SOAP Client and Debugger

Execute and Debug SOAP Transactions

  • Support for SOAP 1.1 and 1.2
  • SOAP client and WSDL client interface
  • SOAP debugger for inspecting Web services interactions
  • SOAP validation
  • WS-Security and HTTPS security options
  • Graphical WSDL editor

SOAP Client

Executing a SOAP transaction with XMLSpy

XMLSpy includes full SOAP 1.2 and 1.1 capabilities including a SOAP client for interpreting WSDL documents, creating SOAP requests, submitting them to a Web service, and viewing the SOAP response.

You can open any existing WSDL 1.1/2.0 document and immediately learn about the functions the corresponding Web service provides. Then, you can select one of these functions to automatically create a SOAP request message, fill in the data, and send it to the Web service via HTTP or HTTPS.

The SOAP response message is received and displayed. This feature includes complete support for highly structured data (e.g., using complexTypes as parameters or in the result set).

SOAP Debugger

The XMLSpy SOAP debugger acts as a Web services proxy between a Web services client and server, allowing you to inspect WSDL 1.1/2.0 files, single-step through Web services transactions sent over HTTP or HTTPS, inspect every request and response XML document, set breakpoints on SOAP functions (either on the request or on the response), and even define conditional breakpoints that trigger when a certain request or response contains selected data that is specified by means of an XPath query.

In this way, the SOAP debugger helps you identify and fix errors quickly and easily.

Web Services Example

The XMLSpy Help file includes information about a sample Web service you can connect to, to experiment with the SOAP client and SOAP debugger functionality.

SOAP Security Options

To help address the need for end-to-end security of Web services transactions, XMLSpy supports authentication based on the WS-Security (Web Services Security) standard via client certificates, and calling Web services via HTTPS.

Published by OASIS, Web Services Security is an extension to the SOAP protocol designed to add security functions such as authentication to SOAP messages themselves for end-to-end security of complex Web services transactions. These measures add to those provided on the transport layer by HTTP security.

SOAP security options are configured in the SOAP Request Settings Dialog, which is accessed via the SOAP menu, allowing you to enable and edit HTTP security settings and WS-Security settings. Security settings may also be specified for the SOAP debugger.

Configuring SOAP security options in XMLSpy