Call a webservice from TSQL (Stored Procedure) using MSXML

by admin 22. December 2009 15:13

I am working on a n integration project that required me to call a webservice through a stored procedure in the SQL database. After proving my concept using the CLR integration features in Sql Server, I learned that the production database was actually running on Sql Server 2000 compatibility level. There went my proof of concept.

So now I have to resort to doing web service calls the old way, making post requests using MSXML. This is what my stored procedure looks like.

CREATE proc [dbo].[spHTTPRequest]

      @URI varchar(2000) = '',     

      @methodName varchar(50) = '',

      @requestBody varchar(8000) = '',

      @SoapAction varchar(255),

      @UserName nvarchar(100), -- Domain\UserName or UserName

      @Password nvarchar(100),

      @responseText varchar(8000) output

as

SET NOCOUNT ON

IF    @methodName = ''

BEGIN

      select FailPoint = 'Method Name must be set'

      return

END

set   @responseText = 'FAILED'

DECLARE @objectID int

DECLARE @hResult int

DECLARE @source varchar(255), @desc varchar(255)

EXEC @hResult = sp_OACreate 'MSXML2.ServerXMLHTTP', @objectID OUT

IF @hResult <> 0

BEGIN

      EXEC sp_OAGetErrorInfo @objectID, @source OUT, @desc OUT

      SELECT      hResult = convert(varbinary(4), @hResult),

                  source = @source,

                  description = @desc,

                  FailPoint = 'Create failed',

                  MedthodName = @methodName

      goto destroy

      return

END

-- open the destination URI with Specified method

EXEC @hResult = sp_OAMethod @objectID, 'open', null, @methodName, @URI, 'false', @UserName, @Password

IF @hResult <> 0

BEGIN

      EXEC sp_OAGetErrorInfo @objectID, @source OUT, @desc OUT

      SELECT      hResult = convert(varbinary(4), @hResult),

            source = @source,

            description = @desc,

            FailPoint = 'Open failed',

            MedthodName = @methodName

      goto destroy

      return

END

-- set request headers

EXEC @hResult = sp_OAMethod @objectID, 'setRequestHeader', null, 'Content-Type', 'text/xml;charset=UTF-8'

IF @hResult <> 0

BEGIN

      EXEC sp_OAGetErrorInfo @objectID, @source OUT, @desc OUT

      SELECT      hResult = convert(varbinary(4), @hResult),

            source = @source,

            description = @desc,

            FailPoint = 'SetRequestHeader failed',

            MedthodName = @methodName

      goto destroy

      return

END

-- set soap action

EXEC @hResult = sp_OAMethod @objectID, 'setRequestHeader', null, 'SOAPAction', @SoapAction

IF @hResult <> 0

BEGIN

      EXEC sp_OAGetErrorInfo @objectID, @source OUT, @desc OUT

      SELECT      hResult = convert(varbinary(4), @hResult),

            source = @source,

            description = @desc,

            FailPoint = 'SetRequestHeader failed',

            MedthodName = @methodName

      goto destroy

      return

END

declare @len int

set @len = len(@requestBody)

EXEC @hResult = sp_OAMethod @objectID, 'setRequestHeader', null, 'Content-Length', @len

IF @hResult <> 0

BEGIN

      EXEC sp_OAGetErrorInfo @objectID, @source OUT, @desc OUT

      SELECT      hResult = convert(varbinary(4), @hResult),

            source = @source,

            description = @desc,

            FailPoint = 'SetRequestHeader failed',

            MedthodName = @methodName

      goto destroy

      return

END

/*

-- if you have headers in a table called RequestHeader you can go through them with this

DECLARE @HeaderKey varchar(500), @HeaderValue varchar(500)

DECLARE RequestHeader CURSOR

LOCAL FAST_FORWARD

FOR

      SELECT      HeaderKey, HeaderValue

      FROM RequestHeaders

      WHERE       Method = @methodName

OPEN RequestHeader

FETCH NEXT FROM RequestHeader

INTO @HeaderKey, @HeaderValue

WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0

BEGIN

      --select @HeaderKey, @HeaderValue, @methodName

      EXEC @hResult = sp_OAMethod @objectID, 'setRequestHeader', null, @HeaderKey, @HeaderValue

      IF @hResult <> 0

      BEGIN

            EXEC sp_OAGetErrorInfo @objectID, @source OUT, @desc OUT

            SELECT      hResult = convert(varbinary(4), @hResult),

                  source = @source,

                  description = @desc,

                  FailPoint = 'SetRequestHeader failed',

                  MedthodName = @methodName

            goto destroy

            return

      END

      FETCH NEXT FROM RequestHeader

      INTO @HeaderKey, @HeaderValue

END

CLOSE RequestHeader

DEALLOCATE RequestHeader

*/

-- send the request

EXEC @hResult = sp_OAMethod @objectID, 'send', null, @requestBody

IF    @hResult <> 0

BEGIN

      EXEC sp_OAGetErrorInfo @objectID, @source OUT, @desc OUT

      SELECT      hResult = convert(varbinary(4), @hResult),

            source = @source,

            description = @desc,

            FailPoint = 'Send failed',

            MedthodName = @methodName

      goto destroy

      return

END

declare @statusText varchar(1000), @status varchar(1000)

-- Get status text

exec sp_OAGetProperty @objectID, 'StatusText', @statusText out

exec sp_OAGetProperty @objectID, 'Status', @status out

select @status, @statusText, @methodName

-- Get response text

exec sp_OAGetProperty @objectID, 'responseText', @responseText out

IF @hResult <> 0

BEGIN

      EXEC sp_OAGetErrorInfo @objectID, @source OUT, @desc OUT

      SELECT      hResult = convert(varbinary(4), @hResult),

            source = @source,

            description = @desc,

            FailPoint = 'ResponseText failed',

            MedthodName = @methodName

      goto destroy

      return

END

destroy:

      exec sp_OADestroy @objectID

SET NOCOUNT OFF

GO

The stored procedure takes the following parameters:

1.       @URI: the URI of the web service

2.       @MethodName: this would be ‘GET’ or ‘POST’

3.       @RequestBody: this is your SOAP xml that you want to send

4.       @SoapAction: this the operation that you want to call on your service

5.       @UserName: NT UserName if your web service requires authentication

6.       @Password: the password if using NT Authentication on the web service

7.       @ResponseText: this is an out parameter that contains the response from the web service

Here is a sample call to my service

declare @xmlOut varchar(8000)

Declare @RequestText as varchar(8000);

set @RequestText=

'<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:tem="http://tempuri.org/">

   <soapenv:Header/>

   <soapenv:Body>

      <tem:CreateOrder>

         <!--Optional:-->

         <tem:OrderRequest>

            <tem:OrderId>200</tem:OrderId>

            <!--Optional:-->

            <tem:OrderName>something</tem:OrderName>

         </tem:OrderRequest>

      </tem:CreateOrder>

   </soapenv:Body>

</soapenv:Envelope>'

exec spHTTPRequest

'http://localhost/testwebservices/helloworldservice.asmx',

'POST',

@RequestText,

'http://tempuri.org/CreateOrderForMe',

'', '', @xmlOut out

select @xmlOut

The stored procedure runs and selects the response from my service call which in my case is:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"><soap:Body><CreateOrderForMeResponse xmlns="http://tempuri.org/"><CreateOrderForMeResult><Message>Order Created for me</Message></CreateOrderForMeResult></CreateOrderForMeResponse></soap:Body></soap:Envelope>

Note that the stored procedure automatically adds the appropriate http headers for Content-Type, SoapAction and Content-Length. If you need to pass additional http headers with your request, refer the section in the center of the stored procedure which is commented out. Basically you need a table in your database called RequestHeaders with 3 columns; HeaderKey, HeaderValue, Method. Populate this table with the keys and values for the additional headers. The Method column will contain GET or POST depending on what method you are using.

Another thing to note here is that I tried the above calls with MSXML2.XMLHTTP and Microsoft.XMLHTTP but did not succeed with either. I kept getting an error from msxml3.dll or msxml6.dll with message "The parameter is incorrect". I believe this to be a bug with msxml that requires the request body text to be in a specific format that is not available through a sql data type and hence cannot be used via TSQL. THese will hoever work fine when performing a simple http request (non- SOAP) or a SOAP request that does not need a request body. for performing SOAP requests from within TSQL the only component that worked for me was MSXML2.ServerXMLHTTP. There are some third-party components that I came across, some paid, but MSXML2.ServerXMLHTTP worked just fine for me.

The next step is to actually take the SOAP response that I recieved and extract the appropriate data from it - that will be another post.

Tags: , , ,

.NET | C# | SQL | SQL Server Management Studio

Passing JavaScript Objects to the CLR

by admin 16. December 2009 13:19

Passing JavaScript Objects to the CLR

Asp.Net 3.5 makes it easy to pass JavaScript Objects to the CLR for AJAX calls. Here it is...

For this example, I created an ASP.Net Web Service Application which gave me a simple web service to start off with called Service1.asmx. The sample service has a single sample web method called HelloWorld() which just returns the text “Hello World”. For this example, since we want to pass something to the service method, I modify the service method a little bit so it looks like below:

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Linq;

using System.Web;

using System.Web.Services;

namespace JSAjaxTest

{

    /// <summary>

    /// Summary description for Service1

    /// </summary>

    [WebService(Namespace = "http://tempuri.org/")]

    [WebServiceBinding(ConformsTo = WsiProfiles.BasicProfile1_1)]

    [System.ComponentModel.ToolboxItem(false)]

    // To allow this Web Service to be called from script, using ASP.NET AJAX, uncomment the following line.

    [System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptService]

    public class Service1 : System.Web.Services.WebService

    {

        [WebMethod]

        public string HelloWorld(string text)

        {

            return text;

        }

    }

}

 Basically I just modified the method to accept a string and return that same string back.

Now add an application page to the project, default.aspx, which will contain the javascript that makes the AJAX call. The default.aspx page contains a script manager, a html button and a piece of javascript that gets called when the button is clicked to make the AJAX call. This is what the page looks like:

<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="default.aspx.cs" Inherits="JSAjaxTest._default" %>

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" >

<head runat="server">

    <title></title>

    <script type="text/javascript">

        function CallService() {

            JSAjaxTest.Service1.HelloWorld("Hello World", function(response) { alert(response); });

        }

    </script>

</head>

<body>

    <form id="form1" runat="server">

    <div>

        &nbsp;<asp:ScriptManager ID="ScriptManager1" runat="server">

            <Services>

                <asp:ServiceReference Path="/Service1.asmx" />

            </Services>

        </asp:ScriptManager>

        <input type="submit" value="hitme" onclick="javascript:CallService();" /></div>

    </form>

</body>

</html>

Looking at the javascript on the page, the call is really made here:

JSAjaxTest.Service1.HelloWorld("Hello World", function(response) { alert(response); });

The call to the webservice through javascript uses the script manager to make the call, pass in the javascript argument and specifies the inline call back function which gets called when the AJAX call is complete. The inline function simply has an alert statement that displays the response.

When you run the project, clicking on the button will pass the text, “Hello World” to the “HelloWorld()” method of the web service via AJAX. There is no postback.

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.NET | C#

ssms tools pack - Auto Generate CRUD stored Procedures for your database and more

by admin 2. June 2009 00:53

Just found a great tool that will hopefuly save me tons of work...

It can auto-generate the CRUD stored Procedures for your tables - that was the most useful to me. Plus there are a lot of other useful features for the IDE.

  • Window Connection Coloring.
  • Query Execution History (Soft Source Control) and Current Window History.
  • Search Table or Database Data.
  • Uppercase/Lowercase keywords and proper case Database Object Names.
  • Run one script on multiple databases.
  • Copy execution plan bitmaps to clipboard.
  • Search Results in Grid Mode and Execution Plans.
  • Generate Insert statements for a single table, the whole database or current resultsets in grids.
  • Text document Regions and Debug sections.
  • Running custom scripts from Object explorer's Context menu.
  • CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) stored procedure generation.
  • New query template.

http://www.ssmstoolspack.com/

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.NET | C# | SQL | SQL Server Management Studio

Another iPhone App - Guitar Chords on the iPhone - iChords - http://www.ichords.vishalseth.com

by admin 29. July 2008 08:47

Ok, I added another one. This one is a great app that allows you to find almost any guitar chords by name. Not only that, it allows for finding many variations of the same chord, left handed and right handed chords, different tuning scales etc. the url is http://www.iphone.vishalseth.com. I just submitted it on Apple's website and will post a link to the listing when it shows up.

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.NET | C# | iPhone | iPod

iPhone App - iNGPOD - National Geographic Magazine's photo of the day.

by admin 22. July 2008 00:24

This iPhone development thing is addictive. seriously. It's hard for me to have a little time on my hands and not want to write another fun app that shows up on my home screen. This one just pulls and displays the Photo of the day from National Geographic Magazine's website. It's something I have on my google home screen and just like to look at daily and thought it would be fun if I could have it on my phone as well. The url is http://www.iNGPOD.vishalseth.com. You can see it published in Apple's web application directory by clicking here 

 Update: The application is offline for now due to problems with making httprequests in my medium trust hosting environment.

Tags: , , , ,

.NET | C# | General | iPhone | iPod

Another new iPhone App - iSigns - Mobile Horoscopes from astrology.com

by admin 20. July 2008 23:18

I created a new app this weekend because I had a little bit of time. My wife likes to check her daily horoscope on astrology.com and I thought it would be cool if I could make an app that shows the daily horoscope. Whats even better is that they have daily horoscopes in many different categories like for example, general, health, couples, singles, home & garden, work and even a baby, dog and cat horoscope! Now I can just pull up the daily horosocopes anytime; kind of fun. I just submitted the app on apple's iPhone webapps directory so I'll post a link to the listing when it appears. Meanwhile, the link to the app, if you want it on your phone is, http://www.iSigns.vishalseth.com. For now its only customized to the apple mobile safari browser.

Update: See the application published in apple's web app directory by clicking here.

 

 Update: The application is offline for now due to problems with making httprequests in my medium trust hosting environment.

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C# | .NET | iPhone | C# | iPod | iPhone | iPod

Visual Studio 2008 Keyboard Shortcuts

by admin 10. July 2008 10:14

I love my favourite visual studio shortcuts while I'm coding. Today I was actually thinking just that and wondered how many shortcuts there actually are. I ran a macro to spit out the shortcuts into an html file and this is what I came up with: http://www.vishalseth.com/page/Visual-Studio-2008-Keyboard-Shortcuts.aspx.

I knew there were a lot but I did not know that there were that many!

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.NET | Visual Studio | C#