soap request using vb .net

[vlsw]

I am new to soap and web services. I want to send an xml soap request to an existing web service created by outside party. how do i go about doing this and viewing the response. any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Frinavale]

Nice question.

I would have though it would be easy to look up an article on how to consume and use web services but apparently this has changed drastically and can't find a good enough article for you at this time.

What have you done so far?

[vlsw]

I have been looking all day for something that will do exactly what I need it to do. My search has been unsuccessful either b/c there is no info out there or I am extremely frustrated. Either way.

I have the soap xml created already. I am just having a problem sending it. I have just a simple form with two buttons and a list box. Each button calls a different method on a service (I didn't create service by the way I just want to access two methods) and I want the response to show up in a list box.

i guess my issue is after i create the message how do i send it.

[Frinavale]

Have you declared a variable that can be used as "proxy" to the web service?

[vlsw]

sample code

Dim strEnvelope As String
    Dim request As New MSXML.XMLHTTPRequest
    Dim strReturn As String
    Dim objReturn As New MSXML.DOMDocument
    Dim strQuery As String
  


    Private Sub btnAcct_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles btnResidentAcct.Click

        strEnvelope = "POST /Account/Account.asmx HTTP/1.1 " & _
        "Host: 1.1.1.1" & _
        "Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8" & _
        "Content(655) : length()" & _
        "SOAPAction: ""http://www.account.net/Account/Account""" & _
              "<soap:Envelope xmlns:xsi=""http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"" xmlns:xsd=""http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"" xmlns:soap=""http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"">" & _
          " <soap:Body>" & _
            "<Account xmlns=""http:// [url]www.account.net/Account[/url] "">" & _
      
              "</Account>" & _
           "</soap:Body>" & _
         "</soap:Envelope>"


        'Set up to post to our localhost server
        request.open("post", "http:// [url]www.account.net/Account[/url] ")
        request.setRequestHeader("Content-Type", "text/xml")
        request.setRequestHeader("Account", "http://www.account.net/Account/Account")
        request.send(strEnvelope)
strReturn = request.responsetext
  objReturn.loadXML(strReturn)

        strQuery = "SOAP:Envelope/SOAP:Body/m:AccountResponse/Account"

[Frinavale]

Ok I'm going to recommend you change your implementation to use a proxy class instead of trying to create the soap message by hand.

I've found an article that explains how to do this...sort of. It explains how to consume a web service in an asp.net application, but the same concepts should apply to a windows desktop application as well.

Check out this quick article and let me know if you're having any problems with it.

-Frinny

[vlsw]

Thank you. I will check it out.

[vlsw]

Thanks that helped a lot. Although I do have a question. Here is my code so far

  Private Sub btnAccount_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles btnAccount.Click
        Dim node As Xml.XmlNode
        Dim strConnect As String
        Dim wsAccount As New Account()  //proxy
        strConnect = wsAccount.TestWebServiceConnection()
        txtboxConnectStatus.Text = strConnect
        node = wsAccount.Account("0e7e6123-af7b-4e5e-a845-c6b0caf52
                     "", "", "1", "XML", "DOW", "JOHN", "9999")
        txtboxResults.Text = node.ToString()
    End Sub

Now per the web service I am expecting a response like

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8
Content-Length: length

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<soap:Envelope xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
  <soap:Body>
    <Response xmlns="http://www.account.net/Account">
      <Result>xml</Result>
    </Response>
  </soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>

But in my text box it returns System.Xml.XmlE lement.

Any suggestions

[Frinavale]

Try using:

        txtboxResults.Text = node.InnerText()

Let me know how it goes :)

-Frinny

[vlsw]

Works thanks. I must repay you for your time. So here are 1 million smooches!

[vlsw]

One last thing. Still having issues displaying the response.

[Frinavale]

What's wrong with it?

[vlsw]

HTTP/1.1 200 OK 
Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8 
Content-Length: length 
  
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> 
<soap:Envelope xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"> 
  <soap:Body> 
    <Response xmlns="http://www.account.net/Account"> 
      <Result>xml</Result> 
    </Response> 
  </soap:Body> 
</soap:Envelope>

I am expecting the above response but I am not receiving it. I have called the webservice method via the proxy

xmlnode node = ws.Account()
txtbox.text = node.innertext()

i am only seeing what i sent accross but I am not getting a replay status or anything. the response is part of the wsdl but i am not able to access it.

however i did have to email about fields that were not required but the xml is returning a statement that the field information is missing.

but I still should receive something stating that the transmission was a success or failure and I see nothing.

[Frinavale]

I haven't had to deal with SOAP directly since the first couple lectures I had on web services in college....afte r we understood what SOAP was (what made it valid, what it was used for, how to create it) and what WSDLs were all about we stopped looking at it.

Instead of working with SOAP and WSDLs manually, we depended on the tools that Java provided for creating and consuming web services. We let these tools deal with SOAP and WSDLs (understand that I was studying Java). In your case you should let .NET deal with the SOAP and WSDLs. You shouldn't be concerned with it (unless it has to do with security SOAP communications) .

When you add a web reference to a web service in your application Visual Studio retrieves the WSDL. From this Visual Studio will dynamically create a class that can be used as a proxy to execute the methods provided by the web service.

This proxy class takes all of the SOAP and WSDL torture out of the experience of consuming web services. You use this class as you would any other .NET class and you should be able to execute the web methods without any problems. If there is a problem it's likely that an exception will be raised (which you can trap and deal with).

I don't know what you're trying to do with your Test Connection stuff.

Just to come up to speed with you I created a Web Service of my own and consume it in a button click.

The web service provides 2 methods: HelloWorld() and Greeting(string ).
This is the web service code:

Imports System.Web.Services
Imports System.Web.Services.Protocols
Imports System.ComponentModel

' To allow this Web Service to be called from script, using ASP.NET AJAX, uncomment the following line.
' <System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptService()> _
<System.Web.Services.WebService(Namespace:="http://tempuri.org/")> _
<System.Web.Services.WebServiceBinding(ConformsTo:=WsiProfiles.BasicProfile1_1)> _
<ToolboxItem(False)> _
Public Class Service1
    Inherits System.Web.Services.WebService

    <WebMethod()> _
    Public Function HelloWorld() As String
       Return "Hello World"
    End Function

    <WebMethod()> _
    Public Function Greeting(ByVal name As String) As String
        Return "Hello " + name + "!"
    End Function

End Class

As you can see the Greeting function takes 1 parameter: a string containing a name. It returns a String with the greeting.

I added a reference to my project and in a button click event I consume the web service:

 Private Sub showGreeting_Click(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles showGreeting.Click
        Dim proxy As New localhost.Service1

        'personsName is a TextBox
        greeting.Text = proxy.Greeting(personsName.Text)
    End Sub

Please note that "localhost" is the namespace where my web service class (Service1) is located.

I tried to figure out how to access the SOAP directly but could not find a way to do it....and I don't why you would want to.

-Frinny

[vlsw]

I understand and I don't want to access it directly. I thought that when the service was called the invoke method should return a response as well and part of that response is a status. I'm not getting that and it could be b/c there is a discrepency on which fields are required and which are not. Thanks again. I am able to get the web service connection so I wait until I hear back from them and go from there.


Thanks again.