Calling an Axis-1.4 Web Service from VB.Net

[Daythryl]

I've got some VB code that's supposed to retrieve a Map from a Web Service written in Java, running under Tomcat via Axis-1.4. I'll list the WSDL, the response message and the source code below.

My problem is that while the response contains actual data, the call to Invoke() returns Nothing. I'm hoping someone can tell me why.

Thanks in advance.

WSDL (i hope stripped down to about the bare minimum):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<wsdl:definitions targetNamespace="urn:my-vmapi" xmlns:apachesoap="http://xml.apache.org/xml-soap" xmlns:impl="urn:my-vmapi" xmlns:intf="urn:my-vmapi" xmlns:soapenc="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/" xmlns:wsdl="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/" xmlns:wsdlsoap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/soap/" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
    <!--WSDL created by Apache Axis version: 1.4
Built on Apr 22, 2006 (06:55:48 PDT)-->
    <wsdl:types>
        <schema targetNamespace="urn:my-vmapi" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
            <import namespace="http://xml.apache.org/xml-soap"/>
            <import namespace="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/"/>
            <complexType name="ArrayOf_soapenc_string">
                <complexContent>
                    <restriction base="soapenc:Array">
                        <attribute ref="soapenc:arrayType" wsdl:arrayType="xsd:string[]"/>
                    </restriction>
                </complexContent>
            </complexType>
        </schema>
        <schema targetNamespace="http://xml.apache.org/xml-soap" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
            <import namespace="urn:my-vmapi"/>
            <import namespace="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/"/>
            <complexType name="mapItem">
                <sequence>
                    <element name="key" nillable="true" type="xsd:anyType"/>
                    <element name="value" nillable="true" type="xsd:anyType"/>
                </sequence>
            </complexType>
            <complexType name="Map">
                <sequence>
                    <element maxOccurs="unbounded" minOccurs="0" name="item" type="apachesoap:mapItem"/>
                </sequence>
            </complexType>
        </schema>
    </wsdl:types>
    <wsdl:message name="getRequest">
        <wsdl:part name="username" type="soapenc:string"/>
        <wsdl:part name="admin" type="soapenc:string"/>
        <wsdl:part name="password" type="soapenc:string"/>
    </wsdl:message>
    <wsdl:message name="getResponse">
        <wsdl:part name="getReturn" type="apachesoap:Map"/>
    </wsdl:message>
    <wsdl:portType name="Provisioning">
        <wsdl:operation name="get" parameterOrder="username admin password">
            <wsdl:input message="impl:getRequest" name="getRequest"/>
            <wsdl:output message="impl:getResponse" name="getResponse"/>
        </wsdl:operation>
    </wsdl:portType>
    <wsdl:binding name="vmSoapBinding" type="impl:Provisioning">
        <wsdlsoap:binding style="rpc" transport="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/http"/>
        <wsdl:operation name="get">
            <wsdlsoap:operation soapAction=""/>
            <wsdl:input name="getRequest">
                <wsdlsoap:body encodingStyle="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/" namespace="urn:my-vmapi" use="encoded"/>
            </wsdl:input>
            <wsdl:output name="getResponse">
                <wsdlsoap:body encodingStyle="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/" namespace="urn:my-vmapi" use="encoded"/>
            </wsdl:output>
        </wsdl:operation>
    </wsdl:binding>
    <wsdl:service name="ProvisioningService">
        <wsdl:port binding="impl:vmSoapBinding" name="vm">
            <wsdlsoap:address location="http://myapi.com/axis/services/vm"/>
        </wsdl:port>
    </wsdl:service>
</wsdl:definitions>

The Response:

<?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:getResponse soapenv:encodingStyle="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/" xmlns:ns1="urn:my-vmapi">
      <getReturn href="#id0"/>
    </ns1:getResponse>
    <multiRef id="id0" soapenc:root="0" soapenv:encodingStyle="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/" xsi:type="ns2:Map" xmlns:soapenc="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/" xmlns:ns2="http://xml.apache.org/xml-soap">
      <item>
        <key xsi:type="soapenc:string">ext</key>
        <value xsi:type="soapenc:int">120</value>
      </item>
      <item>
        <key xsi:type="soapenc:string">box_size</key>
        <value xsi:type="soapenc:int">5</value>
      </item>
      <item>
        <key xsi:type="soapenc:string">mb_username</key>
        <value xsi:type="soapenc:string">john</value>
      </item>
      <item>
        <key xsi:type="soapenc:string">language</key>
        <value xsi:type="soapenc:string">en</value>
      </item>
      <item>
        <key xsi:type="soapenc:string">firstname</key>
        <value xsi:type="soapenc:string">John</value>
      </item>
      <item>
        <key xsi:type="soapenc:string">lastname</key>
        <value xsi:type="soapenc:string">Smith</value>
      </item>
      <item>
        <key xsi:type="soapenc:string">attach</key>
        <value xsi:type="soapenc:boolean">true</value>
      </item>
      <item>
        <key xsi:type="soapenc:string">PIN</key>
        <value xsi:type="soapenc:string">7777</value>
      </item>
      <item>
        <key xsi:type="soapenc:string">email</key>
        <value xsi:type="soapenc:string">[e-mail]</value>
      </item>
      <item>
        <key xsi:type="soapenc:string">password</key>
        <value xsi:type="soapenc:string">pwd</value>
      </item>
    </multiRef>
  </soapenv:Body>
</soapenv:Envelope>

The Code:

        <System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapRpcMethodAttribute("", RequestNamespace:="urn:my-vmapi", ResponseNamespace:="urn:my-vmapi")>  _
        Public Function [get](ByVal username As String, ByVal admin As String, ByVal password As String) As <System.Xml.Serialization.SoapElementAttribute("getReturn")> Map
            Dim results() As Object = Me.Invoke("get", New Object() {username, admin, password})
            Return CType(results(0),Map)
        End Function

[RedSon]

Not sure how to help you on this one. But you can use java programs in .NET if you compile them with the Microsoft compiler. Microsoft uses J# which is an almost verbatim port of Sun's Java. If it works for you in Java but not in VB maybe you can stick with that?

[Daythryl]

I appreciate the response, but working in J# isn't going to be the solution, for at least a couple of reasons:

1. The Web Service runs on Linux, under Tomcat; I don't suppose J# will do that.
2. The Service seems to be running fine - it puts out what seems to be a correct SOAP message as a response; it's just that the client code doesn't understand it.

[RedSon]

I appreciate the response, but working in J# isn't going to be the solution, for at least a couple of reasons:

1. The Web Service runs on Linux, under Tomcat; I don't suppose J# will do that.
2. The Service seems to be running fine - it puts out what seems to be a correct SOAP message as a response; it's just that the client code doesn't understand it.

Has this been working in the past?

[Daythryl]

Has this been working in the past?

I've got Java and PHP clients that have no trouble, but this is the first time I've tried it with a .NET client.

[Motoma]

Have you tried generating code using the wsdl command line utility? Here are two links that describe the process:
http://www.scottnichol.com/vbnetclientapachesoap.htm
http://users.skynet.be/pascalbotte/rcx-ws-doc/vbnet.htm