What is the advantage of FunctionImport of GW

Hi All,

I am looking to find out the advantage of NW GW function Import , in my case I don't see a great advantage of it we can get the same by the filtering the URL ..? for e.g.

Using Filter to the URL I can give my conation check and the same function import is doing.... please let me know is there any particular use of it

http://services.odata.org/OData/OData.svc/Products/?$filter = Rating gt 2

http://services.odata.org/OData/OData.svc/GetProductsByRating?rating=3

if we can implement the read operation with all the table fields I think the the filter do the same as Function Import, correct me.

And Function import will work only for '=' , can't do like

http://services.odata.org/OData/OData.svc/GetProductsByRating?rating>3

http://services.odata.org/OData/OData.svc/GetProductsByRating?rating>3..etc ?

Thanks

Rajesh