Connect to SOAP using JAX WS

Question

I want to build a soap client in java using JAXWS. I searched on google but didn't find any relevant information. Here is what I have tried:

     QName serviceName = new QName("urn:Site", "Site");
     QName portName = new QName("urn:Site", "Server_HandlerPort");
     String  endpointAddress = "http://myhost/url/soap";
     Service service = Service.create(serviceName);
     service.addPort(portName, SOAPBinding.SOAP11HTTP_BINDING, endpointAddress);
     Dispatch<SOAPMessage> dispatch = service.createDispatch(portName, SOAPMessage.class, Service.Mode.MESSAGE);
     BindingProvider bp = (BindingProvider) dispatch;
     MessageFactory factory = ((SOAPBinding) bp.getBinding()).getMessageFactory();
     SOAPMessage request = factory.createMessage();
     SOAPHeader header = request.getSOAPHeader();
     SOAPBody body = request.getSOAPBody();
     QName payloadName = new QName("session");
     SOAPBodyElement payload = body.addBodyElement(payloadName); 
     SOAPMessage reply = null;
     try {
        reply = dispatch.invoke(request);
    } catch (WebServiceException wse){
        wse.printStackTrace();
    }

    body = reply.getSOAPBody();
    QName responseName = new QName("urn:site","sessionResponse");
    SOAPBodyElement bodyElement = (SOAPBodyElement) body.getChildElements(responseName).next();
    System.out.println(bodyElement.getValue());

This do not work. This always returns null I'm not sure why? Can anyone help me on this? Any example? for doing such thing?

Answer 1

From what I noticed, the unmarshalling that occurs in dispatch.invoke of a response does not populate the body, envelope etc. from SOAPMessage, but instead it creates an internal Document that it is linked to the SOAPPart.

If you invoke reply.writeTo(System.out) after the invoke is called, it will print the full response message into console.

You can browse the Document (in this case actually the root Element) and get your sessionResponse. Here is an code snippet:

NodeList nodeList = reply.getSOAPPart().getDocumentElement().getElementsByTagNameNS("urn:site", "sessionResponse");
Node node = nodeList.item(0);

Now depending on the structure of the response, you may need to do some navigation in the tree. Let's suppose that your response looks like this:

<S:Envelope xmlns:S="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
  <S:Body>
    <ns2:sessionResponse xmlns:ns2="urn:site">
      <return>Hello World!</return>
    </ns2:sessionResponse >
  </S:Body>
</S:Envelope>

In order to get the returned value you will call:

System.out.println(node.getFirstChild().getFirstChild().getNodeValue());

• 1st getFirstChild returns return Node
• 2nd getFirstChild returns text Node

If you need the Document object instead of Element object from the SOAPPart you need to cast the SOAPPart to SOAPPartImpl:

Document document = ((SOAPPartImpl) response.getSOAPPart()).getDocument();

Answer 2

JAX-WS allows you to generate a client from the web service's WSDL using wsimport. This will make the client code much simpler. Here's a sample tutorial