Call a soap webservice in android

Question

I need to make a call to a soap webservice in an android device. I have been reading a lot of articles in stackoverflow and on other pages, watching videos... But I've tried everythin and I can't make it work in my android device, and I can't test in on an emulator, because my computer can't handle any of them, so I don't know if the error is on the code or if it's a problem of my android device.

The layout xml are only an EditText, a Button, and a TextView.

In this link you can see the request xml I need to send to the webservice (should I use SOAP 1.1 or SOAP 1.2 ?) http://www.webservicex.net/globalweather.asmx?op=GetCitiesByCountry

This is my actual code, and I have tried many other ways, and none of them have worked for me. Any help? (url, namespace, soap_action and method_name values are okey, aren't they?)

package com.example.doazdoas.webservice_prueba;


    import android.app.Activity;
    import android.os.Bundle;
    import android.util.Log;
    import android.view.View;
    import android.widget.Button;
    import android.widget.TextView;

    import org.ksoap2.SoapEnvelope;
    import org.ksoap2.serialization.SoapObject;
    import org.ksoap2.serialization.SoapSerializationEnvelope;
    import org.ksoap2.transport.HttpTransportSE;

    import android.os.AsyncTask;
    import android.widget.Toast;

    import static android.content.ContentValues.TAG;

   public class MainActivity extends Activity{
    private TextView textResult;
    private Button buttonSend;

    String NAMESPACE = "http://www.webserviceX.NET/";
    String METHOD_NAME = "GetCitiesByCountry";
    String SOAP_ACTION = NAMESPACE + METHOD_NAME;
    String URL = "http://www.webservicex.net/globalweather.asmx?WSDL";

    private Object resultsRequestSOAP = null;

    HttpTransportSE androidHttpTransport;

    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState)
    {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

        textResult = (TextView)findViewById(R.id.textResultado);
        buttonSend = (Button)findViewById(R.id.buttonEnviar);
        //setContentView(tv);
    }

    public void onClickEnviar(View view){
        AsyncCallWS task = new AsyncCallWS();
        task.execute();
    }

    private class AsyncCallWS extends AsyncTask<Void, Void, Void> {

        @Override
        protected void onPreExecute() {
            Log.i(TAG, "onPreExecute");
        }

        @Override
        protected Void doInBackground(Void... params) {
            Log.i(TAG, "doInBackground");
            sendRequest();
            return null;
        }

        @Override
        protected void onPostExecute(Void result) {
            Log.i(TAG, "onPostExecute");
            Log.d("dump Request: " ,androidHttpTransport.requestDump);
            Log.d("dump response: " ,androidHttpTransport.responseDump);
        }

    }


    public void sendRequest(){
        SoapObject request = new SoapObject(NAMESPACE, METHOD_NAME);


        //SoapObject
        request.addProperty("@CountryName", "SPAIN");
        SoapSerializationEnvelope envelope = new SoapSerializationEnvelope(SoapEnvelope.VER11);
        envelope.setOutputSoapObject(request);


        androidHttpTransport = new HttpTransportSE(URL);
        try
        {
            androidHttpTransport.call(SOAP_ACTION, envelope);
            resultsRequestSOAP =  envelope.getResponse();
            String[] results = (String[])  resultsRequestSOAP;
            textResult.setText( results[0]);
        }
        catch (Exception aE)
        {
            aE.printStackTrace ();
        }
    }
}

Answer 1

You can do any UI related operations in doInBackGround, So move them in onPostExecute methnod.

Because doInBackGround is not a UI thread. Please read AsyncTask Document carefully. Whatever is the data you are returning from doInBackGround, it is being taken as input to onPostExecute.

So change your code as follows,

    private class AsyncCallWS extends AsyncTask<Void, Void, Void> {

    @Override
    protected void onPreExecute() {
        Log.i(TAG, "onPreExecute");
    }

    @Override
    protected String[] doInBackground(Void... params) {
        Log.i(TAG, "doInBackground");
        String[] data = sendRequest();
        return data;
    }

    @Override
    protected void onPostExecute(String[] result) {
        Log.i(TAG, "onPostExecute");
        if(result != null && result.length > 0){
             textResult.setText( results[0]);
        }
    }

}


private String[] sendRequest(){
    SoapObject request = new SoapObject(NAMESPACE, METHOD_NAME);


    //SoapObject
    request.addProperty("@CountryName", "SPAIN");
    SoapSerializationEnvelope envelope = new SoapSerializationEnvelope(SoapEnvelope.VER11);
    envelope.setOutputSoapObject(request);


    androidHttpTransport = new HttpTransportSE(URL);
    try
    {
        androidHttpTransport.call(SOAP_ACTION, envelope);
        resultsRequestSOAP =  envelope.getResponse();
        String[] results = (String[])  resultsRequestSOAP;
    }
    catch (Exception aE)
    {
        aE.printStackTrace ();
    }
}

Answer 2

Have you considered making the soap requests without use of libraries? I had the same problem earlier and it led me to discovering that libraries will make your work harder, especially when it comes to making changes in the structure of the request. This is how you make a soap request without use of libraries: First of all you will need to know how to make use of SOAP Ui which is a windows application. You can import your wsdl file here and if it's syntax us correct, then you will get a screen showing the request body for your webservice. You can enter test values and you will get a response structure. This link will guide you on how to use soap ui https://www.soapui.org/soap-and-wsdl/working-with-wsdls.html

Now on to the android code :

We will create a class named runTask which extends async task and use http to send the request body and get request response :

 private class runTask extends AsyncTask<String, String, String> {

        private String response;
        String string = "your string parameter"
        String SOAP_ACTION = "your soap action here";

        String stringUrl = "http://your_url_here";
        //if you experience a problem with url remove the '?wsdl' ending



        @Override
        protected String doInBackground(String... params) {

            try {

                        //paste your request structure here as the String body(copy it exactly as it is in soap ui)
                        //assuming that this is your request body


                String body = "<soap:Envelope xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">" +
                                "<soap:Body>"+
                                "<GetCitiesByCountryResponse xmlns="http://www.webserviceX.NET">"+
                                "<GetCitiesByCountryResult>"+string+"</GetCitiesByCountryResult>"+
                                "</GetCitiesByCountryResponse>"+
                                "</soap:Body>"+
                                "</soap:Envelope>";


                try {
                    URL url = new URL(stringUrl);
                    HttpURLConnection conn = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
                    conn.setRequestMethod("POST");
                    conn.setDoOutput(true);
                    conn.setDefaultUseCaches(false);
                    conn.setRequestProperty("Accept", "text/xml");
                    conn.setRequestProperty("SOAPAction", SOAP_ACTION);

                    //push the request to the server address

                    OutputStreamWriter wr = new OutputStreamWriter(conn.getOutputStream());
                    wr.write(body);
                    wr.flush();

                    //get the server response

                    BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(conn.getInputStream()));
                    StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
                    String line = null;

                    while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null) {


                        builder.append(line);
                        response = builder.toString();//this is the response, parse it in onPostExecute

                    }


                } catch (Exception e) {

                    e.printStackTrace();
                } finally {

                    try {

                        reader.close();
                    } catch (Exception e) {

                        e.printStackTrace();
                    }
                }


            } catch (Exception e) {

                e.printStackTrace();
            }

            return response;
        }

        /**
         * @see AsyncTask#onPostExecute(Object)
         */
        @Override
        protected void onPostExecute(String result) {



           try {

              Toast.makeText(this,"Response "+ result,Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();

            } catch (Exception e) {
                e.printStackTrace();
            }
        }

Now just execute the class and watch the magic happen:

runTask runner = new runTask();
runner.execute();

You can parse the response using a DOM or SAX parser to get desired values. Feel free to ask for further clarification.