Re: Creating a WSDL for someone else's web service -- MIDRANGE-L

IMO, it'd probably prove easier to hand code the interface than try to
define a WSDL that you could use to generate the interface.

SOAP web services tend to be complex, thus the use of a tool to generate
the interface given the WDSL; which itself is auto generated by the
tooling used to build the web service.

If you're looking at a service URL via a browser, you'll probably find the
developer tools in Chrome (Ctrl-Shift-I) helpful. Firefox has built in
tools also. One more thing is an add-in that allows you to manually send
POST/GET requests and inspect the results. I've used
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-Us/firefox/addon/httprequester/

But you could also look at cURL.

Unfortunately, without good instructions from the web service provider,
there's no easy way to interface with it. And you'll have to understand
more about HTTP and how web services work to figure it out. Take a look at
the examples Scott provides. If you have additional questions, Scott's
mailing list would be the place to post them.
http://www.scottklement.com/mailman/listinfo/ftpapi

Charles

On Tue, Apr 8, 2014 at 12:48 PM, Koester, Michael <mkoester@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:

Thanks for that Charles. I agree with:

You don't appear to have either. :) Instead, you've got a "home grown"
web service that appears to exchange XML. Those are fun.

And I believe I will be sending xml as POSTs.
When I point the browser to the URL, I get:
<status>
<message>Invalid data.</message>
<code>040</code>
</status>

My previous experience with WSDL2RPG (ala Thomas Raddatz) was most
successful on another project so I was hoping to follow that path. All the
communications, XLS parsing, CCSID conversion, and other "plumbing" was
generated and ready to put data into and execute. But it required the WSDL
to generate the stub programs.

So you're suggesting that is not an option?
-- Michael
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:midrange-l-
bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Charles Wilt
Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2014 12:09 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: Creating a WSDL for someone else's web service

Every web service "works" the same since they all use HTTP. You've got
a URL that you use HTTP POST/GET/PUT/DELETE...methods against.

SOAP is simply standardized way to publish/consume a WS that relies on
exchanging XML messages.

REST is a term used to define certain non-SOAP defined web services
that relies mainly on arguments passed on the URL.

You don't appear to have either. :) Instead, you've got a "home grown"
web service that appears to exchange XML. Those are fun.

What you need to find out is what HTTP method needs to be used to send
the XML you've been given. Likely, it's a POST. So you'd build your
XML and use the appropriate HTTP_POST_xxxx() method of Scott's HTTP
API.

Did you get anything more from the vendor about using the service? For
example, one vendor I'm working with gave an example that used cURL (a
common HTTP API like command line utility)

Another other is to open the WS URL in a browser and see what's there.

Charles

On Tue, Apr 8, 2014 at 10:37 AM, Koester, Michael <mkoester@data-
east.com>wrote:

Thanks Charles.
I think I may have a problem though, in that I don't know the details
that I may (or may not?) need. For starters, I don't yet know if I

am

dealing with a SOAP or REST service. Or can I declare that in my

WSDL

and expect the service to play along with whichever I've chosen?
The reference you pointed me to says:
"A WSDL description contains all the details of a Web service,

including:

The service's URL. [Got that]
The communication mechanisms it understands. [No clue - is that
needed?]
What operations it can perform. [Got that]
The structure of its messages." [Apparently most are strings, so

i

can probably fake that]

...and it also says:
"There are four child elements of description that together
encapsulate all of the details about a Web service:
types
interface
binding
service"
Not sure what I need for those.

I'm not there yet. I do appreciate the help though.
-- Michael
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:midrange-l-
bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Charles Wilt
Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2014 9:47 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: Creating a WSDL for someone else's web service

Michael,

Personally, I'd just build the XML manually. It's pretty basic and
not SOAP based; SOAP services are where a WSDL really helps.

If you really want to look at creating a WSDL manually, this might
help:
https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/library/ws-restwsdl/

Charles

On Tue, Apr 8, 2014 at 9:33 AM, Koester, Michael <mkoester@data-
east.com>wrote:

New project: Communicate through a web service to some other
outfit to set up, modify, enable/disable, etc., email and other

services.

This will be integrated with our Service Order maintenance

application

running on our IBM Power, in ILE-RPG. I've consumed web services
before. I can handle this.

First obstacle: I am told that this is to be done through their
"web service" (quotes intentional), but when I requested access

to

the WSDL, I was referred to the care and feeding document. Said
document is a PDF containing descriptions of how to perform
various operations through various snippets of XML. Cool. I
asked again where to find the WSDL, and was told "haven't got

one." Oh.

Perhaps I can construct one, and paste in the XML pieces? This
web service (my contact refers to the "app") is not publicly
available, which may explain why they don't have a WSDL. Perhaps
this has never been requested by other clients they've invited to
share the app

with.

Question: How do I fudge up a WSDL that will include all the
necessary pieces to satisfy WSDL2RPG stub generators?

Second obstacle: I'm still waiting for SysOp to get the updates
installed to allow my access to "Web Administration for i". I

suspect

there is a wizard or two there that would help, but I can't get
there yet. We are on
7.1 (still waiting for TR7 too).

One of the operations from the care and feeding manual looks like

this:

[I do have the URL of where the XML gets sent to, as well as the
user and password referenced in the authenticate tag]

To suspend the user, issue the following command:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<authenticate>
<user>[*****]</user>
<pass>[********]</pass>
<domain>gsinet.net</domain>
</authenticate>
<archive_user>
<user>
<userid>bob</userid>
<archive_code>NOPAY</archive_code>
</user>
</archive_user>

So given that I may be rolling my own WSDL by hand, can someone
point me to some useful details? My goal is to have a suitable
WSDL to be accessed by WSDL2RPG.

Many thanks,
Michael Koester
Programmer/Analyst

DataEast

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