SOAP/ZSI post/get for Java Web App

[Jennifer Duerr]

All,

I need help concerning SOAP, Python and XML. I am very new to this, so
dumbing it down for me will not offend me!

I'm using Python and want to send a user-inputted string to an
existing Java web app that
will output results to XML. I need to capture elements of the XML and
put
the info into a table. (say I send a single/simple address string to
this
webservice/geocode, which then returns numerous possible matches with
XY
values and score values, and I want to capture that into a table)

How do I go about doing this? I'm told I need to use SOAP. I
discovered that
the best module to use is ZSI (please correct me if I'm wrong). I have
installed the necessary module. Examples I have seen are plenty and
all so different, its not clear to me how to go about. I have been
spinning my wheels for too long on this!

Can someone provide some example code similar to what I need to do? Or
any
guidance would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[Waldemar Osuch]

Re: SOAP/ZSI post/get for Java Web App

On May 13, 1:02 pm, Jennifer Duerr <jenn.du...@gma il.comwrote:

All,
>
I need help concerning SOAP, Python and XML. I am very new to this, so
dumbing it down for me will not offend me!
>
I'm using Python and want to send a user-inputted string to an
existing Java web app that
will output results to XML. I need to capture elements of the XML and
put
the info into a table. (say I send a single/simple address string to
this
webservice/geocode, which then returns numerous possible matches with
XY
values and score values, and I want to capture that into a table)
>
How do I go about doing this? I'm told I need to use SOAP. I
discovered that
the best module to use is ZSI (please correct me if I'm wrong). I have
installed the necessary module. Examples I have seen are plenty and
all so different, its not clear to me how to go about. I have been
spinning my wheels for too long on this!
>
Can someone provide some example code similar to what I need to do? Or
any
guidance would be appreciated.
>
Thanks!

It looks like you have three tasks here:
- get data
- parse it
- store it

SOAP could be the means to accomplish only the first one.

If the service you use exposes the functionality using XML-RPC or some
REST-ful methods I would try them first. If it does not, then
you are stuck with SOAP. Using SOAP in Python is currently
not as straightforward as it could be.

You have chosen to use ZSI and that is fine choice.
In documentation look for "wsdl2py".
Given a URL to a WSDL file it will generate stub class definition
with methods corresponding to the SOAP service methods.
In your code you would instantiate the class, call the method you want
and grab the payload. Your first task is done.

From what I understand the payload will be XML that will need to be
parsed. For that you could use the excellent ElementTree

If I were you I would investigate suds (https://fedorahosted.org/suds)
It promises to be easier to use than ZSI. The README has the usage
example.


Waldemar