raw xml as the payload

[graham king]

Is it possible to send raw xml as the parameter for a web service call?

I have a web-service that I'm trying to consume which gives me errors each time I attempt to call it. The service is implemented using Microsoft Soap Toolkit 3.0 and the call has been proven to work using the following VB script:

Option Explicit
 
'DateProgrammerComment
 
'Service parameters
Dim sServiceWSDL
Dim sServiceName
Dim sServicePort
 
'Function parameters
Dim sFunction'Function number from menu
Dim sFunctionMenu
Dim sRequest'Variable to hold xml data input string
Dim sClientId 
Dim sClientPWD
Dim nSave
Dim sSaveDir
Dim sClientCandidateId
Dim sClientAdmin
Dim sProctorStationId
Dim sStartDate
Dim sEndDate
Dim sClientTitle
Dim sClientTitleMenu
Dim sClientTitleList()
Dim sClientFormMenu
Dim sClientFormList()
Dim sTmpList()
Dim sClientTitleXML
Dim sEnrollId
Dim sFirstName
Dim sLastName
Dim sMiddleName
Dim sEligibleDate
Dim sExpireDate
Dim sEmail
Dim sSSN
Dim sADAESLOther
Dim sADAMultiplier
Dim sADATerminal
Dim sVariableList
Dim sTestDate
Dim sTestStartTime
Dim sClientScheduleTitleXML
Dim sClientForm
Dim sRegMode
Dim i
Dim regLoop
Dim sAdminFlag
Dim sRegStart
Dim sRegEnd
Dim sApptEndDate
Dim sDayEndDate
 
Dim sAddress1
Dim sAddress2
Dim sCity
Dim sState
Dim sZip
Dim sPhone
Dim sCountry
Dim sForeignPost
 
ReDim sClientTitleList(0)
ReDim sClientFormList(0)
 
'Declare SOAP and XML objects
Dim sc'SOAP Client
Dim xmlOut'XML Input
Dim xmlIn'XML Output
Dim env'Environment to run in 
 
'Date Values
Dim y
Dim m
Dim d
Dim currentDate
Dim weekFCurrent
Dim y1Week
Dim m1Week
Dim d1Week
Dim yearFCurrent
Dim y1Year
Dim m1Year
Dim d1Year
Dim monthFCurrent
Dim y1Month
Dim m1Month
Dim d1Month
 
 
 
 
sServiceWSDL = "http://cwcdev.corporate.act.org/schedule/ALMVTC.WSDL"
sClientPWD = "vtc_password"

 
wscript.echo "Service WSDL = " & sServiceWSDL
 
sServiceName = "ALMVTC"
sServicePort = "ScheduleSoapPort"
sClientId = "500"
sFunctionMenu = "Enter function:" & vbcrlf & "0=Quit" & vbcrlf & "2=GetVersion" & vbcrlf & "3=GetCandidateScheduleData" 
 
 
 
 
 
'Client Specific paramaters
 
'Instantiate the SOAP and XML objects
Set sc = CreateObject("MSSOAP.SoapClient30") 
Set xmlOut  = CreateObject("MSXML2.DOMDocument.4.0")
Set xmlIn = CreateObject("MSXML2.DOMDocument.4.0")
 
'Set object parameters
xmlIn.async = false
 
On Error Resume Next
 
Call sc.mssoapinit(sServiceWSDL,  sServiceName, sServicePort)
sc.ConnectorProperty("Timeout") = 500000
 
'Try to intialize service
if err <> 0 then
  wscript.echo "initialization failed " + err.description
Else

'Retrieve the function from user
sFunction = InputBox(sFunctionMenu,"Function",14)

'Loop for contiuous calls to service until user wants to exit
While sFunction <> "0"
Call doFunction(sFunction)
sFunction = InputBox(sFunctionMenu,"Function",14)
if err <> 0 then
wscript.echo   err.description
wscript.echo   "faultcode=" + sc.faultcode
wscript.echo   "faultstring=" + sc.faultstring
wscript.echo   "faultactor=" + sc.faultactor
wscript.echo   "detail=" + sc.detail
end if
Wend
End If
wscript.echo "See you later..."
 
Sub doFunction(sFunction)
Select Case sFunction
Case "0" 
wscript.echo "See you later..."
Exit Sub
Case "2"

    'xmlOut.loadXML sc.getAvailableDays(xmlIn.xml)
    xmlOut.loadXML sc.getVersion()
    wscript.echo xmlOut.xml
    
    nSave =  MsgBox("Would you like to save?",4)
    
    If nSave = 6 Then
    xmlOut.save  sSaveDir & "GetVersion.xml"
    wscript.echo "Saved to: " & sSaveDir & "GetVersin.xml"
    End If
    
Case "3"
   sEnrollId = "11110"
    sSSN = "-00004069"
    sClientPWD ="123"
    sClientId = "042"
    sRequest = "<GetCandidateScheduleData>"
    sRequest = sRequest &  "<Client Id='" & sClientId & "' Password='" & sClientPWD & "'/>"
    sRequest = sRequest & "<EnrollId>" & sEnrollId & "</EnrollId>"
    sRequest = sRequest & "<SSN>" & sSSN & "</SSN>"
    sRequest = sRequest & "</GetCandidateScheduleData>"
    
xmlIn.loadXML sRequest
wscript.echo xmlIn.xml

'Call Function
    xmlOut.loadXML sc.getCandidateScheduleData(xmlIn.xml)
    wscript.echo xmlOut.xml
    
    nSave =  MsgBox("Would you like to save?",4)
    
    If nSave = 6 Then
    xmlOut.save  sSaveDir & "GetCandidateScheduleData.xml"
    wscript.echo "Saved to: " & sSaveDir & "GetCandidateScheduleData.xml"
    End If
End Select
End Sub

However, when I try and access this service using axis-1.4 and sending the request as raw xml I get a 500 Internal Server Error.

The request looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<soapenv:Body>
<getCandidateScheduleData xmlns="http://actcenters.com/ALMVTC/message/">
<sRequest xmlns="">
 
& lt ;GetCandidateScheduleData & gt ;
& lt ;Client Id='042' Password='123'/ & gt ;
& lt ;EnrollId>11110</EnrollId & gt ;
& lt ;SSN>-00004069</SSN & gt ;
& lt ;/GetCandidateScheduleData & gt ;
 
</sRequest>
</getCandidateScheduleData>
</soapenv:Body></soapenv:Envelope>

It sends the html values for the < and >.

Which obviously doesn't work... Is it possible to send a request like this?

Or should the web service be parameterized?

Thanks,
Graham
[ November 01, 2007: Message edited by: graham king ]

[Peer Reynders]

Use Apache TCPMon to intercept the request issued and response received by the VB script. That will give you a better base for comparison.

Is there a particular reason why you aren't using WSDL2Java on ALMVTC.WSDL so that Axis can generate the Java stubs?

If it still doesn't come out right there may be ways to tweak the WSDL for Axis.

Other than that Axis seems to deal with raw XML only in the Message services style.

[Peer Reynders]

I could not even get your VBscript to work. It failed with the following message:

initialization failed WSDLOperation:
The operation getCandidateScheduleData is defined with encoded-style but has no encoding attribute
HRESULT=0x80004005: Unspecified error - WSDLOperation:Initializing of the input message failed for operation getCandidateScheduleData
HRESULT=0x80004005: Unspecified error - WSDLPort:An operation for port ScheduleSoapPort could not be initialized
HRESULT=0x80004005: Unspecified error - WSDLPort:Analyzing the binding information for port ScheduleSoapPort failed
HRESULT=0x80004005: Unspecified error - WSDLService:Initialization of the port for service ALMVTC failed
HRESULT=0x80004005: Unspecified error - WSDLReader:Analyzing the WSDL file failed
HRESULT=0x80004005: Unspecified error - Client ne of the parameters supplied is invalid.
HRESULT=0x80070057: The parameter is incorrect.

After I added a

encodingStyle="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/"

in the right place it started to work.

This is the request that the VBscript/MS Soap Toolkit 3.0 sent:

POST /axis/services/scheduling HTTP/1.1
SOAPAction: "http://actcenters.com/ALMVTC/action/Schedule.getCandidateScheduleData"
Content-Type: text/xml; charset="UTF-8"
User-Agent: SOAP Toolkit 3.0
Host: localhost:80
Content-Length: 761
Connection: Keep-Alive
Cache-Control: no-cache
Pragma: no-cache
 
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<SOAP-ENV:Envelope
    xmlns:SOAPSDK1="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
    xmlns:SOAPSDK2="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xmlns:SOAPSDK3="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/"
    xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
    <SOAP-ENV:Body SOAP-ENV:encodingStyle="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/">
        <SOAPSDK4:getCandidateScheduleData
            xmlns:SOAPSDK4="http://actcenters.com/ALMVTC/message/">
            <sRequest>
                &lt;GetCandidateScheduleData&gt;
                    &lt;ClientId=&quot;042&quot;Password=&quot;123&quot;/&gt;
                    &lt;EnrollId&gt;11110&lt;/EnrollId&gt;
                    &lt;SSN&gt;-00004069&lt;/SSN&gt;
                &lt;/GetCandidateScheduleData&gt;
            </sRequest>
        </SOAPSDK4:getCandidateScheduleData>
    </SOAP-ENV:Body>
</SOAP-ENV:Envelope>

As you can see even this request doesn't have the string as literal XML either - so that can't be the problem. The most glaring difference between this request and the one that your axis code generated is the lack of the SOAP-ENV:encodingStyle="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/" attribute in the Axis request.

If you have a close look at the WSDL that you supplied you should notice something peculiar. The WSDL specifies a "rpc/encoded" style binding for the getCandidateScheduleData operation input binding but then it specifies a "rpc/literal" style binding for the getCandidateScheduleData operation output binding!!!

Every SOAP web service I have ever run across used the same style on both the input and output! This must have confused Axis and it fell back onto "rpc/literal" when the actual web service was expecting "rpc/encoded". Once you tweak the WSDL to list both input and output as "encoded" Axis creates the correct request. Here is the relevant WSDL segment:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8' ?>
<!-- Generated 04/03/06 by Microsoft SOAP Toolkit WSDL File Generator, Version 3.00.1325.0 --> 
<definitions
    name='ALMVTC'
    targetNamespace='http://actcenters.com/ALMVTC/wsdl/'
    xmlns:wsdlns='http://actcenters.com/ALMVTC/wsdl/'
    xmlns:typens='http://actcenters.com/ALMVTC/type/'
    xmlns:soap='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/soap/'
    xmlns:xsd='http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema'
    xmlns:stk='http://schemas.microsoft.com/soap-toolkit/wsdl-extension'
    xmlns:dime='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2002/04/dime/wsdl/'
    xmlns:ref='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2002/04/reference/'
    xmlns:content='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2002/04/content-type/'
    xmlns:wsdl='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/'
    xmlns='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/'>
 
    <types>
        <schema
            targetNamespace='http://actcenters.com/ALMVTC/type/'
            xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema'
            xmlns:SOAP-ENC='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/'
            xmlns:wsdl='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/'
            elementFormDefault='qualified'>
 
            <import namespace='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/'/>
            <import namespace='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/'/>
            <import namespace='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2002/04/reference/'/>
            <import namespace='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2002/04/content-type/'/>
 
        </schema>
    </types>
 
    <message name='Schedule.getCandidateScheduleData'>
        <part name='sRequest' type='xsd:string'/>       
    </message>
 
    <message name='Schedule.getCandidateScheduleDataResponse'>
        <part name='Result' type='xsd:string'/>
    </message>
  
    <portType name='ScheduleSoapPort'>
        <operation name='getCandidateScheduleData' parameterOrder='sRequest'>
            <input message='wsdlns:Schedule.getCandidateScheduleData'/>
            <output message='wsdlns:Schedule.getCandidateScheduleDataResponse'/>
        </operation>
    </portType>
 
    <binding name='ScheduleSoapBinding' type='wsdlns:ScheduleSoapPort' >
        <stk:binding preferredEncoding='UTF-8'/>
        <soap:binding style="rpc" transport='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/http'/>
 
        <!-- This operation is highly unusual as its input parameters are "rpc/encoded" -->
        <!-- while the output message is "rpc/literal". This gives Axis grief -->
        <!-- Usually the style on the input and output message match -->
        <!-- "rpc/encoded" has been a major source of interoperability problems -->
 
        <operation name='getCandidateScheduleData'>
            <soap:operation soapAction='http://actcenters.com/ALMVTC/action/Schedule.getCandidateScheduleData'/>
            <input>
 
                <!-- had to add encodingStyle="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/" -->
                <!-- to get VBS MS SOAP 3.0 script to work -->
 
                <soap:body encodingStyle="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/"
                    namespace='http://actcenters.com/ALMVTC/message/' use='encoded' parts='sRequest' />
            </input>
            <output>
 
                <!-- changed from "literal" to "encoded" for Axis WSDL2Java -->
 
                <soap:body encodingStyle="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/"
                    namespace='http://actcenters.com/ALMVTC/message/' use='encoded' parts='Result' />
            </output>
        </operation>
    </binding>
 
    <service name='ALMVTC' >
        <port name='scheduling' binding='wsdlns:ScheduleSoapBinding' >
            <soap:address location='http://localhost/axis/services/scheduling'/>
        </port>
    </service> 
</definitions>

Axis Client Code:

package almvtc;
 
public class AlmvtcTester {
  public static void main(String [] args) throws Exception {
    // Make a service
    almvtc.ws.ALMVTC service = new almvtc.ws.ALMVTCLocator();
 
    // Now use the service to get a stub which implements the SDI.
    almvtc.ws.ScheduleSoapPort sched = service.getscheduling();
 
    // Make the actual call
    String enrollId     = "11110";
    String ssn          = "-00004069";
    String clientPwd    = "123";
    String clientId     = "042";
 
    String requestText  = 
        "<GetCandidateScheduleData>"
        +     "<Client Id='" + clientId + "' Password='" + clientPwd + "'/>"
        +     "<EnrollId>" + enrollId + "</EnrollId>"
        +     "<SSN>" + ssn + "</SSN>"
        + "</GetCandidateScheduleData>";
 
    System.out.println("getCandidateScheduleData = " + sched.getCandidateScheduleData( requestText ));
  }
}

Resulting request from Axis client code:

POST /axis/services/scheduling HTTP/1.0
Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8
Accept: application/soap+xml, application/dime, multipart/related, text/*
User-Agent: Axis/1.3
Host: localhost:80
Cache-Control: no-cache
Pragma: no-cache
SOAPAction: "http://actcenters.com/ALMVTC/action/Schedule.getCandidateScheduleData"
Content-Length: 655
 
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"
    xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
    <soapenv:Body>
        <ns1:getCandidateScheduleData
            soapenv:encodingStyle="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/"
            xmlns:ns1="http://actcenters.com/ALMVTC/message/">
            <sRequest xsi:type="xsd:string">
                &lt;GetCandidateScheduleData&gt;
                    &lt;ClientId='042'Password='123'/&gt;
                    &lt;EnrollId&gt;11110&lt;/EnrollId&gt;
                    &lt;SSN&gt;00004069&lt;/SSN&gt;
                &lt;/GetCandidateScheduleData&gt;
            </sRequest>
        </ns1:getCandidateScheduleData>
    </soapenv:Body>
</soapenv:Envelope>

Note however the difference in the location of the encodingStyle attribute. The MS SOAP3 places it inside the SOAP body element. Axis on the other hand places it inside the getCandidateScheduleData element. According to the SOAP 1.1 Note this should not matter � but who knows.