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Using the Java API

The Java API has two main interfaces, com.genexplain.api.core.GxHttpConnection and com.genexplain.api.core.GxHttpClient and there are two basic implementations provided by com.genexplain.api.core.GxHttpConnectionImpl and com.genexplain.api.core.GxHttpClientImpl (see also Fig. 1). The GxHttpConnection manages a connection to a geneXplain platform server and provides low level methods to send requests to the server. The GxHttpClient requires a GxHttpConnection to be able to provide higher level functions, e.g., to submit analysis jobs, import or export data. The core functionality of the API is contained in the package com.genexplain.api.core.

Figure 1. A) Two core interfaces providing a connection to a platform server and a client as well as their implementations. B) Overview of the roles of core classes in a program using the API.

A program firstly creates a GxHttpConnection which is given authentication info and the address of the server to connect with (Fig. 1B). The connection object is then provided to the GxHttpClient to do its work. Several example programs in the package com.genexplain.api.eg demonstrate how to use the API. The described workflow of obtaining a connection and a client can be seen at work in the connect() method of the class com.genexplain.api.eg.AbstractAPIExample.