How to do a SOAP Web Service call from Java class?

Question

I'm relative new to the webservices world and my research seems to have confused me more than enlighten me, my problem is that I was given a library(jar) which I have to extend with some webservice functionality.

This library will be shared to other developers, and among the classes in the jar will be classes that have a method which calls a webservice (that essentially sets an attribute of the class, does some business logic, like storing the object in a db, etc and sends back the object with those modifications). I want to make the call to this service as simple as possible, hopefully as simple so that the developer using the class only need to do.

Car c = new Car("Blue");
c.webmethod();

I have been studying JAX-WS to use on the server but seems to me that I don't need to create a wsimport in the server nor the wsimport on the client, since I know that both have the classes, I just need some interaction between classes shared in both the server and the client. How do you think makes sense to do the webservice and the call in the class?

Solution 1

I understand your problem boils down to how to call a SOAP (JAX-WS) web service from Java and get its returning object. In that case, you have two possible approaches:

1. Generate the Java classes through wsimport and use them; or
2. Create a SOAP client that:
   1. Serializes the service's parameters to XML;
   2. Calls the web method through HTTP manipulation; and
   3. Parse the returning XML response back into an object.

About the first approach (using wsimport):

I see you already have the services' (entities or other) business classes, and it's a fact that the wsimport generates a whole new set of classes (that are somehow duplicates of the classes you already have).

I'm afraid, though, in this scenario, you can only either:

• Adapt (edit) the wsimport generated code to make it use your business classes (this is difficult and somehow not worth it - bear in mind everytime the WSDL changes, you'll have to regenerate and readapt the code); or
• Give up and use the wsimport generated classes. (In this solution, you business code could "use" the generated classes as a service from another architectural layer.)

About the second approach (create your custom SOAP client):

In order to implement the second approach, you'll have to:

1. Make the call:
   • Use the SAAJ (SOAP with Attachments API for Java) framework (see below, it's shipped with Java SE 1.6 or above) to make the calls; or
   • You can also do it through java.net.HttpUrlconnection (and some java.io handling).
2. Turn the objects into and back from XML:
   • Use an OXM (Object to XML Mapping) framework such as JAXB to serialize/deserialize the XML from/into objects
   • Or, if you must, manually create/parse the XML (this can be the best solution if the received object is only a little bit differente from the sent one).

Creating a SOAP client using classic java.net.HttpUrlConnection is not that hard (but not that simple either), and you can find in this link a very good starting code.

I recommend you use the SAAJ framework:

SOAP with Attachments API for Java (SAAJ) is mainly used for dealing directly with SOAP Request/Response messages which happens behind the scenes in any Web Service API. It allows the developers to directly send and receive soap messages instead of using JAX-WS.

See below a working example (run it!) of a SOAP web service call using SAAJ. It calls this web service.

import javax.xml.soap.*;

public class SOAPClientSAAJ {

    // SAAJ - SOAP Client Testing
    public static void main(String args[]) {
        /*
            The example below requests from the Web Service at:
             https://www.w3schools.com/xml/tempconvert.asmx?op=CelsiusToFahrenheit


            To call other WS, change the parameters below, which are:
             - the SOAP Endpoint URL (that is, where the service is responding from)
             - the SOAP Action

            Also change the contents of the method createSoapEnvelope() in this class. It constructs
             the inner part of the SOAP envelope that is actually sent.
         */
        String soapEndpointUrl = "https://www.w3schools.com/xml/tempconvert.asmx";
        String soapAction = "https://www.w3schools.com/xml/CelsiusToFahrenheit";

        callSoapWebService(soapEndpointUrl, soapAction);
    }

    private static void createSoapEnvelope(SOAPMessage soapMessage) throws SOAPException {
        SOAPPart soapPart = soapMessage.getSOAPPart();

        String myNamespace = "myNamespace";
        String myNamespaceURI = "https://www.w3schools.com/xml/";

        // SOAP Envelope
        SOAPEnvelope envelope = soapPart.getEnvelope();
        envelope.addNamespaceDeclaration(myNamespace, myNamespaceURI);

            /*
            Constructed SOAP Request Message:
            <SOAP-ENV:Envelope xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:myNamespace="https://www.w3schools.com/xml/">
                <SOAP-ENV:Header/>
                <SOAP-ENV:Body>
                    <myNamespace:CelsiusToFahrenheit>
                        <myNamespace:Celsius>100</myNamespace:Celsius>
                    </myNamespace:CelsiusToFahrenheit>
                </SOAP-ENV:Body>
            </SOAP-ENV:Envelope>
            */

        // SOAP Body
        SOAPBody soapBody = envelope.getBody();
        SOAPElement soapBodyElem = soapBody.addChildElement("CelsiusToFahrenheit", myNamespace);
        SOAPElement soapBodyElem1 = soapBodyElem.addChildElement("Celsius", myNamespace);
        soapBodyElem1.addTextNode("100");
    }

    private static void callSoapWebService(String soapEndpointUrl, String soapAction) {
        try {
            // Create SOAP Connection
            SOAPConnectionFactory soapConnectionFactory = SOAPConnectionFactory.newInstance();
            SOAPConnection soapConnection = soapConnectionFactory.createConnection();

            // Send SOAP Message to SOAP Server
            SOAPMessage soapResponse = soapConnection.call(createSOAPRequest(soapAction), soapEndpointUrl);

            // Print the SOAP Response
            System.out.println("Response SOAP Message:");
            soapResponse.writeTo(System.out);
            System.out.println();

            soapConnection.close();
        } catch (Exception e) {
            System.err.println("\nError occurred while sending SOAP Request to Server!\nMake sure you have the correct endpoint URL and SOAPAction!\n");
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }

    private static SOAPMessage createSOAPRequest(String soapAction) throws Exception {
        MessageFactory messageFactory = MessageFactory.newInstance();
        SOAPMessage soapMessage = messageFactory.createMessage();

        createSoapEnvelope(soapMessage);

        MimeHeaders headers = soapMessage.getMimeHeaders();
        headers.addHeader("SOAPAction", soapAction);

        soapMessage.saveChanges();

        /* Print the request message, just for debugging purposes */
        System.out.println("Request SOAP Message:");
        soapMessage.writeTo(System.out);
        System.out.println("\n");

        return soapMessage;
    }

}

About using JAXB for serializing/deserializing, it is very easy to find information about it. You can start here: http://www.mkyong.com/java/jaxb-hello-world-example/.

Solution 2

Or just use Apache CXF's wsdl2java to generate objects you can use.

It is included in the binary package you can download from their website. You can simply run a command like this:

$ ./wsdl2java -p com.mynamespace.for.the.api.objects -autoNameResolution http://www.someurl.com/DefaultWebService?wsdl

It uses the wsdl to generate objects, which you can use like this (object names are also grabbed from the wsdl, so yours will be different a little):

DefaultWebService defaultWebService = new DefaultWebService();
String res = defaultWebService.getDefaultWebServiceHttpSoap11Endpoint().login("webservice","dadsadasdasd");
System.out.println(res);

There is even a Maven plug-in which generates the sources: https://cxf.apache.org/docs/maven-cxf-codegen-plugin-wsdl-to-java.html

Note: If you generate sources using CXF and IDEA, you might want to look at this: https://stackoverflow.com/a/46812593/840315

Solution 3

Might help for someone who have xml request as string. if you have WSDL, You can create a new soap request in SoapUI with that WSDL file.
It would automatically generate the Structure/XML for input request.

Here is some simple version of Java code you can use to call Soap service if you have the input request xml from SoapUI:

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.DataOutputStream;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.net.HttpURLConnection;
import java.net.URL;

public class SimpleSoapClient {

public static void main(String args[]) throws IOException {
        
    String address="Hyderabad";

    /* place your xml request from soap ui below with necessary changes in parameters*/
    
    String xml="<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv=\"http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/\" xmlns:ws=\"http://www.YourUrlAsPerWsdl.com/\">\r\n" + 
                 "   <soapenv:Header/>\r\n" + 
                 "   <soapenv:Body>\r\n" + 
                 "      <ws:callRest>\r\n" + 
                 "         <name>"+"Hello"+"</name>\r\n" + 
                 "         <address>"+address+"</address>\r\n" + 
                 "      </ws:callRest>\r\n" + 
                 "   </soapenv:Body>\r\n" + 
                 "</soapenv:Envelope>";
            String responseF=callSoapService(xml);
            System.out.println(responseF);
    }
    

}

static String callSoapService(String soapRequest) {
    try {
     String url = "https://gogle.com/service/hello"; // replace your URL here
     URL obj = new URL(url);
     HttpURLConnection con = (HttpURLConnection) obj.openConnection();
     
     // change these values as per soapui request on top left of request, click on RAW, you will find all the headers
     con.setRequestMethod("POST");
     con.setRequestProperty("Content-Type","text/xml; charset=utf-8"); 
     con.setDoOutput(true);
     DataOutputStream wr = new DataOutputStream(con.getOutputStream());
     wr.writeBytes(soapRequest);
     wr.flush();
     wr.close();
     String responseStatus = con.getResponseMessage();
     System.out.println(responseStatus);
     BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(
     con.getInputStream()));
     String inputLine;
     StringBuffer response = new StringBuffer();
     while ((inputLine = in.readLine()) != null) {
         response.append(inputLine);
     }
     in.close();
     
     // You can play with response which is available as string now:
     String finalvalue= response.toString();
     
     // or you can parse/substring the required tag from response as below based your response code
     finalvalue= finalvalue.substring(finalvalue.indexOf("<response>")+10,finalvalue.indexOf("</response>")); */
     
     return finalvalue;
     } 
    catch (Exception e) {
        return e.getMessage();
    }   
}

}

Solution 4

I found a much simpler alternative way to generating soap message. Given a Person Object:

import com.fasterxml.jackson.annotation.JsonInclude;

@JsonInclude(JsonInclude.Include.NON_NULL)
public class Person {
  private String name;
  private int age;
  private String address; //setter and getters below
}

Below is a simple Soap Message Generator:

import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.DeserializationFeature;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.SerializationFeature;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.datatype.jsr310.JavaTimeModule;
import lombok.extern.slf4j.Slf4j;
import org.apache.commons.lang3.StringUtils;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.dataformat.xml.XmlMapper;

@Slf4j
public class SoapGenerator {

  protected static final ObjectMapper XML_MAPPER = new XmlMapper()
      .enable(DeserializationFeature.READ_UNKNOWN_ENUM_VALUES_AS_NULL)
      .configure(DeserializationFeature.FAIL_ON_UNKNOWN_PROPERTIES, false)
      .configure(SerializationFeature.WRITE_DATES_AS_TIMESTAMPS, false)
      .registerModule(new JavaTimeModule());

  private static final String SOAP_BODY_OPEN = "<soap:Body>";
  private static final String SOAP_BODY_CLOSE = "</soap:Body>";
  private static final String SOAP_ENVELOPE_OPEN = "<soap:Envelope xmlns:soap=\"http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/\">";
  private static final String SOAP_ENVELOPE_CLOSE = "</soap:Envelope>";

  public static String soapWrap(String xml) {
    return SOAP_ENVELOPE_OPEN + SOAP_BODY_OPEN + xml + SOAP_BODY_CLOSE + SOAP_ENVELOPE_CLOSE;
  }

  public static String soapUnwrap(String xml) {
    return StringUtils.substringBetween(xml, SOAP_BODY_OPEN, SOAP_BODY_CLOSE);
  }
}

You can use by:

 public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception{
        Person p = new Person();
        p.setName("Test");
        p.setAge(12);

        String xml = SoapGenerator.soapWrap(XML_MAPPER.writeValueAsString(p));
        log.info("Generated String");
        log.info(xml);
      }

View more solutions

Comments

[acdcjunior]

Your question is a bit unclear. The method you want to create will (1) get the object from the web service; (2) work with the object a little; and (3) post it back to the web service. Is that it?

[jpz]

No, the object will be created in the client, it will be sent to the ws in the call, the ws will set a variable, for example currentTime, do some business logic like to store it in a db, and then sent the object back to the client with the currentTime now set. Hope I explained my self a little better. Thank you.

[Redone]

How do I set soap version using the method mentioned above?

[Martin Erlic]

I was able to use your method and it worked when I used your URI but for my own SOAP request I get a response whereby none of the values are shown as expected, i.e. <xsd:element name="Incident_Number" type="xsd:string"/>. As you can see, the element is closed and no information is generated from the WS.

[Brad Turek]

The GetInfoByCity is 503Service Unavailable, it seeems. :(

[acdcjunior]

@BradTurek D*mn! I just replaced it. Thanks for letting me know! I will find another one and change to it in a bit.

[acdcjunior]

To the passer-by: If the code above (the example SOAP Web Service endpoint) stops working or starts giving erros (like 500, 503, etc), please let me know so I can fix it.

[Rolando F]

How can I add another node (AuthHeader) in the same request in header containing username and password? For example:<soap:Header> <x:AuthHeader> <x:Username>userabc</x:Username> <x:Password>pass123</x:Password> </x:AuthHeader> </soap:Header>

[Manmohan_singh]

I have 30+ wsdl in my application. While preparing resources for just 1 wsdl (which has 5 soapActions) , my Eclipse IDE hanged and generated around 100+ MB of classes/objects.

[PRAFUL ANAND]

Also, I have the same question of Ronaldo F. If web service that is being called needs authentication (username and password). It means web service is a secure web service. How can I call such SOAP web service using SAAJ. Please write a program for calling such a soap web service.

[Bharat]

@acdcjunior I am NOT able to run the code properly. I added jar webservices-9.2.2.0.jar when it was failing for NestedException.class. But now it's again failing with "java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: weblogic.utils.classloaders.GenericClassLoader" & I am NOT able to find the class anywhere on internet. Could you please guide me ?

[bersling]

Why are you adding to the MimeHeaders and not just to the regular headers? Does the SOAP action have to do anything with the MimeHeaders?

[acdcjunior]

@bersling Is there a method to get the regular headers?

[bersling]

@acdcjunior There is a method soapMessage.soapHeader, but maybe that is something different? I was just confused why it's MIME headers. Like the others I'm just trying to get authentication to work, so if you can extend your example to include that I think it would help a lot of people.

[Renan Ribeiro]

Finally I found an example that really works... thank you so much!

[Pratik Gaurav]

Thanks for this answer, I was missing the mimeHeaders.addHeader("SOAPAction", "process");