Call web service from Shell

Hello All,

I have to import data from xml file to mysql database multi-time a day. I think it is better to write a tool to help this. So I write a web service in php. I don't know that if we can call a web service via shell script. If it can, I think we can create a cron job to help run it automatically. Can we do that? And how can we do that?

Does anyone know the best solution in this case?

Thanks,
Eric.

The simplest way would be to use wget or curl if it's a simple http service but it seems like a very complicated way to achieve a simple task.

Am not sure - why do you specifically need to use a web service for this?

Once the data is generated, can't that be used for dumping to MySQL - are there any glitches or complexities involved in this?