# Adding soap element attributes

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/adding-soap-element-attributes/73875>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [October 27, 2006, 6:43pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/adding-soap-element-attributes/73875 "2006-10-27T18:43:05Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![vagabond](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/v/258eb7/32.png) [@vagabond](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/vagabond)\
**Post date:** [October 27, 2006, 6:43pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/adding-soap-element-attributes/73875/1 "2006-10-27T18:43:05Z")

</div>

Hi,

I have a question that I hope will be simple for someone to answer.

I am using soap4r to write a simple library to consume web services from  
an application. The application does not include a WSDL document, so I  
have to write everything by hand.

The application requires attributes in certain elements of the soap  
request, and I am having a little trouble figuring out how to do this.  
So far, a portion of my test code looks like this:

driver = SOAP::RPC::Driver.new(endpoint, ‘urn:namespace’)  
driver.add\_method\_as(‘get\_account’, ‘GetAccountRequest’, ‘account’)  
get\_account = driver.get\_account(‘removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid’)

which produces this:

\<n2:GetAccountRequest xmlns:n2=“urn:namespace”  
env:encodingStyle=“[http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/](http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/)”\>  
removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid  
\</n2:GetAccountRequest\>

but I need the soap request to look like this:

\<n2:GetAccountRequest xmlns:n2=“urn:namespace”  
env:encodingStyle=“[http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/](http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/)”\>  
removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid  
\</n2:GetAccountRequest\>

with the by=“name” attribute in the account element.

I’ve been experimenting with SOAP::Mapping::Registry to achieve this,  
but I am not sure how it would be done, or even if this is the correct  
approach to take. If anyone can offer any assistance, it would be  
appreciated.

Thanks,  
Andrew

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![vagabond](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/v/258eb7/32.png) [@vagabond](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/vagabond)\
**Post date:** [October 29, 2006, 12:40pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/adding-soap-element-attributes/73875/2 "2006-10-29T12:40:43Z")

</div>

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----  
Hash: SHA1

Hi,

Andrew T. wrote:

> I am using soap4r to write a simple library to consume web services from  
> an application. The application does not include a WSDL document, so I  
> have to write everything by hand.

Unlucky.

> The application requires attributes in certain elements of the soap  
> request, and I am having a little trouble figuring out how to do this.  
> So far, a portion of my test code looks like this:
> 
> driver = SOAP::RPC::Driver.new(endpoint, ‘urn:namespace’)  
> driver.add\_method\_as(‘get\_account’, ‘GetAccountRequest’, ‘account’)  
> get\_account = driver.get\_account(‘removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid’)

You need to set up a request object by yourself.

ele = SOAP::SOAPString.new(‘removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid’)  
ele.elename = XSD::QName.new(nil, ‘account’)  
ele.extraattr[XSD::QName.new(nil, ‘by’)] = ‘name’  
driver.get\_account(ele)

It must be a hard work when it comes to a complex request object. You  
can write a WSDL from service definition first.

Regards,  
// NaHi

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----  
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.1 (Cygwin)

iQEVAwUBRUSS0B9L2jg5EEGlAQINDwf9E+xnyx8w7Ztbk8j6HEoiYyzHd2sxKoDm  
T9GCqS2tSiu293pnqZg+daNhoufuRWXD7tOZvlByhz1nW3MqdbbQYBD4rjLPKQPy  
06Sd08W6DSP/axgGgtATlHPEmotU/GYmi6s+J7Mf5VSx5Lh1ON+W3FZTfyV8YpWV  
ui0JvcR0I0byjiso7E0xvOypXR1eISihiLFw1rpltk0LQyRGWt7pgmlBbB8wOsHn  
+mlgRFCXOCKMExKs0tfVFTy0Szi4NHBHb58UMJuDCWj7ATGrUJo68FTd1ywJY5Th  
EcdOPEiOaelg+VPDvhK0dByFjk467G6jFNjTPFMmFL/oohyzl8Zz6w==  
=0Eph  
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![vagabond](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/v/258eb7/32.png) [@vagabond](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/vagabond)\
**Post date:** [October 31, 2006, 5:35pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/adding-soap-element-attributes/73875/3 "2006-10-31T17:35:52Z")

</div>

Thanks Hiroshi, that got me started. Soap4r is great, I just wish this  
app had a WSDL!

I may consider writing a WSDL for this application, but for now I only  
need a subset of fucntionality. The request objects are all pretty  
simple, but I am having trouble accessing data from the response  
objects.

After calling:

get\_account = driver.get\_account(‘removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid’)

The raw XML response for this command looks something like this:

value1value2value3 ... 

I need to access the key/value pairs in the a attributes, but  
get\_account.account.a simply returns an array of [value1, value2,  
value3, …] and seems to ignore the attributes. Many response objects  
for this app take this form, so it would be nice to be able to create a  
hash, or ruby object dynamically based on the key/values.

Can I access the raw response XML somehow, or is there a better way to  
do this?

The app I am using is Zimbra, in case anyone has any experience or  
advice for use with Soap4r.

Thanks again,  
Andrew

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![vagabond](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/v/258eb7/32.png) [@vagabond](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/vagabond)\
**Post date:** [November 7, 2006, 11:00am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/adding-soap-element-attributes/73875/4 "2006-11-07T11:00:03Z")

</div>

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----  
Hash: SHA1

Hi,

Andrew T. wrote:

> I need to access the key/value pairs in the a attributes, but  
> get\_account.account.a simply returns an array of [value1, value2,  
> value3, …] and seems to ignore the attributes. Many response objects  
> for this app take this form, so it would be nice to be able to create a  
> hash, or ruby object dynamically based on the key/values.

You need to define the service as a document service when you want to  
handle XML attribute. Try the following.

```
/	/	/

```

require ‘soap/rpc/driver’

ns = ‘urn:namespace’  
soapaction = nil

driver = SOAP::RPC::Driver.new(nil, ns)  
driver.add\_document\_method(‘get\_account’, soapaction,  
XSD::QName.new(ns, ‘GetAccountRequest’),  
XSD::QName.new(ns, ‘GetAccountResponse’))

driver.test\_loopback\_response \<\< \<\< **XML**  
\<env:Envelope xmlns:env=“[http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/](http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/)”\>  
env:Body  
  
  
value1  
value2  
value3  
  
  
\</env:Body\>  
\</env:Envelope\>  
**XML**  
driver.wiredump\_dev = STDOUT

ele = SOAP::SOAPString.new(‘removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid’)  
ele.elename = XSD::QName.new(nil, ‘account’)  
ele.extraattr[XSD::QName.new(nil, ‘by’)] = ‘name’

# !!! a wrapper element is needed for document service.

req = SOAP::SOAPElement.new(XSD::QName.new(ns, ‘GetAccountRequest’))  
req.add(ele)

get\_account = driver.get\_account(req)  
map = {}  
get\_account.account.a.each do |value|  
map[value.xmlattr\_n] = value  
end  
p map # =\> {“key1”=\>“value1”, “key2”=\>“value2”, “key3”=\>“value3”}

# Now you want to write WSDL, don’t you? 🙂

> The app I am using is Zimbra, in case anyone has any experience or  
> advice for use with Soap4r.

Please let me know if you succeeded to use it. Users must be interested  
in it.

Regards,  
// NaHi  
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----  
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.1 (Cygwin)

iQEVAwUBRUvx4B9L2jg5EEGlAQLAQAgAp5dEsugVXp1jPPsOJJ10fanLzbK+oFY2  
4qQ8tpziNHIIMs5oZVxsv+/hoY+64jrqMoTgmpidZ3Pdo84YS3pwMtSCgda7r9UQ  
r0sw+JmjUMqfzgdN2tK7A8+nidKGpXYV4PDnWJPfk4iav3Dhk5xtFV8v/oM3WpnQ  
tqGUV0BcSJ5fmXz+E6rvsG1LPPMQcnGWQI6SSpArYuR0ATdL7ff2HfOBEHAkaqFM  
3H401RjnyTrYlHjO+uJUANNgzdVaF/Tl//z0omSSBa3z/uqx5EE6mcmjZSJ0QKTr  
6b/xHBeqzpG09XrKgW9VDUjJRkUx9wxewQsrK+6b1RnFU/W0/Owhlg==  
=SbKf  
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----