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:// www.account.net/Account "">" & _
 
              "</Account>" & _
           "</soap:Body>" & _
         "</soap:Envelope>"
 
 
        'Set up to post to our localhost server
        request.open("post", "http:// www.account.net/Account ")
        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!