axl-node-soap

Soap

A SOAP client and server for node.js.

This module lets you connect to web services using SOAP. It also provides a server that allows you to run your own SOAP services.

Features:

• Very simple API
• Handles both RPC and Document schema types
• Supports multiRef SOAP messages (thanks to @kaven276)
• Support for both synchronous and asynchronous method handlers
• WS-Security (currently only UsernameToken and PasswordText encoding is supported)

Install

Install with npm:

  npm install soap

Module

soap.createClient(url[, options], callback) - create a new SOAP client from a WSDL url. Also supports a local filesystem path.

  var soap = require('soap');
  var url = 'http://example.com/wsdl?wsdl';
  var args = {name: 'value'};
  soap.createClient(url, function(err, client) {
      client.MyFunction(args, function(err, result) {
          console.log(result);
      });
  });

Within the options object you may provide an endpoint property in case you want to override the SOAP service's host specified in the .wsdl file.

soap.listen(server, path, services, wsdl) - create a new SOAP server that listens on path and provides services.

wsdl is an xml string that defines the service.

  var myService = {
      MyService: {
          MyPort: {
              MyFunction: function(args) {
                  return {
                      name: args.name
                  };
              }
 
              // This is how to define an asynchronous function.
              MyAsyncFunction: function(args, callback) {
                  // do some work
                  callback({
                      name: args.name
                  })
              }
          }
      }
  }
 
  var xml = require('fs').readFileSync('myservice.wsdl', 'utf8'),
      server = http.createServer(function(request,response) {
          response.end("404: Not Found: "+request.url)
      });
 
  server.listen(8000);
  soap.listen(server, '/wsdl', myService, xml);

server logging

If the log method is defined it will be called with 'received' and 'replied' along with data.

  server = soap.listen(...)
  server.log = function(type, data) {
    // type is 'received' or 'replied'
  };

server security example using PasswordDigest

If server.authenticate is not defined no authentation will take place.

  server = soap.listen(...)
  server.authenticate = function(security) {
    var created, nonce, password, user, token;
    token = security.UsernameToken, user = token.Username,
            password = token.Password, nonce = token.Nonce, created = token.Created;
    return user === 'user' && password === soap.passwordDigest(nonce, created, 'password');
  };

server connection authorization

This is called prior to soap service method If the method is defined and returns false the incoming connection is terminated.

  server = soap.listen(...)
  server.authorizeConnection = function(req) {
    return true; // or false
  };

Client

An instance of Client is passed to the soap.createClient callback. It is used to execute methods on the soap service.

Client.describe() - description of services, ports and methods as a JavaScript object

  client.describe() // returns
    {
      MyService: {
        MyPort: {
          MyFunction: {
            input: {
              name: 'string'
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }

Client.setSecurity(security) - use the specified security protocol

node-soap has several default security protocols. You can easily add your own as well. The interface is quite simple. Each protocol defines 2 methods:

• addOptions - a method that accepts an options arg that is eventually passed directly to request
• toXML - a method that reurns a string of XML.

By default there are 3 protocols:

BasicAuthSecurity

  client.setSecurity(new soap.BasicAuthSecurity('username', 'password'));

ClientSSLSecurity

Note: If you run into issues using this protocol, consider passing these options as default request options to the constructor:

• rejectUnauthorized: false
• strictSSL: false
• secureOptions: constants.SSL_OP_NO_TLSv1_2//this is likely needed for node >= 10.0

  client.setSecurity(new soap.ClientSSLSecurity(
    '/path/to/key'
    , '/path/to/cert'
    , {/*default request options*/}
  ));

WSSecurity

  client.setSecurity(new soap.WSSecurity('username', 'password'))

BearerSecurity

  client.setSecurity(new soap.BearerSecurity('token'));

Client.method(args, callback) - call method on the SOAP service.

  client.MyFunction({name: 'value'}, function(err, result) {
      // result is a javascript object
  })

Client.service.port.method(args, callback[, options]) - call a method using a specific service and port

  client.MyService.MyPort.MyFunction({name: 'value'}, function(err, result) {
      // result is a javascript object
  })

+#### Options (optional)

• Accepts any option that the request module accepts, see here.
• For example, you could set a timeout of 5 seconds on the request like this:

  client.MyService.MyPort.MyFunction({name: 'value'}, function(err, result) {
      // result is a javascript object
  }, {timeout: 5000})

Client.addSoapHeader(soapHeader[, name, namespace, xmlns]) - add soapHeader to soap:Header node

Options

• soapHeader Object({rootName: {name: "value"}}) or strict xml-string

Optional parameters when first arg is object :

• name Unknown parameter (it could just a empty string)
• namespace prefix of xml namespace
• xmlns URI

Client.lastRequest - the property that contains last full soap request for client logging

WSSecurity

WSSecurity implements WS-Security. UsernameToken and PasswordText/PasswordDigest is supported. An instance of WSSecurity is passed to Client.setSecurity.

  new WSSecurity(username, password, passwordType)
    //'PasswordDigest' or 'PasswordText' default is PasswordText

Handling XML Attributes and Value (wsdlOptions).

Sometimes it is necessary to override the default behaviour of node-soap in order to deal with the special requirements of your code base or a third library you use. Therefore you can use the wsdlOptions Object, which is passed in the #createClient() method and could have any (or all) of the following contents:

var wsdlOptions = {
  attributesKey: 'theAttrs',
  valueKey: 'theVal'
}

If nothing (or an empty Object {}) is passed to the #createClient() method, the node-soap defaults (attributesKey: 'attributes' and valueKey: '$value') are used.

Overriding the value key

By default, node-soap uses $value as key for any parsed XML value which may interfere with your other code as it could be some reserved word, or the $ in general cannot be used for a key to start with.

You can define your own valueKey by passing it in the wsdl_options to the createClient call like so:

var wsdlOptions = {
  valueKey: 'theVal'
};
 
soap.createClient(__dirname + '/wsdl/default_namespace.wsdl', wsdlOptions, function (err, client) {
  // your code
});

Overriding the attributes key

You can achieve attributes like:

<parentnode>
  <childnode name="childsname">
  </childnode>
</parentnode>

By attaching an attributes object to a node.

{
  parentnode: {
    childnode: {
      attributes: {
        name: 'childsname'
      }
    }
  }
}

However, "attributes" may be a reserved key for some systems that actually want a node

<attributes>
</attributes>

In this case you can configure the attributes key in the wsdlOptions like so.

var wsdlOptions = {
  attributesKey: '$attributes'
};
 
soap.createClient(__dirname + '/wsdl/default_namespace.wsdl', wsdlOptions, function (err, client) {
  client.*method*({
    parentnode: {
      childnode: {
        $attributes: {
          name: 'childsname'
        }
      }
    }
  });
});

Handling "ignored" namespaces

If an Element in a schema definition depends on an Element which is present in the same namespace, normally the tns: namespace prefix is used to identify this Element. This is not much of a problem as long as you have just one schema defined (inline or in a separate file). If there are more schema files, the tns: in the generated soap file resolved mostly to the parent wsdl file, which was obviously wrong.

node-soap now handles namespace prefixes which shouldn't be resolved (because it's not necessary) as so called ignoredNamespaces which default to an Array of 3 Strings (['tns', 'targetNamespace', 'typedNamespace']).

If this is not sufficient for your purpose you can easily add more namespace prefixes to this Array, or override it in its entirety by passing an ignoredNamespaces object within the options you pass in soap.createClient() method.

A simple ignoredNamespaces object, which only adds certain namespaces could look like this:

var options = {
  ignoredNamespaces: {
    namespaces: ['namespaceToIgnore', 'someOtherNamespace']
  }
}

This would extend the ignoredNamespaces of the WSDL processor to ['tns', 'targetNamespace', 'typedNamespace', 'namespaceToIgnore', 'someOtherNamespace'].

If you want to override the default ignored namespaces you would simply pass the following ignoredNamespaces object within the options:

var options = {
    ignoredNamespaces: {
      namespaces: ['namespaceToIgnore', 'someOtherNamespace'],
      override: true
    }
  }

This would override the default ignoredNamespaces of the WSDL processor to ['namespaceToIgnore', 'someOtherNamespace']. (This shouldn't be necessary, anyways).

Contributors

• Author: Vinay Pulim
• Lead Maintainer: Joe Spencer
• All Contributors