How to parse SOAP response using FLEX - web-services

Question

My Flex application properly call a web service but it does not populate the drop down box.
Based on my researches the problem is with the namespaces, but still not sure how to solve it.
Once I run the application the drop down box is empty.
My java code
package com.Services;
import com.classes.*;
import javax.jws.WebService;
import javax.jws.WebMethod;
import javax.jws.WebResult;
#WebService (name="Hellos",
targetNamespace="http://localhost:8081/Mywebservice2/services/Hellos")
public class Hellos {
#WebMethod
public #WebResult (name="customers",partName="customers") Customer[] mycustomers()
{
System.out.println("Retriving customers....");
Customer[] cus = new Customer[2];
cus[0] = new Customer("Jack", 28);
cus[1] = new Customer("Ben", 29);
return cus;
}
}
The network monitor feature of the flex application shows the response is as following
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: Apache-Coyote/1.1
Content-Type: text/xml;charset=utf-8
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2013 04:23:55 GMT
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<soapenv:Envelope
xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"
xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<soapenv:Body>
<mycustomersResponse xmlns="http://Services.com">
<mycustomersReturn>
<age>28</age>
<name>Jack</name>
</mycustomersReturn>
<mycustomersReturn>
<age>29</age>
<name>Ben</name>
</mycustomersReturn>
</mycustomersResponse>
</soapenv:Body>
</soapenv:Envelope>
my flex code is as following
<fx:Script>
<![CDATA[
import mx.controls.Alert;
import mx.events.FlexEvent;
protected function
dropDownList2_creationCompleteHandler(event:FlexEvent):void
{
mycustomersResult2.token = hellos.mycustomers();
}
]]>
</fx:Script>
<fx:Declarations>
<hellos:Hellos id="hellos" fault="Alert.show(event.fault.faultString + '\n'
+ event.fault.faultDetail)"
showBusyCursor="true"/>
<s:CallResponder id="mycustomersResult2"/>
</fx:Declarations>
<s:FormItem label="Label">
<s:DropDownList id="dropDownList2"
creationComplete="dropDownList2_creationCompleteHandler(event)"
labelField="age">
<s:AsyncListView list="{mycustomersResult2.lastResult}"/>
</s:DropDownList>
</s:FormItem>
When I change
<s:AsyncListView list="{mycustomersResult2.lastResult}"/>
to
<s:AsyncListView list="
{mycustomersResult2.lastResult.mycustomersResponse.mycustomersReturn}"/>
it gives the following error
Error: Unknown Property: 'mycustomersResponse'.
at mx.collections::ListCollectionView/http://www.adobe.com/2006/actionscript/flash/proxy::getProperty()[E:\dev\4.5.1\frameworks\projects\framework\src\mx\collections\ListCollectionView.as:870]
at mx.binding::PropertyWatcher/updateProperty()[E:\dev\4.5.1\frameworks\projects\framework\src\mx\binding\PropertyWatcher.as:338]
at Function/http://adobe.com/AS3/2006/builtin::apply()
at mx.binding::Watcher/wrapUpdate()[E:\dev\4.5.1\frameworks\projects\framework\src\mx\binding\Watcher.as:192]
at mx.binding::PropertyWatcher/updateParent()[E:\dev\4.5.1\frameworks\projects\framework\src\mx\binding\PropertyWatcher.as:239]
at mx.binding::Watcher/updateChildren()[E:\dev\4.5.1\frameworks\projects\framework\src\mx\binding\Watcher.as:138]
at mx.binding::PropertyWatcher/updateProperty()[E:\dev\4.5.1\frameworks\projects\framework\src\mx\binding\PropertyWatcher.as:347]
at Function/http://adobe.com/AS3/2006/builtin::apply()
at mx.binding::Watcher/wrapUpdate()[E:\dev\4.5.1\frameworks\projects\framework\src\mx\binding\Watcher.as:192]
at mx.binding::PropertyWatcher/eventHandler()[E:\dev\4.5.1\frameworks\projects\framework\src\mx\binding\PropertyWatcher.as:375]
at flash.events::EventDispatcher/dispatchEventFunction()
at flash.events::EventDispatcher/dispatchEvent()
at mx.rpc::CallResponder/set lastResult()
at mx.rpc::CallResponder/result()[E:\dev\4.5.1\frameworks\projects\rpc\src\mx\rpc\CallResponder.as:120]
at mx.rpc::AsyncToken/http://www.adobe.com/2006/flex/mx/internal::applyResult()[E:\dev\4.5.1\frameworks\projects\rpc\src\mx\rpc\AsyncToken.as:239]
at mx.rpc.events::ResultEvent/http://www.adobe.com/2006/flex/mx/internal::callTokenResponders()[E:\dev\4.5.1\frameworks\projects\rpc\src\mx\rpc\events\ResultEvent.as:207]
at mx.rpc::AbstractOperation/http://www.adobe.com/2006/flex/mx/internal::dispatchRpcEvent()[E:\dev\4.5.1\frameworks\projects\rpc\src\mx\rpc\AbstractOperation.as:244]
at mx.rpc::AbstractInvoker/http://www.adobe.com/2006/flex/mx/internal::resultHandler()[E:\dev\4.5.1\frameworks\projects\rpc\src\mx\rpc\AbstractInvoker.as:318]
at mx.rpc::Responder/result()[E:\dev\4.5.1\frameworks\projects\rpc\src\mx\rpc\Responder.as:56]
at mx.rpc::AsyncRequest/acknowledge()[E:\dev\4.5.1\frameworks\projects\rpc\src\mx\rpc\AsyncRequest.as:84]
at DirectHTTPMessageResponder/completeHandler()[E:\dev\4.5.1\frameworks\projects\rpc\src\mx\messaging\channels\DirectHTTPChannel.as:451]
at flash.events::EventDispatcher/dispatchEventFunction()
at flash.events::EventDispatcher/dispatchEvent()
at flash.net::URLLoader/onComplete()

Answer 1

It seems like problem with namespace for response xml format:
<mycustomersResponse xmlns="http://Services.com">
Just write anywhere in you code :
namespace ns = "http://Services.com";
use namespace ns;
I have written demo with given xml:
var xml:XML = <soapenv:Envelope
xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"
xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<soapenv:Body>
<mycustomersResponse xmlns="http://Services.com">
<mycustomersReturn>
<age>28</age>
<name>Jack</name>
</mycustomersReturn>
<mycustomersReturn>
<age>29</age>
<name>Ben</name>
</mycustomersReturn>
</mycustomersResponse>
</soapenv:Body>
</soapenv:Envelope>
namespace ns = "http://Services.com";
use namespace ns;
namespace ns_soapenv = "http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/";
use namespace ns_soapenv;
trace(xml.Body.mycustomersResponse.mycustomersReturn.length()); //output 2
It is parsed good. Hope it would helpful.

Answer 2

You don't have to parse it, the WebService class does it for you.
<s:WebService result=" soapResultHandler(event) ">
<!-- do stuff here -->
</s:WebService>
<fx:Script>
<![CDATA[
private function soapResultHandler( e:ResultEvent ):void {
//do stuff to e.result in here
}
]]>
</fx:Script>
The ResultEvent.result object is the XML automatically parsed into a single dynamic Object. You can easily loop through that to get whatever details you need. It is worth noting that if a single level of the XML document has multiple instances of the same tag name, there will be an ArrayCollection (not Array, mind) rather than a series of those objects.
See the ResultEvent#result LiveDocs