.

Moodle 2 has a number of APIs that provide an abstract layer to certain functionalities. Examples of these APIs are Portfolio API, Repository API, and File API. These are great for programmers as they reduce the amount of code that has to be (re-)written. In addition to these interfaces, Moodle 2 also introduced web services.

Note

Web services enable other systems to perform operations inside Moodle.

Why would we want web services? Well, there are three main scenarios we can think of. They are as follows:

• Other systems in your organization; for instance, the HR system, has to trigger...