How to Send SOAP call using MSXML (replace STK)
I know... This is a simple thing, but there is no documentation on it so here it is:
UPDATE: You can now use Windows Webservica API (WWSAPI) to create native code WebService calls!
The SoapToolkit (STK) is out of support. So what if you need to make a SOAP call in VB 6 or scripting? Realizing that SOAP calls to web service are just a POST with some XML, you should be able to do this easily. You can get the format for this POST from a network sniffer such as Network Monitor (available from Microsoft) or from the WSDL of service definition.
Here is a simple definition of a web service that returns the length of a string:
GetStringLength
Test
The test form is only available for requests from the local machine.
SOAP 1.1
The following is a sample SOAP 1.1 request and response. The placeholders shown need to be replaced with actual values.
POST /HelloWS/service.asmx HTTP/1.1
Host: jsandersvm2003
Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8
Content-Length: length
SOAPAction: "https://tempuri.org/GetStringLength"
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<soap:Envelope xmlns:xsi="https://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="https://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:soap="https://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
<soap:Body>
<GetStringLength xmlns="https://tempuri.org/">
<theString>string</theString>
</GetStringLength>
</soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>
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="https://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="https://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:soap="https://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
<soap:Body>
<GetStringLengthResponse xmlns="https://tempuri.org/">
<GetStringLengthResult>int</GetStringLengthResult>
</GetStringLengthResponse>
</soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>
Here is one way to make this call in a simple VB form application. Reference MSXML3.0 in your project (beware of lines wrapping in your browser if you are a cut and past programmer).
Sub
Command2_Click()
'How to send this using MSXML
'POST /HelloWS/service.asmx HTTP/1.1
'Host: jsandersvm2003
'Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8
'Content -length: <<length>>
'SOAPAction: "https://tempuri.org/GetStringLength"
'<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
'<soap:Envelope xmlns:xsi="https://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="https://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:soap="https://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
' <soap:Body>
' <GetStringLength xmlns="https://tempuri.org/">
' <theString><<string>></theString>
' </GetStringLength>
' </soap:Body>
'</soap:Envelope>
Dim myXML As New
XMLHTTP30
' False means Synchronously
myXML.open("POST", "https://jsandersvm2003/HelloWS/service.asmx", False)
myXML.setRequestHeader("Content-Type", "text/xml; charset=utf-8")
myXML.setRequestHeader("SOAPAction:", https://tempuri.org/GetStringLength)
' NOTE: You could do this... very brute force way to send it.
'Dim theTxt As String
'theTxt = "<?xml version=" & Chr(34) & "1.0" & Chr(34) & " encoding=" & Chr(34) & "utf-8" & Chr(34) & "?><soap:Envelope xmlns:xsi=" & Chr(34) & "https://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" & Chr(34) & " xmlns:xsd=" & Chr(34) & "https://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" & Chr(34) & " xmlns:soap=" & Chr(34) & "https://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" & Chr(34) & "><soap:Body><GetStringLength xmlns=" & Chr(34) & "https://tempuri.org/" & Chr(34) & "><theString xmlns=" & Chr(34) & "https://tempuri.org/" & Chr(34) & ">string</theString></GetStringLength></soap:Body></soap:Envelope>"
'myXML.send theTxt
' NOTE: This allows you to leverage the XML DOM
Dim node
Dim xmlSrcDoc As New MSXML2.DOMDocument30
xmlSrcDoc.async = False
xmlSrcDoc.validateOnParse = False
xmlSrcDoc.resolveExternals = False
xmlSrcDoc.preserveWhiteSpace = True
' caveat for the createProcessingInstruction. the encoding string will be missing from the XML instruction line.
' so you could skip the createProcessingInstruction code, instead prepend the string to the XML you generate for the rest of the body ala
'
"myXML.send "<?xml version=" & Chr(34) & "1.0" & Chr(34) & " encoding=" & Chr(34) & "utf-8" & Chr(34) & " ?> " & xmlSrcDoc.xml
' most servers will not care about that because the HTTP header already specifies the encoding
' Create a processing instruction targeted for xml.
node = xmlSrcDoc.createProcessingInstruction("xml", "version='1.0'")
' issue: cannot do this: node.setAttribute "encoding", "utf-8"
xmlSrcDoc.appendChild(node)
node = Nothing
' Create the Soap Envelope
Dim soapEnvelope As IXMLDOMElement
soapEnvelope = xmlSrcDoc.createElement("soap:Envelope")
' Create the attributes for it
soapEnvelope.setAttribute("xmlns:soap", "https://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/")
soapEnvelope.setAttribute("xmlns:xsi", "https://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance")
soapEnvelope.setAttribute("xmlns:xsd", "https://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema")
xmlSrcDoc.appendChild(soapEnvelope)
' Create the Soap Body
Dim soapBody As IXMLDOMElement
soapBody = xmlSrcDoc.createElement("soap:Body")
soapEnvelope.appendChild(soapBody)
' Create the node for the call we are making
Dim soapCall As IXMLDOMElement
soapCall = xmlSrcDoc.createElement("GetStringLength")
soapCall.setAttribute("xmlns", "https://tempuri.org/")
soapBody.appendChild(soapCall)
' finally add the argument(s)
Dim soapArgs As Object
soapArgs = xmlSrcDoc.createElement("theString")
soapArgs.Text = "Jeff is cool"
soapCall.appendChild(soapArgs)
' let it go!
myXML.send(xmlSrcDoc.xml)
' myXML.send "<?xml version=" & Chr(34) & "1.0" & Chr(34) & " encoding=" & Chr(34) & "utf-8" & Chr(34) & " ?> " & xmlSrcDoc.xml
Dim xmlDoc As MSXML2.DOMDocument30
xmlDoc = myXML.responseXML
' This query will depend on what you expect back from the SOAP call
MsgBox(xmlDoc.Text)
' or this if you want to traverse the XML DOM
'Dim oNode As Object
'Set oNode = xmlDoc.documentElement.selectSingleNode("//HelloWorldResult")
'If oNode Is Nothing Then
' MsgBox "Requested information not found."
'Else
' MsgBox oNode.Text
'End If
End
Sub