# Web Services/Invoke Inconsistencies

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/web-services-invoke-inconsistencies/58678>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [April 24, 2006, 7:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/web-services-invoke-inconsistencies/58678 "2006-04-24T19:29:55Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Joshua\_Levinson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/2bfe46/32.png) [@Joshua\_Levinson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Joshua_Levinson)\
**Post date:** [April 24, 2006, 7:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/web-services-invoke-inconsistencies/58678/1 "2006-04-24T19:29:55Z")

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Hey all,

Got a bit of a long one here, so bear with me while I try to hash out  
the details… better to give too much than not enough.

So we’re using the ActionWebService in order to communicate with a  
3rd-party software client. We’ve created the API as discussed in Agile  
Web D., and, in fact, invoke actually works perfectly.

We have three example XML posts… they are in the following formats:

POST /rms/api HTTP/1.1  
Host: localhost  
Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8  
Content-Length: 384  
SOAPAction:  
“[http://StoreFront.StoreFront/RMSConfirmWS/ImportRMSProducts](http://StoreFront.StoreFront/RMSConfirmWS/ImportRMSProducts)”

\<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?\>\<soap:Envelope 

xmlns:soap=“[http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/](http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/)”  
xmlns:xsi=“[http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance](http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance)”  
xmlns:xsd=“[XML Schema](http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema)”\>soap:Body\<str\>J0H4XX0r\</str\>\</soap:Body\>\</soap:Envelope\>

So, as you can see, it posts to the /rms/api interface. In order to  
post this file, which we call example\_xml, we use the following command  
on a Linux box:

cat example\_xml | netcat localhost 80 -vv

This works for the first two files, but the third one, entitled  
ugly\_mess, just hangs/gets a 404/not found. The only real difference is  
the length:

POST /rms/api HTTP/1.1  
Host: localhost  
Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8  
Content-Length: 27100  
SOAPAction:  
“[http://StoreFront.StoreFront/RMSConfirmWS/ImportRMSProducts](http://StoreFront.StoreFront/RMSConfirmWS/ImportRMSProducts)”

And then there’s a ton of stuff down here… like… a lot. 27,000 lines  
or so.

So the first two work on the rms\_api, and the last one doesn’t.

But here’s the strange thing… using the rms/invoke (as described in  
Agile Web D., invoke is a scaffold for web services)… they  
ALL work.

The only thing I have to do in rms/invoke is put the xml files on a  
single line of text so I can paste it into the text field that our  
invoke method asks for. If I do this, they ALL work (right now, the  
method simply saves the xml string to a file for testing purposes).

So… using rms/invoke, all three files work. Using rms/api and netcat  
to post the xml, only the first two, shorter ones, work. Can anyone  
think of a reason why this wouldn’t work?

I’ve attempted to get this to work using both Apache and WEBrick, so I’m  
thinking it’s not a simple configuration of the web server (though if  
someone thinks this may be the reason, I’d love to know why).

Sorry for the superlong note, but I simply find it much easier to let  
all the gory details hang out and find a solution easier than listen to  
a bunch of things I’ve already attempted.

Thanks and please let me know if there’s any additional information I  
should post (i.e., source files, or the ugly\_mess file).

-Josh

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Joshua\_Levinson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/2bfe46/32.png) [@Joshua\_Levinson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Joshua_Levinson)\
**Post date:** [April 24, 2006, 7:45pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/web-services-invoke-inconsistencies/58678/2 "2006-04-24T19:45:06Z")

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On Apr 24, 2006, at 1:30 PM, Joshua Levinson wrote:

> [snip]  
> -Josh
> 
> –  
> Posted via [http://www.ruby-forum.com/](http://www.ruby-forum.com/).

You’d probably have better luck on the rails mailing list  
[http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails](http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails)

Or if you like the web forum interface:

[http://www.ruby-forum.com/forum/3](http://www.ruby-forum.com/forum/3)