[java] How to consume a SOAP web service in Java

Can someone please help me with some links and other on how to consume a web service WSDL in Java?

There are many options to consume a SOAP web service with Stub or Java classes created based on WSDL. But if anyone wants to do this without any Java class created, this article is very helpful. Code Snippet from the article:

public String someMethod() throws MalformedURLException, IOException {

//Code to make a webservice HTTP request
String responseString = "";
String outputString = "";
String wsURL = "<Endpoint of the webservice to be consumed>";
URL url = new URL(wsURL);
URLConnection connection = url.openConnection();
HttpURLConnection httpConn = (HttpURLConnection)connection;
ByteArrayOutputStream bout = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
String xmlInput = "entire SOAP Request";

byte[] buffer = new byte[xmlInput.length()];
buffer = xmlInput.getBytes();
bout.write(buffer);
byte[] b = bout.toByteArray();
String SOAPAction = "<SOAP action of the webservice to be consumed>";
// Set the appropriate HTTP parameters.
httpConn.setRequestProperty("Content-Length",
String.valueOf(b.length));
httpConn.setRequestProperty("Content-Type", "text/xml; charset=utf-8");
httpConn.setRequestProperty("SOAPAction", SOAPAction);
httpConn.setRequestMethod("POST");
httpConn.setDoOutput(true);
httpConn.setDoInput(true);
OutputStream out = httpConn.getOutputStream();
//Write the content of the request to the outputstream of the HTTP Connection.
out.write(b);
out.close();
//Ready with sending the request.

//Read the response.
InputStreamReader isr = null;
if (httpConn.getResponseCode() == 200) {
  isr = new InputStreamReader(httpConn.getInputStream());
} else {
  isr = new InputStreamReader(httpConn.getErrorStream());
}

BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(isr);

//Write the SOAP message response to a String.
while ((responseString = in.readLine()) != null) {
outputString = outputString + responseString;
}
//Parse the String output to a org.w3c.dom.Document and be able to reach every node with the org.w3c.dom API.
Document document = parseXmlFile(outputString); // Write a separate method to parse the xml input.
NodeList nodeLst = document.getElementsByTagName("<TagName of the element to be retrieved>");
String elementValue = nodeLst.item(0).getTextContent();
System.out.println(elementValue);

//Write the SOAP message formatted to the console.
String formattedSOAPResponse = formatXML(outputString); // Write a separate method to format the XML input.
System.out.println(formattedSOAPResponse);
return elementValue;
}

For those who're looking for a similar kind of solution with file upload while consuming a SOAP API, please refer to this post: How to attach a file (pdf, jpg, etc) in a SOAP POST request?

As some sugested you can use apache or jax-ws. You can also use tools that generate code from WSDL such as ws-import but in my opinion the best way to consume web service is to create a dynamic client and invoke only operations you want not everything from wsdl. You can do this by creating a dynamic client: Sample code:

String endpointUrl = ...;

QName serviceName = new QName("http://com/ibm/was/wssample/echo/",
 "EchoService");
QName portName = new QName("http://com/ibm/was/wssample/echo/",
 "EchoServicePort");

/** Create a service and add at least one port to it. **/ 
Service service = Service.create(serviceName);
service.addPort(portName, SOAPBinding.SOAP11HTTP_BINDING, endpointUrl);

/** Create a Dispatch instance from a service.**/ 
Dispatch<SOAPMessage> dispatch = service.createDispatch(portName, 
SOAPMessage.class, Service.Mode.MESSAGE);

/** Create SOAPMessage request. **/
// compose a request message
MessageFactory mf = MessageFactory.newInstance(SOAPConstants.SOAP_1_1_PROTOCOL);

// Create a message.  This example works with the SOAPPART.
SOAPMessage request = mf.createMessage();
SOAPPart part = request.getSOAPPart();

// Obtain the SOAPEnvelope and header and body elements.
SOAPEnvelope env = part.getEnvelope();
SOAPHeader header = env.getHeader();
SOAPBody body = env.getBody();

// Construct the message payload.
SOAPElement operation = body.addChildElement("invoke", "ns1",
 "http://com/ibm/was/wssample/echo/");
SOAPElement value = operation.addChildElement("arg0");
value.addTextNode("ping");
request.saveChanges();

/** Invoke the service endpoint. **/
SOAPMessage response = dispatch.invoke(request);

/** Process the response. **/

I will use CXF also you can think of AXIS 2 .

The best way to do it may be using JAX RS Refer this example

Example:

wsimport -p stockquote http://stockquote.xyz/quote?wsdl

This will generate the Java artifacts and compile them by importing the http://stockquote.xyz/quote?wsdl.

I

Here you can find a nice tutorial of how you can create and consume a SOAP service through WSDL. Long story short you need to call wsimport tool from command line (you can find it in your jdk) with parameters like -s (source for .java files) -d (destination for .class files) and the wsdl link.

$ wsimport -s "C:\workspace\soap\src\main\java\com\test\soap\ws" -d "C:\workspace\soap\target\classes\com\test\soap\ws" http://localhost:8855/soap/test?wsdl

After the stubs are created, you can call the webservices very easy something like:

TestHarnessService harnessService = new TestHarnessService();
ITestApi testApi = harnessService.getBasicHttpBindingITestApi();
testApi.resetLogMemoryTarget();