App Engine Datastore access

Question

Is it possible to query App Engine's Datastore from outside the cloud, i.e. a client application?

I could possibly write an app to be housed within AppStore and query the Datastore returning XML-formatted data; I want to know, however, if there are any Datastore endpoints which would allow me to do it directly.

Also, in case it is possible, am I able to do so via SSL?

Answer 1

Yes. The remote_api library supports exactly this use-case. If you're using Java, there's a Java remote_api handler available, and the client will be available at some point in the future.

You can use this over SSL in the same way as any other handler.

Answer 2

There's no reason you couldn't create your own app engine application that exposes the datastore as a web service (either http or https). In fact, here is a link to a python version.