Zeep python SOAP client sending empty value in the argument

Question

There is an external SOAP server that I'm trying to connect and make requests using the python-django framework with the zeep library.

The WSDL dump is as follows:

Prefixes:
 xsd: http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema
 ns0: http://tempuri.org/

Global elements:
 ns0:GetJobCards(key: xsd:string, technicianID: xsd:string, jobCardNumber: xsd:string, jobcards: ns0:ArrayOfJobCardsEnt, message: xsd:string)
 ns0:GetJobCardsResponse(GetJobCardsResult: xsd:boolean, jobcards:ns0:ArrayOfJobCardsEnt, message: xsd:string)

Global types:
  xsd:anyType
  ns0:ArrayOfJobCardsEnt(JobCardsEnt: {schema: , _value_1: ANY}[])
  xsd:ID
  xsd:IDREF
  xsd:IDREFS
  xsd:NCName
  xsd:NMTOKEN
  xsd:NMTOKENS
  xsd:NOTATION
  xsd:Name
  xsd:QName
  xsd:anySimpleType
  xsd:anyURI
  xsd:base64Binary
  xsd:boolean
  xsd:byte
  xsd:date
  xsd:dateTime
  xsd:decimal
  xsd:double
  xsd:duration
  xsd:float
  xsd:gDay
  xsd:gMonth
  xsd:gMonthDay
  xsd:gYear
  xsd:gYearMonth
  xsd:hexBinary
  xsd:int
  xsd:integer
  xsd:language
  ....


  Bindings:
   Soap11Binding: {http://tempuri.org/}CallSoap
   Soap12Binding: {http://tempuri.org/}CallSoap12

  Service: Call
   Port: CallSoap (Soap11Binding: {http://tempuri.org/}CallSoap)
   Operations:
      GetJobCards(key: xsd:string, technicianID: xsd:string, 
      jobCardNumber: xsd:string, jobcards: ns0:ArrayOfJobCardsEnt, 
      message: xsd:string) -> GetJobCardsResult: xsd:boolean, 
      jobcards: ns0:ArrayOfJobCardsEnt, message: xsd:string

  ....(some other operations)

One of the calls is to get a list of jobCards with the following schema

<s:element name="GetJobCards">
 <s:complexType>
  <s:sequence>
   <s:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1" name="key" type="s:string"/>
   <s:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1" name="technicianID" type="s:string"/>
   <s:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1" name="jobCardNumber" type="s:string"/>
   <s:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1" name="jobcards" type="tns:ArrayOfJobCardsEnt"/>
   <s:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1" name="message" type="s:string"/>
  </s:sequence>
 </s:complexType>
</s:element>

<s:complexType name="ArrayOfJobCardsEnt">
 <s:sequence>
  <s:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded" name="JobCardsEnt" nillable="true">
   <s:complexType>
    <s:sequence>
     <s:element ref="s:schema"/>
     <s:any/>
    </s:sequence>
   </s:complexType>
  </s:element>
 </s:sequence>
</s:complexType>

When I make the call using Postman I send the following request and it works:

<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>
     <GetJobCards xmlns="http://tempuri.org/">
        <key>some_valid_key</key>
        <technicianID>some_technician_id</technicianID>
        <jobCardNumber></jobCardNumber>
        <jobcards></jobcards>
        <message>""</message>
    </GetJobCards>
</soap:Body>

Please note that the values for "jobCardNumber" and "jobcards" need to be empty to get all the jobCards. But I cannot seem to replicate this same call using the zeep library.

Here is what I have tried.

1 - tried adding xsd.SkipValue for the empty values

request_data = {
  'key': some_valid_key,
  'technicianID': some_technician_ID,
  'jobCardNumber': xsd.SkipValue,
  'jobcards': xsd.SkipValue,
  'message': ''
}
response_body = client.service.GetJobCards(**request_data)

2 - setting the values to Nil

from zeep.xsd import Nil

jobCardEnt = client.get_type('ns0:ArrayOfJobCardsEnt')
jobCardEnt = jobCardEnt()
request_data = {
  'key': some_valid_key,
  'technicianID': some_technician_ID,
  'jobCardNumber': Nil,
  'jobcards': Nil,
  'message': ''
}
response_body = client.service.GetJobCards(**request_data)

None of these seems to works and I'm not sure how to get it to work.

Can someone please guide me on this?

Thanks in advance!

Is there global type of "JobCardsEnt" similar to "ns0:ArrayOfJobCardsEnt(JobCardsEnt: {schema: , _value_1: ANY}[])"? — theone1one, Dec 09 '19 at 13:35
Also, do you list of technicianIDs? If you have, you have to loop over technicianIDs to get the list of jobCardEnt. — theone1one, Dec 09 '19 at 13:38
@theone1one So no there isnt any global type of "JobCardsEnt" . And no there arent any list of technicianIDs. So I dont understan why postman works fine when I set the `````` to be empty like that I get the results back from the server — Emad, Dec 09 '19 at 14:33
@theone1one this info might also help...there was another developer that developed the same system in c#/.net and he has a ```public class JobCardsEnt : IXmlSerializable``` with a bunch of attributes defined, and for this same call he just instantiates a list of ```JobCardsEnt``` like ```JobCardsCollection col = new JobCardsCollection()``` and he passes that same empty varaible ```col``` in the ```getJobCards``` call .... I hope I make sense — Emad, Dec 09 '19 at 14:38
@theone1one thaks for your help, I see you have answered questions on Zeep before and I would appreciate if you could help me cos Im a super noob in SOAP and zeep. I've been stuck on this for the past few days and driving me crazy :( — Emad, Dec 09 '19 at 14:40
You can get python requests code from postman and can check what is the difference between your request code and postman code. — Tamoor Salah-U-Din, Dec 10 '19 at 10:18

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 10 '19 at 10:23

1

Here is how I got it working

with self.client.settings(strict=False):
        response_body = self.client.service.GetJobCards(
            key=some_valid_key,
            technicianID=some_technician_id,
            message=''
        )

And omitted the values for 'jobCardNumber' and 'jobcards'

answered Dec 10 '19 at 10:23

Emad

346
1
6
17

What is strict=False? – theone1one Dec 10 '19 at 17:21
@theone1one strict – boolean to indicate if the lxml should be parsed a ‘strict’. If false then the recover mode is enabled which tries to parse invalid XML as best as it can. – Emad Dec 11 '19 at 08:56

Zeep python SOAP client sending empty value in the argument

1 - tried adding xsd.SkipValue for the empty values

2 - setting the values to Nil

1 Answers1