How should WSDL be structured?

Question

As I am new to WSDL, WCF and SOAP, I have no real clue how I should structure the WSDL.

My problem right now is that when a user logs in using their username//password, the server should respond with data owned by the user. Lets say the data that wants to be sent back are:

• MatterID
• MatterTitle
• MatterText
• MatterDate

The problem is that each user can own more than 1 matter and my problem is that I have no idea how to parse more than the first Matter that the server send as response. My WSDL is structured something like this:

IN:

• username
• password

OUT:

• int MatterID
• str MatterTitle
• str MatterText
• int MatterDate

Am I doing it wrong? Should I respond with a list instead containing all the data? Or is there a way to loop through a response?

Answer 1

If you have an array of data to return, you better define a list in the WSDL (the types section) like so:

 <wsdl:types>
    <s:schema xmlns:s="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" targetNamespace="http://localhost/SampleService" elementFormDefault="unqualified" attributeFormDefault="unqualified">

        <s:complexType name="MatterItemType"> <!-- List Item -->
            <s:sequence>
                <s:element name="MatterID" type="s:integer" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1"/>
                <s:element name="MatterTitle" type="s:string" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1"/> 
                <s:element name="MatterText" type="s:string" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1"/>
                <s:element name="MatterDate" type="s:integer" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1"/>                      
            </s:sequence>
        </s:complexType>

        <s:complexType name="MatterListType"> <!-- List -->
            <s:sequence>
                <s:element name="MatterItem" type="tns:MatterItemType" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded"/>
            </s:sequence>
        </s:complexType>

        <!-- Request and Response -->

        <s:element name="SampleRequest">
                <s:complexType>
                <s:sequence>           
                    <s:element name="username" type="s:string" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1"/>
                    <s:element name="password" type="s:string" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1"/>                                
                </s:sequence>
            </s:complexType>
        </s:element>

        <s:element name="SampleResponse">
            <s:complexType>
                <s:sequence>                    
                    <s:element name="MatterList" type="tns:MatterListType" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1"/>            
                </s:sequence>
            </s:complexType>
        </s:element>    

    </s:schema>
</wsdl:types>   

The Response always contains a MatterList element which is of MatterListType. The MatterListType contains from 0 to N MatterItem items defined in the MatterItemType.

The response will be structured something like this (not including SOAP envelope, namespaces, etc, just for illustration of the structure):

<SampleResponse>
    <MatterList>
        <MatterItem>
            <MatterID>1</MatterID>
            <MatterTitle>Title1</MatterTitle>
            <MatterText>Text1</MatterText>
            <MatterDate>1</MatterDate>
        </MatterItem>
        <MatterItem>
            <MatterID>2</MatterID>
            <MatterTitle>Title2</MatterTitle>
            <MatterText>Text2</MatterText>
            <MatterDate>2</MatterDate>
        </MatterItem>
    </MatterList>
</SampleResponse>

Let me know if you need more help in the comments.