constructing request data for SOAP endpoint without WSDL - soap

Question

The endpoint URL looks like this (not an actual url)
https://webservices.abcde.com/ThirdParty/PostData.V55.ashx/ProcessRequest
It does not have a WSDL, and in the documentation, there's a sample request XML.
It's huge. I am adding the first couple lines from it below.
<MESSAGE xmlns:agentnet="http://services.abcde.com/entity/agentnet/v2.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns="http://www.mismo.org/residential/2009/schemas/v32">
<ABOUT_VERSIONS>
<ABOUT_VERSION>
<AboutVersionIdentifier>ClientSystem</AboutVersionIdentifier>
<DataVersionIdentifier>1.0</DataVersionIdentifier>
<DataVersionName>ASDFSFD</DataVersionName>
</ABOUT_VERSION>
</ABOUT_VERSIONS>
<DEAL_SETS>
<DEAL_SET>
<DEALS>
<DEAL>
<PARTIES/>
<SERVICES>
<SERVICE>
<SERVICE_PRODUCT>
<SERVICE_PRODUCT_REQUEST>
<EXTENSION>
<OTHER>
<agentnet:AGENTNET_PRODUCT_REQUEST>
<agentnet:AgentNetServiceType>GET_DATA</agentnet:AgentNetServiceType>
<agentnet:AGENTNET_GET_DATA>
<agentnet:GetRequestType>ACCOUNTS</agentnet:GetRequestType>
</agentnet:AGENTNET_GET_DATA>
</agentnet:AGENTNET_PRODUCT_REQUEST>
...
...
...
...
... (the XML is huge)
With other endpoints, I was able to use a SOAP library like savon to generate the XML payload using a small Ruby Hash(dictionary).
I assume that was possible because those were WSDLs?
Would it be possible to generate the payload the same way by passing only some essential data (for example, GET_DATA and ACCOUNTS in the example), or should I manually construct the XML payload strings manually (maybe using some XML library)?
I really want to avoid manually constructing XML payloads since the code will not be readable and will be hard to work with in general. Is there a way to avoid it?

Answer 1

You can definitively create a Savon client without using the WSDL. I personally like this better because I believe it's more performant.
You have to define endpoint and namespacewhen you create your client, like this fictitious example:
require 'savon'
c = Savon.client(endpoint: "http://www.example.com",
namespace: "urn:ns.example.com",
log: true,
log_level: :debug,
pretty_print_xml: true)
r = c.call(:call,
:message => {
:InquiryParam => [
{"crmParam" => 123,
:attributes! => { "crmParam" => { "name" => "AccountNumber" }}},
{"crmParam" => 456,
:attributes! => { "crmParam" => { "name" => "history" }}}
]
}
)