XML in SOAP response

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XML in SOAP response

Hi,

I wrote my own SOAP web service and so far it is working like a charm. I am trying now to use it in my own iPhone app but I keep getting the SOAP response as HTML entities (< become <) and I can not parse the XML like that.

I think the reason for this is that I specified on the SOAP WSDL that the response will be an string:

<part name='Result' type='xsd:string'/>

I can still modify my SOAP if I have to. What type of response should I use to avoid the HTML entities on my response?

Thank you.

iMac 24'', Mac OS X (10.5.8), 3.06 Ghz 2GB Ram

Posted on Feb 20, 2010 7:27 PM

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Answer 1

sptrakesh

Level 4

1,785 points

Feb 20, 2010 8:05 PM in response to emilacosta

It looks like an issue with the SOAP server itself or the way you are making the SOAP request. I assume you are facing an issue where the entire SOAP response (including header, body etc) is being treated as an HTML response. What other platforms/technologies have you tested your SOAP service from?

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Answer 2

emilacosta Author

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Feb 20, 2010 8:45 PM in response to sptrakesh

Hi,

Thank you for your response.

The SOAP response headers are coming back in their proper XML format, but I am expecting an string that is an XML list (beside the SOAP headers) and that is what is being converted.

My suspicion is that I should declare a simple type just for XML and not treat it like an string. Your thoughts?


....
<SOAP-ENV:Body>
<ns1:getPartsResponse>
<Result xsi:type="xsd:string">
<catalog>
<result id="1">
<part>AAAAAAAAAAA</part>
<qty>0000000000</qty>
<mfg>XXXXXXXXXXXXX</mfg>
</result>
</catalog>
</Result>
</ns1:getPartsResponse>
</SOAP-ENV:Body>
</SOAP-ENV:Envelope>

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Answer 3

emilacosta Author

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Feb 20, 2010 8:48 PM in response to emilacosta

I try to posted but the entities were converted to HTML let me try again:

....
<SOAP-ENV:Body>
<ns1:getPartsResponse>
<Result xsi:type="xsd:string">
&lt ;catalog&gt ;
&lt ;result id="1"&gt ;
&lt ;part&gt ;AAAAAAAAAAA&lt ;/part&gt ;
&lt ;qty>0000000000&lt ;/qty&gt ;
&lt ;mfg&gt ;XXXXXXXXXXXXX&lt ;/mfg&gt ;
&lt ;/result&gt ;
&lt ;/catalog&gt ;
</Result>
</ns1:getPartsResponse>
</SOAP-ENV:Body>
</SOAP-ENV:Envelope>

Message was edited by: emilacosta

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Answer 4

sptrakesh

Level 4

1,785 points

Feb 21, 2010 3:25 AM in response to emilacosta

Yes, you will need to create a proper XML return type if the content is not be escaped. A string type will always be escaped, since the parser will have no means of distinguishing between valid XML tags and text content otherwise.

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Answer 5

etresoft

Level 9

57,194 points

Feb 21, 2010 6:46 AM in response to emilacosta

Just unescape that embedded XML string. That is standard procedure for XML inside a SOAP response.

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Answer 6

sptrakesh

Level 4

1,785 points

Feb 21, 2010 8:02 AM in response to etresoft

That will work for simple XML, but always has a risk associated with it that it unescapes unintended characters within the data.

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Answer 7

sptrakesh

Level 4

1,785 points

Feb 21, 2010 8:03 AM in response to emilacosta

You may also be able to get away with sending valid XML as CDATA. You can parse the CDATA content independently as an XML structure.

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Answer 8

etresoft

Level 9

57,194 points

Feb 21, 2010 8:40 AM in response to sptrakesh

Then the data is corrupted. Putting XML inside XML is just not pretty.

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Answer 9

sptrakesh

Level 4

1,785 points

Feb 21, 2010 8:48 AM in response to etresoft

True. The only clean solution is to have a schema in the WSDL and return a proper XML data structure and not a string.

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Answer 10

emilacosta Author

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Feb 21, 2010 2:26 PM in response to emilacosta

Thank you both for your answers.

I have an XSD schema for the XML that is included in the SOAP response.

How do I tell the WSDL to use it to validate the response so I can have valid XML in the response instead of the string with the HTML entities?

Once again thank you.

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Answer 11

sptrakesh

Level 4

1,785 points

Feb 21, 2010 3:37 PM in response to emilacosta

There are lots of samples available. The first place to start would be the official W3 samples http://www.w3.org/2001/03/14-annotated-WSDL-examples.html

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