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RLS
RLS
Inspiring
July 24, 2010
Question

Consuming Exigo Webservices

  • July 24, 2010
  • 1 reply
  • 1586 views

I am working with a company named Exigo. They have posted their webservices API publicly at http://api.exigo.com/3.0/ since you need proper  credentials (which I have, of course) in order to actually use it.

If you go there, let's say to the GetCustomers area (http://api.exigo.com/3.0/ExigoApi.asmx?op=GetCustomers) you will see that they give multiple methods for using their web services.  I know that my credentials and test works because I can manually do their CSV method.

I cannot get ColdFusion to work with a CFINVOKE command, however:

<CFINVOKE webservice="http://api.exigo.com/3.0/ExigoApi.asmx?WSDL" username="yourLoginName" password="yourPassword"

company="yourCompany" method="GetCustomers" CustomerID="123" returnvariable="adzCustInfo" />

I get the message "Web service operation GetCustomers with parameters  {COMPANY={yourCompany},CUSTOMERID={123}} cannot be found." even though I have tested and know that it does exist (of course I am using real values, not the example ones shown here).

Now, the main IT guy told me that I need to reference this:

//Create Main API Context Object

    ExigoApi api = new ExigoApi();

    //Create Authentication Header

    ApiAuthentication auth = new ApiAuthentication();

    auth.setLoginName("yourLoginName");

    auth.setPassword("yourPassword");

    auth.setCompany("yourCompany");

    api.setApiAuthenticationValue(auth);

every time I call their service.

How do I do this?  How do I get the credentials so that I can call the service?  It seems to me the "new ExigoApi()" is going to be looking for a local reference, but this system is located on a remote server, so I'm not sure how to do that.

Any help would be most appreciated.

Thank youi!

RLS

Message was edited by: RLS

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

J
JR__Bob__Dobbs
Inspiring
July 24, 2010

Disclaimer:  I haven't need to use SOAP header for web services in a production system, but I'm interested in how you deal with this problem as I may be facing a similar situation in the future.  Please post any follow up questions or solutions to the forum.

In regards to: It seems to me the "new ExigoApi()" is going to be looking for a local reference, but this system is located on a remote server, so I'm not sure how to do that.

The new ExigoApi() is a reference to a local object that acts a proxy for invoking the web service.  Whe you reference a web service in ColdFusion, Java classes are automatically created to act as a proxy.  The code sample you were given is probably for the Java that would work with proxy objects.


Things to try, I've included some links you *might* find useful.

1. Remove the username and password from your CFINVOKE tag.  Those attributes are only relavent to services secured with basic authentication.

2. To set a SOAP header value use the AddSOAPRequestHeader function.  I expect this is how the username and password is handled by the service.

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/ColdFusion/9.0/CFMLRef/WSc3ff6d0ea77859461172e0811cbec22c24-6c84.html

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/168798/how-do-i-create-a-cold-fusion-web-service-client-that-uses-ws-security

http://www.coldfusionjedi.com/index.cfm/2009/6/4/Working-with-XML-in-ColdFusion--Struct-versus-XML-functions

3. It may be useful to use Java to invoke the service or look at the Java proxies to see what objects the service requires.
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/039/eaf0396.html

RLS
RLSAuthor
Inspiring
July 24, 2010

Thank you for your comments and suggestions.

What did it for me was applying the principles presented in a nice, simple blog by Ben Nadel.

http://www.bennadel.com/blog/1809-Making-SOAP-Web-Service-Requests-With-ColdFusion-And-CFHTTP.htm

RLS

I
insuractive
Inspiring
July 26, 2010

One of the solutions we've encountered is to use XML/XMLParse to fake the authorization header entity and adding it to the web service call using the addSOAPRequestHeader() method:

Say, for instance, you were trying to parse a web service that required an authorization header.  Assume that the documentation for the method you are ineterested in looks something like this:

<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:Header>
    <AuthenticationHeader xmlns="http://www.some_namespace.com/">
      <UserName>string</UserName>
      <Password>string</Password>
    </AuthenticationHeader>
  </soap:Header>
  <soap:Body>
    <HelloWorld xmlns="http://www.some_namespace.com/">
      <Foo>string</Foo>
    </HelloWorld>
  </soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>

You can consume this web service by doing the following:

1) Build the AuthenticationHeader XML string:

<cfsavecontent variable="sAuthHeaderXML">
   <AuthenticationHeader xmlns=http://www.some_namespace.com/>
        <UserName>my_username</UserName>
        <Password>my_password</Password>
      </AuthenticationHeader>
  </cfsavecontent>

2) Parse the XML into a CF object:

<cfset objAuthHeader = xmlParse(sAuthHeaderXML)>

3) Instantiate your web service object:

   // Create web service object
   objWS = CreateObject("webservice", "http://www,some_namespace.com/wsTest.asmx?WSDL");

4) Add your authentication object to your web service request header


   // Add authentication header to web service call
   addSOAPRequestHeader(objWS, "http://www,some_namespace.com", "AuthenticationHeader", objAuthHeader);

5) Call your remote web service method:

sResponse = objWS.HelloWorld("test");

Be sure to use the correct namespace when generating web service content (especially when dealing with web services built in .NET)

Anyway, it sounds like you've already come up with a good solution for this.  I just thought I would add this into the thread in case someone else comes across it later on.

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