Web Services examples using "raw" xml?

[Diez B. Roggisch]

John Gordon schrieb:
> I'm developing a program that will use web services, which I have never
> used before.
> 
> There are several tutorials out there that advise you to get the WSDL
> and then call a method (such as wsdl2py) that inspects the wsdl and
> automagically generates the python classes and methods you need for
> interacting with that web service.
> 
> I've tried this, and have run into a number of roadblocks that have left
> me frustrated.

Welcome to the wonderful world of SOAP. If you didn't know - the S 
stands for simple [1].

I don't want to go into a rant about the why and how SOAP sucks, and why 
it's support in Python is lacking - to say the least.

What we did in a similar situation was this:

  - got hold of a client that was able to speak with the server. In your 
case, a .NET-client shouldn't be hard to get working.
  - monitor the traffic that went on between the client and server using 
some HTTP-proxy or WireShark.
  - mimicked the server-side protocol by dynamising the sniffed traffic 
through an XML-templating tool, genshi in our case.

Sounds archaic, and complicated? Yes. Blame SOAP (and Microsoft, it's 
biggest proponent)


Diez


[1] http://72.249.21.88/nonintersecting/2006/11/15/the-s-stands-for-simple/