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17.2. WSDL

The Web Services Description Language (WSDL) is a standard, structured way of describing SOAP messages and Web services. It is an XML format for describing the network services offered by a service provider. The provider will publish a WSDL file that contains details about the services provided, and the set of operations within each service that the provider supports. For each of the operations, the WSDL file also describes the format that the client must follow in requesting an operation.

Since the WSDL file sets up requirements for both the provider and service requester, this file is like a contract between the two. The provider agrees to provide certain services if the client sends a properly formatted SOAP request. Suppose that we have a WSDL file defining a service called StockQuoteService. This service describes operations such as getTradePrice, getLowestTradePrice, and getHighestTradePrice. You place this WSDL file on the service provider server. A client who wishes to send a SOAP request to this server must first obtain a copy of the WSDL file from the provider, and then use it to format a suitable SOAP request. The client sends this request to the provider. The provider executes the requested operation and sends the results back to the client requester as a SOAP response.

[Tip] See Also:

The specification of WSDL and its file structures can be found on the W3C site .

17.2.1. Exposing Stored Procedures as WSDL Services

Virtuoso can be both a provider and a client of WSDL. In this section we will explain how to use Virtuoso to expose procedures as SOAP messages, and then publish them as WSDL consumables.

In the descriptions below, lines preceded by

SQL>

denote that the command is intended to be issued using the ISQL command line interface to Virtuoso.

Virtuoso procedures can easily be published as WSDL consumables. We follow the same steps as we would take to create SOAP objects and then for every SOAP object Virtuoso automatically generates a WSDL file entry. The default Virtuoso has the user SOAP and reserved HTTP path of /SOAP/ . All procedures that are created in the default qualifier namespace of the SOAP user (WS.SOAP) and have had a 'grant execute to SOAP' permissions established in the database are available to SOAP and thus are automatically available to WSDL. In Virtuoso this is done by requesting the file services.wsdl from the server via HTTP from the /SOAP/ path:

http://[host:port]/SOAP/services.wsdl

. WSDL files such as this are often referred to as "endpoints" for services.

Virtual directories increase our flexibility by allowing us to map logical HTTP paths to the location /SOAP/ . This means that we can separate WSDL/SOAP functionality, making groups of services available under different locations. We will now demonstrate this:

  1. First, create a new user in the database for creating the stored procedures as SOAP messages:

    SQL>CREATE USER SOAPDEMO;
    
  2. Now, set the default catalogue/qualifier for the new user to the WS catalogue where we will create procedures to be used as SOAP objects:

    SQL>USER_SET_QUALIFIER ('SOAPDEMO', 'WS');
    
  3. Now create a new virtual host definition, using the vhost_define() , so that we can find our SOAP objects later at a desired location.

    SQL>VHOST_DEFINE (vhost=>'*ini*',lhost=>'*ini*',lpath=>'/services',ppath=>'/SOAP/',soap_user=>'SOAPDEMO');
    

    If the mapping already exists, producing an error in the call above, and is not being used, then you can remove it using the command:

    SQL>VHOST_REMOVE (vhost=>'*ini*',lhost=>'*ini*',lpath=>'/services')
    
    [Note] Note:

    *ini* is a special indicator telling Virtuoso to take the default values from its initialization file.

  4. Now create a simple SOAPTEST procedure and grant the appropriate privileges to the SOAPDEMO user:

    SQL> create procedure
      WS.SOAPDEMO.SOAPTEST (in par varchar)
    {
      return (upper(par));
    };
    
    SQL> grant execute on WS.SOAPDEMO.SOAPTEST to SOAPDEMO;
    
  5. Now test this new SOAP object's availability by using soap_client() . This function would normally return a vector representation of the SOAP object but since we know the dimensions of the object ahead of time we can pin-point the entry using the aref() function as follows:

    SQL> select aref(aref(
    	soap_client (url=>sprintf ('http://localhost:%s/services', server_http_port ()),
    	operation=>'SOAPTEST', parameters=>vector('par', 'demotext')), 1), 1);
    callret
    VARCHAR
    _______
    
    DEMOTEXT
    
    

    The actual SOAP object looks more like:

    (("SOAPTESTResponse" ) (("CallReturn" ) "DEMOTEXT" ) )
    

    which was generated in a Virtuoso server log for debugging purposes using the dbg_obj_print() function.

  6. Procedures that exist under the WS.SOAPDEMO namespace and have been granted execution to the new SOAPDEMO user are now available as SOAP services and described by WSDL in this example, Virtuoso would publish them from the URL:

    http://example.com/services/services.wsdl
    

    which will yield the following WSDL description:

    <?xml version='1.0'?>
    <definitions
     targetNamespace='services.wsdl'
     xmlns:xsd='http://www.w3.org/1999/XMLSchema'
     xmlns:soap='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/soap/'
     xmlns:tns ='services.wsdl'
     xmlns ='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/'
     name='VirtuosoSOAP'>
    	<message name='SOAPTEST'>
    		<part name='par' type='xsd:string'/>
    	</message>
    	<message name='SOAPTESTResponse'>
    		<part name='CallReturn' type='xsd:string'/>
    	</message>
    	<portType name='SOAPPortType'>
    		<operation name='SOAPTEST'>
    			<input message='tns:SOAPTEST' name='SOAPTEST'/>
    			<output message='tns:SOAPTESTResponse' name='SOAPTESTResponse'/>
    		</operation>
    	</portType>
    	<binding name='SOAPBinding' type='tns:SOAPPortType'>
    		<soap:binding style='rpc' transport='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/http'/>
    		<operation name='SOAPTEST'>
    			<soap:operation soapAction='urn:openlinksw.com:virtuoso_soap_schema#SOAPTEST'/>
    			<input>
    				<soap:body use='encoded' namespace='urn:openlinksw.com:virtuoso_soap_schema' encodingStyle='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/' />
    			</input>
    			<output>
    				<soap:body use='encoded' namespace='urn:openlinksw.com:virtuoso_soap_schema' encodingStyle='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/' />
    			</output>
    		</operation>
    	</binding>
    	<service name='SOAPService'>
    		<port name='SOAPPort' binding='tns:SOAPBinding'>
    			<soap:address location='http://example.com/services'/>
    		</port>
    	</service>
    </definitions>
    
    [Tip] See Also:

    The Testing Web Services (VSMX) section describes Virtuoso's ability to also automatically generate a test page for your SOAP services, simply by replacing services.wsdl with services.vsmx in the URL.