WSDL limitation

RE: WSDL limitation

David Jimenez — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 12:04:13 GMT

When using SOAP services the body of the request is an XML. You also have soap headers, but that is different. These are values that are informed in the header of the message and contains information about it , for example, the content type of the message..

I think that What Stephan suggests ,is to expose your service via web api accepting xml rather than json.

RE: WSDL limitation

JJ Cañas — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 11:12:30 GMT

When you say "implement a normal Web API that accepts XML", do you mean setting up a header in the Web API object as follows?

RE: WSDL limitation

David Jimenez — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 09:34:06 GMT

That means that if you have a SOAP service , and need to generate your datatypes from the schemas included in the WSDL, you will probably have problems with the generation (if uses union, choice or mixed contents in the wsdl, or if you have more than 3 levels of nested schemas)

Anyway, you may generate your request with no datatypes, but that means that you will have to generate your request by hand, and won't have the validation when sending the message (but wil be made in the server)

On the other hand, not many wsdls contain this structure, and you can always modify the schemas by hand

RE: WSDL limitation

Stefan Helzle — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 09:06:10 GMT

The SOAP support in Appian is very basic, while SOAP became a bloody mess of a standard over time.

As I try to avoid SOAP, I do not have any examples at hand, but I am sure the internet has all the info you are looking for.

RE: WSDL limitation

alejandrov0003 — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 09:01:43 GMT

Okay, so if we wanted to use the 'call web service' smart service to consume a SOAP service, we might have some problems.

Reading the smart service Appian documentation, I see the following limitation:

WSDLs that utilize data types containing the following XSD constructs return an error if you attempt to to configure specific operations that use them.

xsd:union
Choice Groups
Substitution Groups
Mixed Content

But I'm not sure if I understand what it refers to. I don't know if you could give me an example.

RE: WSDL limitation

David Jimenez — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 14:19:28 GMT

Could you explain a little bit more about what you want to achieve? Publishing a model as a SOAP web service is not a problem, because the generation of the wsdl is handled by appian.,

This is different if you want to consume SOAP Services (HTTP/SOAP or EMS/SOAP), because you are no the owner or generator of the wsdl , and that means that you don't have control over the schemas included... and that can be a problem.

RE: WSDL limitation

alejandrov0003 — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 13:43:39 GMT

I'll do that.

Thanks for your time!

RE: WSDL limitation

Stefan Helzle — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 12:03:21 GMT

Not sure about WSDL. In my experience everybody avoids using it. I consider this not be a hot topic in the future.

But, as WSDL is not specific to Appian, I suggest to check other resources.

RE: WSDL limitation

alejandrov0003 — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 11:17:41 GMT

Hi Stefan,

Yes, I know what you mean. My doubt is merely based on expanding knowledge in case I have to work with WSDL.

I wrote the post in case someone could resolve my doubt. When the time comes, I would implement a web API that invokes the process, as you well suggest.

Thank you!

RE: WSDL limitation

Stefan Helzle — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 11:05:38 GMT

Publishing model via SOAP is considered legacy, but still somewhat supported via the admin console. I recommend to not go that way.

Did you consider to implement a normal Web API that accepts XML instead of JSON?