Connection to a Webservice via Soap

[dukeatcoding]

Hello everybody,

Currently I am working on the problem to communicate with a WebService using Soap.

There seems to be no really stable framework coded in objective-c. So I thought about using some C++. But I wonder if its really possible to work with C++ on the Iphone because of the need C++ libs.

Has anyone other ideas for connection to a Web Service or experience in using C++ on Iphone ?

[tychop]

Originally Posted by dukeatcoding

Hello everybody,

Currently I am working on the problem to communicate with a WebService using Soap.

There seems to be no really stable framework coded in objective-c. So I thought about using some C++. But I wonder if its really possible to work with C++ on the Iphone because of the need C++ libs.

Has anyone other ideas for connection to a Web Service or experience in using C++ on Iphone ?

I use the iPhone SDK for webservices. I create a request like the next code fragment shows, and use NSXMLParser for parsing the response. (use NSXMLParser delegates for nested XML tags).

	NSString *path = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"*****.xml", [[NSBundle mainBundle] bundlePath]];
	NSString *nakedRequest = [NSString stringWithContentsOfFile:path encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding error:nil];
	NSString *soapMessage = [NSString stringWithFormat:nakedRequest,
							 @"user",	
							 @"pass",							
							 @"id",							
							 returnType,							
							 origin,								
							 destination,							
							 originDateString,							
							 destinationDateString,						
							 @"Timetable",							
							 @"1",									
							 @"0"									
							 ];
	
	NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:@"https://services.*****.com/*****/*****.asmx"];
	NSString *messageLength = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%d", [soapMessage length]];
	NSMutableURLRequest *theRequest = [NSMutableURLRequest requestWithURL:url];	
	[theRequest addValue:@"text/xml; charset=utf-8" forHTTPHeaderField:@"Content-Type"];
	[theRequest addValue:@"http://www.*****.com/*****:*****" forHTTPHeaderField:@"SOAPAction"];	
	[theRequest addValue:messageLength forHTTPHeaderField:@"Content-Length"];
	[theRequest setHTTPMethod:@"POST"];
	[theRequest setHTTPBody:[soapMessage dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];
	theConnection = [[NSURLConnection alloc] initWithRequest:theRequest delegate:self];
	if (theConnection) {
		soapResponseData = [[NSMutableData data] retain];
	}

Works like a charm.
You could even opt to start parsing while the response is still loading.

[dukeatcoding]

Thx for your answer

Yes shure it works for small things like communication with a Hello World passing a string an receiving somehting.

The webservice i have to connect to offers several services with a lot of objects to serialize and pass through. So my favorite way would be a good wsdl2obejctive-c with a soap framework...

My last option would be to write all the objects by hand and setup all the needed soap messages by hand...

[tychop]

Originally Posted by dukeatcoding

Thx for your answer

Yes shure it works for small things like communication with a Hello World passing a string an receiving somehting.

The webservice i have to connect to offers several services with a lot of objects to serialize and pass through. So my favorite way would be a good wsdl2obejctive-c with a soap framework...

My last option would be to write all the objects by hand and setup all the needed soap messages by hand...

FYI (& others): I use it to parse xml responses 5 to 8 levels deep.
It's usable for more complex stuff than just 'Hello World'.
But hey, If you do find an easy shortcut, please share.

[dukeatcoding]

Shure but a lot of handwork to do

I have do send an object action package, which has action objects... which have objects... and then receive something similar

[tychop]

Originally Posted by dukeatcoding

Shure but a lot of handwork to do

I have do send an object action package, which has action objects... which have objects... and then receive something similar

Yeah, I know. It's a real pain to get it done.
Has anybody else been able to use a wsdl to generate objects & messages for use on an iPhone?

[dukeatcoding]

Originally Posted by tychop

Yeah, I know. It's a real pain to get it done.
Has anybody else been able to use a wsdl to generate objects & messages for use on an iPhone?

There are two intersting Projects out there one I am helping a little bit but which is in kinda alpha

drekka's dXml at master - GitHub

And one which seems to be dead
wsdl2objc - Project Hosting on Google Code

Both of them are a pain in the *** because they are not really document

[drekka]

Hi guys,

I'm the author of dXml. I'm fairly new to Mac stuff so theres been a delay whilst I've figured out howto document stuff. I just recently found the GitHub Pages and worked out how to use it. It's quite a learning curve with Objective C iphone SDK, markdown, textile, jekyll and liquid all in the mix

So I'm now pouring documentation into drekka.github.com/dXml site for dXml.

BTW< I've just uploaded v0.1.1 which now includes basic XPath.

Have a look, suggestions welcome.

Derek