representing null values in SOAP web services

[manish ahuja]

Hi All,

I am currently in the process of creating a web service client. For all optional data elements if we don't have values available we don't pass that element in the SOAP request payload and things work fine but for some specific use cases which we cannot control these elements are being passed something like this

<elementName xsi:type="xsd:string" xs:type="type:string"></elementName>

which causes the web service to fail. In general what is the correct way to handle this. should we not be passing the elements in the absence of values or should we pass empty elements
(

<elementName/>

).
In the latter two I believe the value the Web service receives is blank ("") hence causes it to fail.

Should the web service be handling blank strings or not passing the element at all is the right way to represent null values.

Let me know your thoughts


Thanks,

[Jim Akmer]

Why is the type of the element

xsi:type="xsd:string" xs:type="type:string"

encapsulated in the tag send to client?
Are you using RPC encoding?

[manish ahuja]

yes Jim. The web services we are trying to communicate with were created years back and they were generated using RPC based java web service standards.
These web services were created using the bottom-up approach.

My question is more generic is should i not pass the soap request elements at all if there are no values or should I resort to empty elements. What is the right way to deal with missing values in the SOAP based webservices world.


Thanks

[Dan Drillich]

How do you set a null value via (SOAP) Web Services? might help.

Regards,
Dan

[Ivan Krizsan]

Hi!
Another link to an article: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/ws-tip-null.html
Best wishes!