Using Socket Program to Request Parameter Name

SOAP Web Service Tutorials - Herong's Tutorial Examples

∟Perl SOAP::Lite for GetSpeech SOAP 1.1 Web Service

∟Using Socket Program to Request Parameter Name

This section provides a tutorial example on how to use my socket test program, SocketRequestResponseBinary.pl, to play with the SOAP 1.1 request generated in the trace output of my SOAP::Lite test program.

In the previous tutorial, I noticed that the SOAP request message has the parameter element name set to "c-gensym3". But the GetSpeech Web service expects an element name of "Request".

Before looking at how to change the parameter element name with SOAP::Lite, I want to my socket test program .pl to perform some quick tests with the request generated by SOAP::Lite in the previous tutorial.

Based on the trace output GetSpeech_SOAPAction.pl, I prepared this socket request file, GetSpeech_SOAPAction.req:

POST /WSShakespeare.asmx HTTP/1.1
Host: www.xmlme.com
Accept: text/xml
Accept: multipart/*
Content-Length: 589
Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8
SOAPAction: http://xmlme.com/WebServices/GetSpeech

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<SOAP-ENV:Envelope
  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/1999/XMLSchema-instance"
  xmlns:SOAP-ENC="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/"
  xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"
  xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/1999/XMLSchema"
  SOAP-ENV:encodingStyle="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/">
  <SOAP-ENV:Body>
    <namesp1:GetSpeech xmlns:namesp1="http://xmlme.com/WebServices">
      <c-gensym3 xsi:type="xsd:string">To be, or not to be</c-gensym3>
    </namesp1:GetSpeech>
  </SOAP-ENV:Body>
</SOAP-ENV:Envelope>

Here is what I did to convert the trace output of GetSpeech_SOAPAction.pl to this request file:

Modified the POST command line.
Inserted the "Host" header line.
Reformatted the request XML message, without changing any structure.
Updated the value of Content-Length to match the number of bytes of the reformatted XML message.

I am ready to send this request file to the server with SocketRequestResponseBinary.pl:

herong> SocketRequestResponseBinary.pl www.xmlme.com 80 \
   GetSpeech_SOAPAction.req GetSpeech_SOAPAction.res

herong> more GetSpeech_SOAPAction.res
HTTP/1.1 500 Internal Server Error
Connection: close
Date: ... 2009
Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
X-AspNet-Version: 2.0.50727
Cache-Control: private
Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8
Content-Length: 623

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"
  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
  <soap:Body>
    <soap:Fault>
      <faultcode>soap:Server</faultcode>
      <faultstring>
        System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapException: 
        Server was unable to process request. ---> 
        System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set 
          to an instance of an object.
        at WSShakespeare.Shakespeare.GetSpeech(String Request)
        --- End of inner exception stack trace ---
      </faultstring>
      <detail />
    </soap:Fault>
  </soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>

Ok. I got the same exception as my GetSpeech_SOAPAction.pl program. Now let me modify the request XML message based on my analysis in the previous tutorial, GetSpeech_Parameter_Name.req:

POST /WSShakespeare.asmx HTTP/1.1
Host: www.xmlme.com
Accept: text/xml
Accept: multipart/*
Content-Length: 619
Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8
SOAPAction: http://xmlme.com/WebServices/GetSpeech

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<SOAP-ENV:Envelope
  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/1999/XMLSchema-instance"
  xmlns:SOAP-ENC="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/"
  xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"
  xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/1999/XMLSchema"
  SOAP-ENV:encodingStyle="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/">
  <SOAP-ENV:Body>
    <namesp1:GetSpeech xmlns:namesp1="http://xmlme.com/WebServices">
      <namesp1:Request xsi:type="xsd:string">
        To be, or not to be
      </namesp1:Request>
    </namesp1:GetSpeech>
  </SOAP-ENV:Body>
</SOAP-ENV:Envelope>

Here is what I did to try to fix the parameter name issue in the request XML message:

Replaced c-gensym3 with namesp1:Request. "Request" is the required parameter name according to the GetSpeech request sample. "namesp1:" is the namespace of the parent element "GetSpeech". This is to make sure that the name "Request" is under an existing namespace.
Updated the value of Content-Length to match the number of bytes of the reformatted XML message.

I am ready to test this new socket request:

herong> SocketRequestResponseBinary.pl www.xmlme.com 80 \
   GetSpeech_Parameter_Name.req GetSpeech_Parameter_Name.res

herong> more GetSpeech_Parameter_Name.res
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Connection: close
Date: ... 2009
Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
X-AspNet-Version: 2.0.50727
Cache-Control: private, max-age=0
Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8
Content-Length: 1942

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"
  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
  <soap:Body>
    <GetSpeechResponse xmlns="http://xmlme.com/WebServices">
      <GetSpeechResult><SPEECH><PLAY>HAMLET</PLAY>
        <SPEAKER>HAMLET</SPEAKER>To be, or not to be: 
        that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind 
        ...</SPEECH>
      </GetSpeechResult>
    </GetSpeechResponse>
  </soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>

The modified request worked! I will to back to my GetSpeech_SOAPAction.pl program and try to find the SOAP::Lite function to generate the correct parameter name in the next tutorial.