Testing webservices manually with raw soap request

This method is useful when you are required to generate a SOAP request manually without using any tools like axis2, jaxrpc etc. Here we manually create the request using java, no other jar files are required.

Pre-requisite: 

• Jdk 1.6.0_31 installed
• Up and running webservice (see my post http://helptodeveloper.blogspot.com/2012/09/creating-basic-webservice-example.html on how to create your own webservice up and running within minutes). I am going to use my Palindrome webservice, the link is given above.

First we have to identify the request which we are going to create (you can identify your request using SOAP-UI here http://helptodeveloper.blogspot.com/2012/09/testing-webservice-or-wsdl-with-soap-ui.html). I am using the PalinServ webservice, so below is the request.

Request:
<soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope" xmlns:pal="http://palin.com">
   <soap:Header/>
   <soap:Body>
      <pal:isPalindrome>
         <pal:args0>123454321</pal:args0>
      </pal:isPalindrome>
   </soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>


Java code for request creation:

package com.service.palinImpl;


import java.io.IOException;
import java.net.URL;
import javax.xml.soap.MessageFactory;
import javax.xml.soap.SOAPBody;
import javax.xml.soap.SOAPConnection;
import javax.xml.soap.SOAPConnectionFactory;
import javax.xml.soap.SOAPElement;
import javax.xml.soap.SOAPEnvelope;
import javax.xml.soap.SOAPException;
import javax.xml.soap.SOAPFactory;
import javax.xml.soap.SOAPHeader;
import javax.xml.soap.SOAPMessage;
import javax.xml.soap.SOAPPart;



public class PalindromeServiceImpl {
public static final String PAL_NS = "http://palin.com";
public static final String PAL_PREFIX = "pal";
public static final String WEBSERVICE_URL = "http://localhost:8080/axis2/services/PalinServ?wsdl";

public static Object makeRequest(SOAPElement request) throws IOException, SOAPException, Exception{
    SOAPMessage soapMessage = MessageFactory.newInstance().createMessage();
     SOAPPart soapPart = soapMessage.getSOAPPart();
     SOAPEnvelope soapEnvelope = soapPart.getEnvelope();
     SOAPBody soapBody = soapEnvelope.getBody();
     soapEnvelope.addNamespaceDeclaration(PAL_PREFIX, PAL_NS);
     SOAPHeader soapHeader = soapMessage.getSOAPHeader();
     if (soapHeader == null){
      soapHeader = soapEnvelope.addHeader();
     }
     soapBody.addChildElement(request);
     soapMessage.writeTo(System.out);
    return soapMessage;    
    }

public static void callService() throws IOException, Exception {
SOAPElement bodyElem = PalindromeServiceImpl.makePalindromeOperation(123454321);
SOAPMessage soapMessageRequest = (SOAPMessage) PalindromeServiceImpl.makeRequest(bodyElem);
SOAPConnectionFactory sfc = SOAPConnectionFactory.newInstance();
SOAPConnection connection = sfc.createConnection();
URL endpoint = new URL(WEBSERVICE_URL);
   SOAPMessage soapMessageResponse = connection.call(soapMessageRequest, endpoint);
   soapMessageResponse.writeTo(System.out);
   connection.close();
}

/*<pal:isPalindrome>
         <pal:args0>123454321</pal:args0>
      </pal:isPalindrome> */
public static SOAPElement makePalindromeOperation(int number) throws SOAPException{
        SOAPFactory soapFactory = SOAPFactory.newInstance();
        SOAPElement isPalin = soapFactory.createElement("isPalindrome", PAL_PREFIX, PAL_NS);
        SOAPElement args = isPalin.addChildElement("args0", PAL_PREFIX, PAL_NS);
        args.addTextNode(String.valueOf(number));
return isPalin;
}

public static void main(String[] args) {
try {
PalindromeServiceImpl.callService();
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}

Below are the Request and Response after running the above program:

Request
<SOAP-ENV:Envelope xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"
xmlns:pal="http://palin.com">
<SOAP-ENV:Header />
<SOAP-ENV:Body>
<pal:isPalindrome>
<pal:args0>123454321</pal:args0>
</pal:isPalindrome>
</SOAP-ENV:Body>
</SOAP-ENV:Envelope>
Response
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
<soapenv:Body>
<ns:isPalindromeResponse xmlns:ns="http://palin.com">
<ns:return>Palindrome</ns:return>
</ns:isPalindromeResponse>
</soapenv:Body>
</soapenv:Envelope>

Hope this helped :)