Composing a SOAP Request

To design, compose, and test Web service calls in Oxygen follow the procedure:
  1. Create a new document or open an existing document of type WSDL.
  2. Design the Web Service descriptor in the WSDL editor.

    The content completion is driven by a mix of the WSDL and SOAP schemas. You do not need to specify the schema location for the WSDL standard namespaces because Oxygen comes with these schemas and uses them by default to assist the user in editing Web Service descriptors.

    Content completion for WSDL documents
  3. While editing the Web-Services descriptors check their conformance to the WSDL and SOAP schemas.

    In the following example you can see how the errors are reported.

    Validating a WSDL file
  4. Check if the defined messages are accepted by the Web Services server.

    Oxygen is providing two ways of testing, one for the currently edited WSDL file and other for the remote WSDL files that are published on a web server. For the currently edited WSDL file the WSDL SOAP Analyser tool can be opened by:

    • pressing the toolbar button WSDL SOAP Analyser
    • going to the menu item Document > Tools > WSDL SOAP Analyser
    • going to submenu Open with > WSDL SOAP Analyser of the Project view contextual menu
    WSDL SOAP Analyser

    This dialog contains a SOAP analyser and sender for Web Services Description Language file types. The analyser fields are:

    • Services - The list of services defined by the WSDL file.
    • Ports - The ports for the selected service.
    • Operations - The list of available operations for the selected service.
    • Action URL - Shows the script that serves the operation.
    • SOAP Action - Identifies the action performed by the script.
    • Version - Choose between 1.1 and 1.2. The SOAP version is selected automatically depending on the selected port.
    • Request Editor - It allows you to compose the web service request. When an action is selected, Oxygen tries to generate as much content as possible for the SOAP request. The envelope of the SOAP request has the correct namespace for the selected SOAP version, that is http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/ for SOAP 1.1 or http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope for SOAP 1.2. Usually you just have to change few values in order for the request to be valid. The content completion is available for this editor and is driven by the schema that defines the type of the current message. While selecting different operations Oxygen will remember the modified request for each one. You can press the Regenerate button in order to overwrite your modifications for the current request with the initial generated content.
    • Attachments List - You can define a list of file's URLs to be attached to the request.
    • Response Area - Initially it displays an auto generated server sample response so you can have an idea about how the response will look like. After pressing the Send button it will present the message received from the server in response to the Web Service request. It may show also error messages. In case the response message contains attachments, Oxygen will prompt you to save them, then will try to open them with the associated system application.
    • Errors List - There may be situations in which the WSDL file is respecting the WSDL XML Schema, but it fails to be valid for example in the case of a message that is defined by means of an element that is not found in the types section of the WSDL. In such a case, the errors will be listed here. This list is presented only when there are errors.
    • Send Button - Executes the request. A status dialog is shown when Oxygen is connecting to the server.

    The testing of a WSDL file is straight-forward: just click on the WSDL analysis button, then select the service, the port and the operation. The editor will generate the skeleton for the SOAP request. You can edit the request, eventually attach files to it and send it to the server. Watch the server response in the response area. For testing remote WSDL files see this section.

  5. Save the request derived from the Web Service descriptor. Once defined, a request derived from a Web Service descriptor can be saved with the Save button to a Web Service SOAP Call (WSSC) file for later reuse. In this way you will save time in configuring the URLs and parameters.
  6. Open the result of a Web Service call in an editor panel. In this way you can save the SOAP request or process it further.