# Soap project. RubyCLR vs Jruby vs Soap4r? **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [November 20, 2006, 2:45pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/soap-project-rubyclr-vs-jruby-vs-soap4r/76542 "2006-11-20T14:45:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![snacktime](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/7feea3/32.png) [@snacktime](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/snacktime)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2006, 2:45pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/soap-project-rubyclr-vs-jruby-vs-soap4r/76542/1 "2006-11-20T14:45:51Z")
So I have a couple of weeks to write an application that will integrate with a soap based web service. Unfortunately I have some challenges and very little experience with soap, although I can probably figure things out ok once I decide which platform I’m going to use, which is where I’m at now. Also, I’d much prefer to do this in linux/bsd if I can, with windows as a last option. First I tried using wsdl2ruby on the supplied wsdl file which didn’t work. Not surprising, but that means if I use soap4r I’m going to have to do everything from scratch, and I’m really not sure what that all entails. One other thing, the soap client has to support cookies, as the server uses 3 cookies for session management once authentication is done. I saw one http-access2 comment about using cookies on the net, but that was it. Then I took a look at using .net. There is rubyclr which appears to work only on windows and not with mono. Ironpython which doesn’t have most of the standard python library, and [python.net](http://python.net) which works fine on windows but has issues on linux with mono. Finally I’m looking at jruby and using it with something like apache axis, which the webservice vendor say’s is known to work. I’ve pretty much ruled this one out as I’m not a java guru and I really hate using those bloated apache frameworks. And I also took a look at soaplite in perl. Not a bad option IMO and it’s around second on my list right now after soap4r. Any comments or suggestions? ---
**Author:** ![snacktime](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/7feea3/32.png) [@snacktime](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/snacktime)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2006, 2:46pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/soap-project-rubyclr-vs-jruby-vs-soap4r/76542/2 "2006-11-20T14:46:01Z")
XFire: [http://xfire.codehaus.org/](http://xfire.codehaus.org/) is an alternative to Apache Axis for Java if you want to reconsider the JRuby route. Though, at least on the client side, I don’t think Axis is particularly “bloated”. I haven’t got any experience with soap4r to tell whether it’s worth it to use JRuby or not for your case… -Stephen ---
**Author:** ![snacktime](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/7feea3/32.png) [@snacktime](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/snacktime)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2006, 2:46pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/soap-project-rubyclr-vs-jruby-vs-soap4r/76542/3 "2006-11-20T14:46:03Z")
snacktime wrote: > So I have a couple of weeks to write an application that will > integrate with a soap based web service. Unfortunately I have some > challenges and very little experience with soap, although I can > probably figure things out ok once I decide which platform I’m going > to use, which is where I’m at now. Also, I’d much prefer to do this > in linux/bsd if I can, with windows as a last option. > Hmmm … you have very little experience with SOAP, yet you’ve accepted > an assignment/made a commitment to use it to “write an application that > will integrate with a soap based web service” in “a couple of weeks”. > Does anyone on this list have a non-technical comment on the situation > here? 🙂 > most of the standard python library, and [python.net](http://python.net) which works fine > Any comments or suggestions? 1. Take a deep breath 2. Write down what the application _must_ do, and _when_. 3. Pick a technology that you _know_ will accomplish that. Pick the _simplest_ thing that can do the job. 4. Get it done! 5. Come back here and tell us all how you did it, even if it had nothing to do with Ruby. 🙂 Good luck … and stay agile. 🙂 – M. Edward (Ed) Borasky, FBG, AB, PTA, PGS, MS, MNLP, NST, ACMC(P) [http://borasky-research.blogspot.com/](http://borasky-research.blogspot.com/) If God had meant for carrots to be eaten cooked, He would have given rabbits fire. ---
**Author:** ![snacktime](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/7feea3/32.png) [@snacktime](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/snacktime)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2006, 2:46pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/soap-project-rubyclr-vs-jruby-vs-soap4r/76542/4 "2006-11-20T14:46:03Z")
I found it faster and easier to write soap clients with soap4r than Java with Axis even though there is better documentaion for AXIS. ---
**Author:** ![snacktime](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/7feea3/32.png) [@snacktime](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/snacktime)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2006, 2:59pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/soap-project-rubyclr-vs-jruby-vs-soap4r/76542/5 "2006-11-20T14:59:49Z")
On Nov 19, 2006, at 5:22 PM, snacktime wrote: > And I also took a look at soaplite in perl. Not a bad option IMO and > it’s around second on my list right now after soap4r. I have limited experience with soap4r, but my current assessment is that it only works well if you can get it to read your wsdl file, and that there are still some problems with that. I’ve used it to work with the SOAP interface on a United Devices GridMP server, and found that only the bleeding-edge code would work at all with that WSDL file. And, the documentation and diagnostics are still a little rough. On the other hand, SOAP::Lite is a great Perl module. I started using it before it supported WSDL, but if you’re accessing an RPC- style service, I found you really don’t need the WSDL; SOAP::Lite is very good about mapping argument lists to Perl structures and back. It’s also far better documented than soap4r at this point. Tom ---
**Author:** ![snacktime](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/7feea3/32.png) [@snacktime](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/snacktime)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2006, 8:41pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/soap-project-rubyclr-vs-jruby-vs-soap4r/76542/6 "2006-11-20T20:41:55Z")
Soap4r is a nice package for working with SOAP in Ruby. I used it for creating a client app that automatically pulls precious metal commodity pricing and then it turn updates an internal app’s retail pricing formulas. You are right on target, in that if your client app will require cookies you will have to use http-access2 rather than basic net/http. I haven’t used other services such as .Net, Perl, Python for building SOAP client apps but I can’t imagine that they would be as clean, concise, and elegant as Ruby. But then again I might be biased since Ruby is my language of choice 😉