# Generating a WSDL descriptor for my SOAP service

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/generating-a-wsdl-descriptor-for-my-soap-service/97235>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [January 25, 2006, 4:38pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/generating-a-wsdl-descriptor-for-my-soap-service/97235 "2006-01-25T16:38:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![glenatron](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/94ad74/32.png) [@glenatron](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/glenatron)\
**Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 4:38pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/generating-a-wsdl-descriptor-for-my-soap-service/97235/1 "2006-01-25T16:38:25Z")

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I’m a bit new here, so I apologise if this question is something that  
you have covered a thousand times before, but I’m having a very  
troublesome time working out whether I need to create a WSDL file if  
I’m using the standard soap library or whether there is a way to get  
my service to generate it for me? If not, do any of the other Ruby web  
service frameworks offer this? I have found a lot of talk about  
generating Ruby scripts from WSDL files but I haven’t been able to  
find anything solid about doing the reverse and unfortunately the SOAP  
classes aren’t very heavily documented so it’s sometimes a bit tricky  
to trace through them and work out what they are doing.

I realise that the whole thing about Ruby being dynamically everything  
means that it doesn’t need to behave in the same way as a strongly  
typed language, but from what I can tell offering WSDL will make it a  
lot easier for people using a strongly typed language to talk to the  
service, which would make it a lot easier for the service to be  
marketable…

Thanks in advance,

-ben

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![glenatron](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/94ad74/32.png) [@glenatron](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/glenatron)\
**Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 4:56pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/generating-a-wsdl-descriptor-for-my-soap-service/97235/2 "2006-01-25T16:56:46Z")

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Hi,

> to create a WSDL file if I’m using the standard soap library  
> everything means that it doesn’t need to behave in the same  
> way as a strongly typed language, but from what I can tell  
> offering WSDL will make it a lot easier for people using a  
> strongly typed language to talk to the service, which would  
> make it a lot easier for the service to be marketable…
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> 
> -ben

actually soap4r can not generate WSDL.

Perhaps ActionWebService is what you are looking for  
[http://manuals.rubyonrails.com/read/book/10](http://manuals.rubyonrails.com/read/book/10)  
It generates WSDL from api definitions.

Regards,  
Roland