Integrate and extend IBM Rational team concert with rest APIs

Introduction: From IBM Rational Team Concert 2.0, the REST API is officially supported (the experimental version is published in the RTC 1.0.1). While the functionality provided by the rest API is still limited, it is sufficient for general integration requirements, and enhancements to the rest API will continue to be available in subsequent releases. This article will lead the reader to understand the functionality provided by the REST API in the RTC 2.0.0.2 and related concepts. and provides a Java-implemented RTC REST API client program for readers ' reference.

Introduction to IBM Rational Team concert

IBM Rational Team Concert (RTC) is the first commercial product, a collaborative software development environment built on the next generation of IBM rational software delivery-oriented collaboration platform Jazz platform, which includes integrated source control, work item management, and build management and other functions. IBM Rational Team Concert is a real-time, collaborative software delivery environment that helps to streamline collaborative development processes and automate the delivery of software across geographically dispersed development teams. DeveloperWorks and the Internet have a large number of articles on the RTC introduction, here is no longer to repeat. The Reference Resources section lists some resources for you to learn. The latest stable version of RTC, as of this article, is 2.0.0.2, so all of the following introductions to the RTC REST API are based on 2.0.0.2.

OSLC-CM specification

The implementation of the RTC REST API complies with the OSLC-CM specification.

What is OSLC?

OSLC is the abbreviation for the Open Service for lifecycle collaboration, which is a life-cycle collaboration open services. The OSLC community is designed to help software implementation teams streamline the use of lifecycle tools in collaboration. The mission of the OSLC community is to create open, open resource and interface descriptions to share the infrastructure that the software implementation team relies on, such as change management, test cases, defects, requirements, and user stories. If all access to life-cycle resources and services is subject to public specification, traditional barriers between tools will naturally be eliminated to unlock a gateway to new forms of collaboration. Whether it's the most agile or the most traditional project, OSLC can bring value to the software implementation team and tool providers, as well as to benefit from business tools, open source tools, and in-house development tools.

What is OSLC-CM?

OSLC-CM is a subset of the OSLC. It focuses on change management (changing Management). By oslc-cm You can query, link, get, create, and update change requests.

RTC REST API Overview

The RTC 1.0 is provided only to the user Java APIs to integrate and extend the RTC. The Java API consists of two parts: the Eclipse Plug-in API and the General Java API. The Eclipse plug-in API is designed to extend the RTC application to existing RTC Eclipse clients while the General Java API applies to ordinary Java applications. In the RTC 1.0.1, the REST API appears, but the experimental version. In RTC 2.0, the RTC officially began to support the rest API, and the rest API currently supports a limited number of functions, but for general integration needs, the functionality is primarily focused on managing the work item (Work item). In subsequent releases, more and more features will be added to the REST API. There are already a lot of software using the RTC REST API, such as Mylyn, rational Quality Manager, rational Requirements Composer, and Git integration.

The benefits of REST are defined on Wikipedia:

Cached cache can be used to improve response speed

The stateless nature of the communication itself allows different servers to handle different requests in a series of requests, increasing the scalability of the server

Browsers can be used as clients to simplify software requirements

Rest software dependencies are smaller relative to other mechanisms superimposed on HTTP protocols

No additional resource discovery mechanisms are required

Long-term compatibility in software technology evolution is better