http://www.genivia.com/doc/databinding/html/index.html
Introduction
This is a detailed overview of the gSOAP XML data bindings concepts, usage, and implementation. At the end of this document two examples are given to illustrate the application of XML data bindings.
The first simple example address.cpp
shows how to use wsdl2h to bind an XML schema to C++. The C++ application reads and writes an XML file into and from a C++ "address book" data structure. The C++ data structure is an STL vector of address objects.
The second example graph.cpp
shows how XML is serialized as a tree, digraph, and cyclic graph. The digraph and cyclic graph serialization rules are similar to SOAP 1.1/1.2 encoded multi-ref elements with id-ref attributes to link elements through IDREF XML references, creating a an XML graph with pointers to XML nodes.
These examples demonstrate XML data bindings only for relatively simple data structures and types. The gSOAP tools support more than just these type of structures to serialize in XML. There are practically no limits to enable XML serialization of C and C++ types.
Support for XML schema components is unlimited. The wsdl2h tool maps schemas to C and C++ using built-in intuitive mapping rules, while allowing the mappings to be customized using a typemap.dat
file with mapping instructions for wsdl2h.
The information in this document is applicable to gSOAP 2.8.26 and higher, which supports C++11 features. However, C++11 is not required to use this material and the examples included, unless we need smart pointers and scoped enumerations. While most of the examples in this document are given in C++, the concepts also apply to C with the exception of containers, smart pointers, classes and their methods. None of these exceptions limit the use of the gSOAP tools for C in any way.
The data binding concepts described in this document were first envisioned in 1999 by Prof. Robert van Engelen at the Florida State University. An implementation was created in 2000, named "stub/skeleton compiler". The first articles on its successor version "gSOAP" appeared in 2002. The principle of mapping XSD components to C/C++ types and vice versa is now widely adopted in systems and programming languages, including Java web services and by C# WCF.
We continue to be committed to our goal to empower C/C++ developers with powerful autocoding tools for XML. Our commitment started in the very early days of SOAP by actively participating in SOAP interoperability testing, participating in the development and testing of the W3C XML Schema Patterns for Databinding Interoperability, and continues by contributing to the development of OASIS open standards in partnership with leading IT companies.
Mapping WSDL and XML schemas to C/C++
To convert WSDL and XML schemas (XSD files) to code, use the wsdl2h command to generate the data binding interface code that is saved to a special gSOAP header file with WSDL service declarations and the data binding interface:
wsdl2h [options] -o file.h ... XSD and WSDL files ...
This command converts WSDL and XSD files to C++ (or pure C with wsdl2h option -c
) and saves the data binding interface to a gSOAP header file file.h
that uses familiar C/C++ syntax extended with //gsoap
directives and annotations. Notational conventions are used in the data binding interface to declare serializable C/C++ types and functions for Web service operations.
The WSDL 1.1/2.0, SOAP 1.1/1.2, and XSD 1.0/1.1 standards are supported by the gSOAP tools. In addition, the most popular WS specifications are also supported, including WS-Addressing, WS-ReliableMessaging, WS-Discovery, WS-Security, WS-Policy, WS-SecurityPolicy, and WS-SecureConversation.
This document focusses on XML data bindings. XML data bindings for C/C++ bind XML schema types to C/C++ types. So integers in XML are bound to C integers, strings in XML are bound to C or C++ strings, complex types in XML are bound to C structs or C++ classes, and so on.
A data binding is dual. Either you start with WSDLs and/or XML schemas that are mapped to equivalent C/C++ types, or you start with C/C++ types that are mapped to XSD types. Either way, the end result is that you can serialize C/C++ types in XML such that your XML is an instance of XML schema(s) and is validated against these schema(s).
This covers all of the following standard XSD components with their optional attributes and properties:
XSD Component | Attributes and Properties |
---|---|
schema | targetNamespace, version, elementFormDefault, attributeFormDefault, defaultAttributes |
attribute | name, ref, type, use, default, fixed, form, targetNamespace, wsdl:arrayType |
element | name, ref, type, default, fixed, form, nillable, abstract, substitutionGroup, minOccurs, maxOccurs, targetNamespace |
simpleType | name |
complexType | name, abstract, mixed, defaultAttributesApply |
all | |
choice | minOccurs, maxOccurs |
sequence | minOccurs, maxOccurs |
group | name, ref, minOccurs, maxOccurs |
attributeGroup | name, ref |
any | minOccurs, maxOccurs |
anyAttribute |
And also the following standard XSD directives are covered:
Directive | Description |
---|---|
import | Imports a schema into the importing schema for referencing |
include | Include schema component definitions into a schema |
override | Override by replacing schema component definitions |
redefine | Extend or restrict schema component definitions |
annotation | Annotates a component |
The XSD facets and their mappings to C/C++ are:
XSD Facet | Maps to |
---|---|
enumeration | enum |
simpleContent | class/struct wrapper with __item member |
complexContent | class/struct |
list | enum* bitmask (enum* enumerates up to 64 bit masks) |
extension | class/struct inheritance/extension |
restriction | typedef and class/struct inheritance/redeclaration |
length | typedef with restricted content length annotation |
minLength | typedef with restricted content length annotation |
maxLength | typedef with restricted content length annotation |
minInclusive | typedef with numerical value range restriction annotation |
maxInclusive | typedef with numerical value range restriction annotation |
minExclusive | typedef with numerical value range restriction annotation |
maxExclusive | typedef with numerical value range restriction annotation |
precision | typedef with pattern annotation (pattern used for output, but input is not validated) |
scale | typedef with pattern annotation (pattern used for output, but input is not validated) |
totalDigits | typedef with pattern annotation (pattern used for output, but input is not validated) |
fractionDigits | typedef with pattern annotation (pattern used for output, but input is not validated) |
pattern | typedef with pattern annotation (define soap::fsvalidate callback to validate patterns) |
union | string with union of values |
All primitive XSD types are supported, including but not limited to the following XSD types:
XSD Type | Maps to |
---|---|
any/anyType | _XML string with literal XML content (or enable DOM with wsdl2h option -d ) |
anyURI | string (i.e. char* , wchar_t* , std::string , std::wstring ) |
string | string (i.e. char* , wchar_t* , std::string , std::wstring ) |
boolean | bool (C++) or enum xsd__boolean (C) |
byte | char (i.e. int8_t ) |
short | short (i.e. int16_t ) |
int | int (i.e. int32_t ) |
long | LONG64 (i.e. long long and int64_t ) |
unsignedByte | unsigned char (i.e. uint8_t ) |
unsignedShort | unsigned short (i.e. uint16_t ) |
unsignedInt | unsigned int (i.e. uint32_t ) |
unsignedLong | ULONG64 (i.e. unsigned long long and uint64_t ) |
float | float |
double | double |
integer | string or #import "custom/int128.h" to use 128 bit xsd__integer |
decimal | string or #import "custom/long_double.h" to use long double |
precisionDecimal | string |
duration | string or #import "custom/duration.h" to use 64 bit xsd__duration |
dateTime | time_t or #import "custom/struct_tm.h" to use struct tm for xsd__dateTime |
time | string or #import "custom/long_time.h" to use 64 bit xsd__time |
date | string or #import "custom/struct_tm_date.h" to use struct tm for xsd__date |
hexBinary | special class/struct xsd__hexBinary |
base64Bianry | special class/struct xsd__base64Binary |
QName | _QName string (URI normalization rules are applied) |
All other primitive XSD types not listed above are mapped to strings, by wsdl2h generating a typedef to string for these types. For example, xsd:token
is bound to a C++ or C string:
This associates a compatible value space to the type with the appropriate XSD type name used by the soapcpp2-generated serializers.
It is possible to remap types by adding the appropriate mapping rules to typemap.dat
as we will explain in more detail in the next section.
Imported custom serializers are intended to extend the C/C++ type bindings when the default binding to string is not satisfactory to your taste and if the target platform supports these C/C++ types. To add custom serializers to typemap.dat
for wsdl2h, see adding custom serializers below.
Using typemap.dat to customize data bindings
Use a typemap.dat
file to redefine namespace prefixes and to customize type bindings for the the generated header files produced by the wsdl2h tool. The typemap.dat
is the default file processed by wsdl2h. Use wsdl2h option -t
to specify a different file.
Declarations in typemap.dat
can be broken up over multiple lines by continuing on the next line by ending each line to be continued with a backslash\
. The limit is 4095 characters per line, whether the line is broken up or not.
XML namespace bindings
The wsdl2h tool generates C/C++ type declarations that use ns1
, ns2
, etc. as schema-binding URI prefixes. These default prefixes are generated somewhat arbitrarily for each schema targetNamespace URI, meaning that their ordering may change depending on the WSDL and XSD order of processing with wsdl2h.
Therefore, it is strongly recommended to declare your own prefix for each schema URI in typemap.dat
to reduce maintaince effort of your code. This is more robust when anticipating possible changes of the schema(s) and/or the binding URI(s) and/or the tooling algorithms.
The first and foremost important thing to do is to define prefix-URI bindings for our C/C++ code by adding the following line(s) to our typemap.dat
or make a copy of this file and add the line(s) that bind our choice of prefix name to each URI:
prefix = "URI"
For example:
g = "urn:graph"
This produces g__name
C/C++ type names that are bound to the "urn:graph" schema by association of g
to the generated C/C++ types.
This means that <g:name xmlns:g="urn:graph">
is parsed as an instance of a g__name
C/C++ type. Also <x:name xmlns:x="urn:graph">
parses as an instance of g__name
, because the prefix x
has the same URI value urn:graph
. Prefixes in XML have local scopes (like variables in a block).
The first run of wsdl2h will reveal the URIs, so you do not need to search WSDLs and XSD files for all of the target namespaces. Just copy them from the generated header file after the first run into typemap.dat
for editing.
XSD type bindings
Custom C/C++ type bindings can be declared in typemap.dat
to associate C/C++ types with specific schema types. These type bindings have four parts:
prefix__type = declaration | use | ptruse
where
prefix__type
is the schema type to be customized (theprefix__type
name uses the common double underscore naming convention);declaration
declares the C/C++ type in the wsdl2h-generated header file. This part can be empty if no explicit declaration is needed;use
is an optional part that specifies how the C/C++ type is used in the code. When omitted, it is the same asprefix__type
;ptruse
is an optional part that specifies how the type is used as a pointer type. By default it is theuse
type name with a*
or C++11std::shared_ptr<>
when enabled (see further below).
For example, to map xsd:duration
to a long long
(LONG64
) type that holds millisecond duration values, we can use the custom serializer declared in custom/duration.h
by adding the following line to typemap.dat
:
xsd__duration = #import "custom/duration.h"
Here, we omitted the second field, because xsd__duration
is the name that wsdl2h uses to identify and use this type for our code. The third field is omitted to let wsdl2h use xsd__duration *
for pointers or std::shared_ptr<xsd__duration>
if smart pointers are enabled.
To map xsd:string
to wchar_t*
wide strings:
xsd__string = | wchar_t* | wchar_t*
Note that the first field is empty, because wchar_t
is a C type and does not need to be declared. A ptruse
field is given so that we do not end up generating the wrong pointer types, such as wchar_t**
and std::shared_ptr<wchar_t>
.
When the auto-generated declaration should be preserved but the use
or ptruse
fields replaced, then we use an ellipsis for the declaration part:
prefix__type = ... | use | ptruse
This is useful to map schema polymorphic types to C types for example, where we need to be able to both handle a base type and its extensions as per schema extensibility. Say we have a base type called ns:base that is extended, then we can remap this to a C type that permits referening the extended types via a void*
as follows:
ns__base = ... | int __type_base; void*
such that __type_base
and void*
will be used to (de)serialize any data type, including base and its derived types. The __type_base
integer is set to a SOAP_TYPE_T
value to indicate what type of data the void*
pointer points to.
Custom serializers for XSD types
In the previous part we saw how a custom serializer is used to bind xsd:duration
to a long long
(LONG64
or int64_t
) type to store millisecond duration values:
xsd__duration = #import "custom/duration.h"
The xsd__duration
type is an alias of long long
(LONG64
or int64_t
).
While wsdl2h will use this binding declared in typemap.dat
automatically, you will also need to compile custom/duration.c
. Each custom serializer has a header file and an implementation file written in C. You can compile these in C++ (rename files to .cpp
if needed).
We will discuss the custom serializers that are available to you.
xsd:integer
The wsdl2h tool maps xsd:integer
to a string by default. To map xsd:integer
to the 128 bit big int type __int128_t
:
xsd__integer = #import "custom/int128.h"
The xsd__integer
type is an alias of __int128_t
.
-
Warning
-
Beware that the
xsd:integer
value space of integers is in principle unbounded and values can be of arbitrary length. A value range faultSOAP_TYPE
(value exceeds native representation) orSOAP_LENGTH
(value exceeds range bounds) will be thrown by the deserializer if the value is out of range.
Other XSD integer types that are restrictions of xsd:integer
, are xsd:nonNegativeInteger
and xsd:nonPositiveInteger
, which are further restricted by xsd:positiveInteger
and xsd:negativeInteger
. To bind these types to __int128_t
we should also add the following definitions to typemap.dat
:
xsd__nonNegativeInteger = typedef xsd__integer xsd__nonNegativeInteger 0 : ; xsd__nonPositiveInteger = typedef xsd__integer xsd__nonPositiveInteger : 0 ; xsd__positiveInteger = typedef xsd__integer xsd__positiveInteger 1 : ; xsd__negativeInteger = typedef xsd__integer xsd__negativeInteger : -1 ;
-
Note
-
If
__int128_t
128 bit integers are not supported on your platform and if it is certain thatxsd:integer
values are within 64 bit value bounds for your application's use, then you can map this type toLONG64
:xsd__integer = typedef LONG64 xsd__integer;
-
Again, a value range fault
SOAP_TYPE
orSOAP_LENGTH
will be thrown by the deserializer if the value is out of range.
-
See also
- Section numerical types.
xsd:decimal
The wsdl2h tool maps xsd:decimal
to a string by default. To map xsd:decimal
to extended precision floating point:
xsd__decimal = #import "custom/long_double.h" | long double
By contrast to all other custom serializers, this serializer enables long double
natively without requiring a new binding name (xsd__decimal
is NOT defined).
If your system supports <quadmath.h>
quadruple precision floating point __float128
, you can map xsd:decimal
to xsd__decimal
that is an alias of __float128
:
xsd__decimal = #import "custom/float128.h"
-
Warning
-
Beware that
xsd:decimal
is in principle a decimal value with arbitraty lengths. A value range faultSOAP_TYPE
will be thrown by the deserializer if the value is out of range.
In the XML payload the special values INF
, -INF
, NaN
represent plus or minus infinity and not-a-number, respectively.
-
See also
- Section numerical types.
xsd:dateTime
The wsdl2h tool maps xsd:dateTime
to time_t
by default.
The trouble with time_t
when represented as 32 bit long
integers is that it is limited to dates between 1970 and 2038. A 64 bit time_t
is safe to use if the target platform supports it, but lack of 64 bit time_t
portability may still cause date range issues.
For this reason struct tm
should be used to represent wider date ranges. This custom serializer avoids using date and time information in time_t
. You get the raw date and time information. You only lose the day of the week information. It is always Sunday (tm_wday=0
).
To map xsd:dateTime
to xsd__dateTime
which is an alias of struct tm
:
xsd__dateTime = #import "custom/struct_tm.h"
If the limited date range of time_t
is not a problem but you want to increase the time precision with fractional seconds, then we suggest to map xsd:dateTime
to struct timeval
:
xsd__dateTime = #import "custom/struct_timeval.h"
If the limited date range of time_t
is not a problem but you want to use the C++11 time point type std::chrono::system_clock::time_point
(which internally uses time_t
):
xsd__dateTime = #import "custom/chrono_time_point.h"
Again, we should make sure that the dates will not exceed the date range when using the default time_t
binding for xsd:dateTime
or when binding xsd:dateTime
to struct timeval
or to std::chrono::system_clock::time_point
. These are safe to use in applications that use xsd:dateTime
to record date stamps within a given window. Otherwise, we recommend the struct tm
custom serializer. You could even map xsd:dateTime
to a plain string (use char*
with C and std::string
with C++). For example:
xsd__dateTime = | char*
-
See also
- Section date and time types.
xsd:date
The wsdl2h tool maps xsd:date
to a string by default. We can map xsd:date
to struct tm
:
xsd__date = #import "custom/struct_tm_date.h"
The xsd__date
type is an alias of struct tm
. The serializer ignores the time part and the deserializer only populates the date part of the struct, setting the time to 00:00:00. There is no unreasonable limit on the date range because the year field is stored as an integer (int
).
-
See also
- Section date and time types.
xsd:time
The wsdl2h tool maps xsd:time
to a string by default. We can map xsd:time
to an unsigned long long
(ULONG64
or uint64_t
) integer with microsecond time precision:
xsd__time = #import "custom/long_time.h"
This type represents 00:00:00.000000 to 23:59:59.999999, from 0
to an upper bound of 86399999999
. A microsecond resolution means that a 1 second increment requires an increment of 1000000 in the integer value. The serializer adds a UTC time zone.
-
See also
- Section date and time types.
xsd:duration
The wsdl2h tool maps xsd:duration
to a string by default, unless xsd:duration
is mapped to a long long
(LONG64
or int64_t
) type with with millisecond (ms) time duration precision:
xsd__duration = #import "custom/duration.h"
The xsd__duration
type is a 64 bit signed integer that can represent 106,751,991,167 days forwards (positive) and backwards (negative) in time in increments of 1 ms (1/1000 of a second).
Rescaling of the duration value by may be needed when adding the duration value to a time_t
value, because time_t
may or may not have a seconds resolution, depending on the platform and possible changes to time_t
.
Rescaling is done automatically when you add a C++11 std::chrono::nanoseconds
value to a std::chrono::system_clock::time_point
value. To use std::chrono::nanoseconds
as xsd:duration
:
xsd__duration = #import "custom/chrono_duration.h"
This type can represent 384,307,168 days (2^63 nanoseconds) forwards and backwards in time in increments of 1 ns (1/1,000,000,000 of a second).
Certain observations with respect to receiving durations in years and months apply to both of these serializer decoders for xsd:duration
.
-
See also
- Section time duration types.
Class/struct member additions
All generated classes and structs can be augmented with additional members such as methods, constructors and destructors, and private members:
prefix__type = $ member-declaration
For example, we can add method declarations and private members to a class, say ns__record
as follows:
ns__record = $ ns__record(const ns__record &); // copy constructor ns__record = $ void print(); // a print method ns__record = $ private: int status; // a private member
Note that method declarations cannot include any code, because soapcpp2's input permits only type declarations, not code.
Replacing XSD types by equivalent alternatives
Type replacements can be given to replace one type entirely with another given type:
prefix__type1 == prefix__type2
This replaces all prefix__type1
by prefix__type2
in the wsdl2h output.
-
Warning
-
Do not agressively replace types, because this can cause XML validation to fail when a value-type mismatch is encountered in the XML input. Therefore, only replace similar types with other similar types that are wider (e.g.
short
byint
andfloat
bydouble
).
The built-in typemap.dat variables $CONTAINER and $POINTER
The typemap.dat
$CONTAINER
variable defines the container to emit in the generated declarations, which is std::vector
by default. For example, to emit std::list
as the container in the wsdl2h-generated declarations:
$CONTAINER = std::list
The typemap.dat
$POINTER
variable defines the smart pointer to emit in the generated declarations, which replaces the use of *
pointers. For example:
$POINTER = std::shared_ptr
Not all pointers in the generated output can be replaced by smart pointers. Regular pointers are still used as union members and for pointers to arrays of objects.
-
Note
-
The standard smart pointer
std::shared_ptr
is generally safe to use. Other smart pointers such asstd::unique_ptr
andstd::auto_ptr
may cause compile-time errors when classes have smart pointer members but no copy constructor (a default copy constructor). A copy constructor is required for non-shared smart pointer copying or swapping.
Alternatives to std::shared_ptr
of the form NAMESPACE::shared_ptr
can be assigned to $POINTER
when the namespace NAMESPACE
also implements NAMESPACE::make_shared
and when the shared pointer class provides reset()
andget()
methods and the dereference operator. For example Boost boost::shared_ptr
:
[ #include <boost/shared_ptr.hpp> ] $POINTER = boost::shared_ptr
The user-defined content between [
and ]
ensures that we include the Boost header files that are needed to support boost::shared_ptr
and boost::make_shared
.
User-defined content
Any other content to be generated by wsdl2h can be included in typemap.dat
by enclosing it within brackets [
and ]
anywhere in the typemap.dat
file. Each of the two brackets MUST appear at the start of a new line.
For example, we can add an #import "wsa5.h"
to the wsdl2h-generated output as follows:
[ #import "import/wsa5.h" ]
which emits the #import "import/wsa5.h"
literally at the start of the wsdl2h-generated header file.
Mapping C/C++ to XML schema
The soapcpp2 command generates the data binding implementation code from a data binding interface file.h
:
soapcpp2 [options] file.h
where file.h
is a gSOAP header file that declares the XML data binding interface. The file.h
is typically generated by wsdl2h, but you can also declare one yourself. If so, add //gsaop
directives and declare in this file all our C/C++ types you want to serialize in XML.
You can also declare functions that will be converted to Web service operations by soapcpp2. Global function declarations define service operations, which are of the form:
where arg1
, arg2
, ..., argn
are formal argument declarations of the input and result
is a formal argument for the output, which must be a pointer or reference to the result object to be populated. More information can be found in the gSOAP user guide.
Overview of serializable C/C++ types
The following C/C++ types are supported by soapcpp2 and mapped to XSD types and constructs. See the subsections below for more details or follow the links.
List of Boolean types
Boolean Type | Notes |
---|---|
bool | C++ bool |
enum xsd__boolean | C alternative to C++ bool with false_ and true_ |
-
See also
- Section C++ bool and C alternative.
List of enumeration and bitmask types
Enumeration Type | Notes |
---|---|
enum | enumeration |
enum class | C++11 scoped enumeration (soapcpp2 -c++11 ) |
enum* | a bitmask that enumerates values 1, 2, 4, 8, ... |
enum* class | C++11 scoped enumeration bitmask (soapcpp2 -c++11 ) |
-
See also
- Section enumerations and bitmasks.
List of numerical types
Numerical Type | Notes |
---|---|
char | byte |
short | 16 bit integer |
int | 32 bit integer |
long | 32 bit integer |
LONG64 | 64 bit integer |
xsd__integer | 128 bit integer, use #import "custom/int128.h" |
long long | same as LONG64 |
unsigned char | unsigned byte |
unsigned short | unsigned 16 bit integer |
unsigned int | unsigned 32 bit integer |
unsigned long | unsigned 32 bit integer |
ULONG64 | unsigned 64 bit integer |
unsigned long long | same as ULONG64 |
int8_t | same as char |
int16_t | same as short |
int32_t | same as int |
int64_t | same as LONG64 |
uint8_t | same as unsigned char |
uint16_t | same as unsigned short |
uint32_t | same as unsigned int |
uint64_t | same as ULONG64 |
size_t | transient type (not serializable) |
float | 32 bit float |
double | 64 bit float |
long double | extended precision float, use #import "custom/long_double.h" |
xsd__decimal | <quadmath.h> 128 bit quadruple precision float, use #import "custom/float128.h" |
typedef | declares a type name, with optional value range and string length bounds |
-
See also
- Section numerical types.
List of string types
String Type | Notes |
---|---|
char* | string (may contain UTF-8 with flag SOAP_C_UTFSTRING ) |
wchar_t* | wide string |
std::string | C++ string (may contain UTF-8 with flag SOAP_C_UTFSTRING ) |
std::wstring | C++ wide string |
char[N] | fixed-size string, requires soapcpp2 option -b |
_QName | normalized QName content |
_XML | literal XML string content with wide characters in UTF-8 |
typedef | declares a new string type name, may restrict string length |
-
See also
- Section string types.
List of date and time types
Date and Time Type | Notes |
---|---|
time_t | date and time point since epoch |
struct tm | date and time point, use #import "custom/struct_tm.h" |
struct tm | date point, use #import "custom/struct_tm_date.h" |
struct timeval | date and time point, use #import "custom/struct_timeval.h" |
unsigned long long | time point in microseconds, use #import "custom/long_time.h" |
std::chrono::system_clock::time_point | date and time point, use #import "custom/chrono_time_point.h" |
-
See also
- Section date and time types.
List of time duration types
Time Duration Type | Notes |
---|---|
long long | duration in milliseconds, use #import "custom/duration.h" |
std::chrono::nanoseconds | duration in nanoseconds, use #import "custom/chrono_duration.h" |
-
See also
- Section time duration types.
List of classes and structs
Classes, Structs, and Members | Notes |
---|---|
class | C++ class with single inheritance only |
struct | C struct or C++ struct without inheritance |
std::shared_ptr<T> | C++11 smart shared pointer |
std::unique_ptr<T> | C++11 smart pointer |
std::auto_ptr<T> | C++ smart pointer |
std::deque<T> | use #import "import/stldeque.h" |
std::list<T> | use #import "import/stllist.h" |
std::vector<T> | use #import "import/stlvector.h" |
std::set<T> | use #import "import/stlset.h" |
template<T> class | a container with begin() , end() , size() , clear() , and insert() methods |
T* | data member: pointer to data of type T or points to array of T of size __size |
T[N] | data member: fixed-size array of type T |
union | data member: requires a variant selector member __union |
void* | data member: requires a __type member to indicate the type of object pointed to |
-
See also
- Section classes and structs.
List of special classes and structs
Special Classes and Structs | Notes |
---|---|
Special Array class/struct | single and multidimensional SOAP Arrays |
Special Wrapper class/struct | complexTypes with simpleContent, wraps __item member |
xsd__hexBinary | binary content |
xsd__base64Binary | binary content and optional MIME/MTOM attachments |
xsd__anyType | DOM elements, use #import "dom.h" |
@xsd__anyAttribute | DOM attributes, use #import "dom.h" |
-
See also
- Section special classes and structs.
Colon notation versus name prefixing with XML tag name translation
To bind C/C++ type names to XSD types, a simple form of name prefixing is used by the gSOAP tools by prepending the XML namespace prefix to the C/C++ type name with a pair of undescrores. This also ensures that name clashes cannot occur when multiple WSDL and XSD files are converted to C/C++. Also, C++ namespaces are not sufficiently rich to capture XML schema namespaces accurately, for example when class members are associated with schema elements defined in another XML namespace and thus the XML namespace scope of the member's name is relevant, not just its type.
However, from a C/C++ centric point of view this can be cumbersome. Therefore, colon notation is an alternative to physically augmenting C/C++ names with prefixes.
For example, the following class uses colon notation to bind the record
class to the urn:types
schema:
The colon notation is stripped away by soapcpp2 when generating the data binding implementation code for our project. So the final code just uses record
to identify this class and its constructor/destructor.
When using colon notation make sure to be consistent and not use colon notation mixed with prefixed forms. The name ns:record
differs from ns__record
, because ns:record
is compiled to an unqualified record
name.
Colon notation also facilitates overruling the elementFormDefault and attributeFormDefault declaration that is applied to local elements and attributes, when declared as members of classes, structs, and unions. For more details, see qualified and unqualified members.
A C/C++ identifier name (a type name, member name, function name, or parameter name) is translated to an XML tag name by the following rules:
- Two leading underscores indicates that the identifier name has no XML tag name, i.e. this name is not visible in XML and is not translated.
- A leading underscore is removed, but the underscore indicates that: a) a struct/class member name or parameter name has a wildcard XML tag name (i.e. matches any XML tag), or b) a type name that has a document root element definition.
- Trailing underscores are removed (i.e. trailing underscores can be used to avoid name clashes with keywords).
- Underscores within names are translated to hyphens (hyphens are more common in XML tags).
_USCORE
is translated to an underscore in the translated XML tag name._DOT
is translated to a dot (.
) in the translated XML tag name._xHHHH
is translated to the Unicode character with code point HHHH.- C++11 Unicode identifier name characters in UTF-8 are translated as-is.
For example, the C/C++ namespace qualified identifier name s_a__my_way
is translated to the XML tag name s-a:my-way
by translating the prefix s_a
and the local name my_way
.
Struct/class member and parameter name translation can be overruled by using backtick XML tags (with gSOAP 2.8.30 or higher).
C++ Bool and C alternatives
The C++ bool
type is bound to built-in XSD type xsd:boolean
.
The C alternative is to define an enumeration:
or by defining an enumeration in C with pseudo-scoped enumeration constants:
The XML value space of these types is false
and true
, but also accepted are 0
and 1
values for false and true, respectively.
To prevent name clashes, false_
and true_
have an underscore. Trailing underscores are removed from the XML value space.
Enumerations and bitmasks
Enumerations are mapped to XSD simpleType enumeration restrictions of xsd:string
, xsd:QName
, and xsd:long
.
Consider for example:
which maps to a simpleType restriction of xsd:string
in the soapcpp2-generated schema:
<simpleType name="Color"> <restriction base="xsd:string"> <enumeration value="RED"/> <enumeration value="WHITE"/> <enumeration value="BLUE"/> </restriction> </simpleType>
Enumeration name constants can be pseudo-scoped to prevent name clashes, because enumeration name constants have a global scope in C and C++:
You can also use C++11 scoped enumerations to prevent name clashes:
Here, the enumeration class base type : int
is optional. In place of int
in the example above, we can also use int8_t
, int16_t
, int32_t
, or int64_t
.
The XML value space of the enumertions defined above is RED
, WHITE
, and BLUE
.
Prefix-qualified enumeration name constants are mapped to simpleType restrictions of xsd:QName
, for example:
which maps to a simpleType restriction of xsd:QName
in the soapcpp2-generated schema:
<simpleType name="types"> <restriction base="xsd:QName"> <enumeration value="xsd:int"/> <enumeration value="xsd:float"/> </restriction> </simpleType>
Enumeration name constants can be pseudo-numeric as follows:
which maps to a simpleType restriction of xsd:long
:
<simpleType name="Color"> <restriction base="xsd:long"> <enumeration value="3"/> <enumeration value="5"/> <enumeration value="7"/> <enumeration value="11"/> </restriction> </simpleType>
The XML value space of this type is 3
, 5
, 7
, and 11
.
Besides (pseudo-) scoped enumerations, another way to prevent name clashes accross enumerations is to start an enumeration name constant with one underscore or followed it by any number of underscores, which makes it unique. The leading and trailing underscores are removed from the XML value space.
The gSOAP soapcpp2 tool permits reusing enumeration name constants across (non-scoped) enumerations as long as these values are assigned the same constant. Therefore, the following is permitted:
A bitmask type is an enum*
"product" enumeration with a geometric, power-of-two sequence of values assigned to the enumeration constants:
where the product enum assigns 1 to SSL3
, 2 to TLS10
, 4 to TLS11
, and 8 to TLS12
, which allows these enumeration constants to be used in composing bitmasks with |
(bitwise or) &
(bitwise and), and ~
(bitwise not):
The bitmask type maps to a simpleType list restriction of xsd:string
in the soapcpp2-generated schema:
<simpleType name="Options"> <list> <restriction base="xsd:string"> <enumeration value="SSL3"/> <enumeration value="TLS10"/> <enumeration value="TLS11"/> <enumeration value="TLS12"/> </restriction> </list> </simpleType>
The XML value space of this type consists of all 16 possible subsets of the four values, represented by an XML string with space-separated values. For example, the bitmask TLS10 | TLS11 | TLS12
equals 14 and is represented by the XML string TLS10 TLS11 TLS12
.
You can also use C++11 scoped enumerations with bitmasks:
The base type of a scoped enumeration bitmask, when explicitly given, is ignored. The base type is either int
or int64_t
, depending on the number of constants enumerated in the bitmask.
To convert enum
name constants and bitmasks to a string, we use the auto-generated function for enum T
:
The string returned is stored in an internal buffer of the current soap
context, so you MUST copy it to keep it from being overwritten. For example, use char *soap_strdup(struct soap*, const char*)
.
To convert a string to an enum
constant or bitmask, we use the auto-generated function
This function takes the name (or names, space-separated for bitmasks) of the enumeration constant in a string str
. Names should be given without the pseudo-scope prefix and without trailing underscores. The function sets val
to the corresponding integer enum constant or to a bitmask. The function returns SOAP_OK
(zero) on success or an error if the string is not a valid enumeration name.
Numerical types
Integer and floating point types are mapped to the equivalent built-in XSD types with the same sign and bit width.
The size_t
type is transient (not serializable) because its width is platform dependent. We recommend to use uint64_t
instead.
The XML value space of integer types are their decimal representations without loss of precision.
The XML value space of floating point types are their decimal representations. The decimal representations are formatted with the printf format string "%.9G" for floats and the printf format string "%.17lG" for double. To change the format strings, we can assign new strings to the following struct soap
context members:
Note that decimal representations may result in a loss of precision of the least significant decimal. Therefore, the format strings that are used by default are sufficiently precise to avoid loss, but this may result in long decimal fractions in the XML value space.
The long double
extended floating point type requires a custom serializer:
You can now use long double
, which has a serializer that serializes this type as xsd:decimal
. Compile and link your code with custom/long_double.c
.
The value space of floating point values includes the special values INF
, -INF
, and NaN
. You can check a value for plus or minus infinity and not-a-number as follows:
To assign these values, use:
If your system supports __float128
then you can also use this 128 bit floating point type with a custom serializer:
Then use the xsd__decimal
alias of __float128
, which has a serializer. Do not use __float128
directly, which is transient (not serializable).
To check for INF
, -INF
, and NaN
of a __float128
value use:
The range of a typedef-defined numerical type can be restricted using the range :
operator with inclusive lower and upper bounds. For example:
This maps to a simpleType restriction of xsd:int
in the soapcpp2-generated schema:
<simpleType name="narrow"> <restriction base="xsd:int"> <minInclusive value="-10"/> <maxInclusive value="10"/> </restriction> </simpleType>
The lower and upper bound of a range are optional. When omitted, values are not bound from below or from above, respectively.
The range of a floating point typedef-defined type can be restricted within floating point constant bounds.
Also with a floating point typedef a printf format pattern can be given of the form "%[width][.precision]f"
to format decimal values using the given width and precision fields:
This maps to a simpleType restriction of xsd:float
in the soapcpp2-generated schema:
<simpleType name="PH"> <restriction base="xsd:float"> <totalDigits value="5"/> <fractionDigits value="2"/> <minInclusive value="0"/> <maxInclusive value="14"/> </restriction> </simpleType>
For exclusive bounds, we use the <
operator instead of the :
range operator:
Values eps
of ns__epsilon
are restricted between 0.0 < eps < 1.0
.
This maps to a simpleType restriction of xsd:float
in the soapcpp2-generated schema:
<simpleType name="epsilon"> <restriction base="xsd:float"> <minExclusive value="0"/> <maxExclusive value="1"/> </restriction> </simpleType>
To make just one of the bounds exclusive, while keeping the other bound inclusive, we add a <
on the left or on the right side of the range ':' operator. For example:
It is valid to make both left and right side exclusive with < : <
which is in fact identical to the exlusive range <
operator:
It helps to think of the :
as a placeholder of the value between the two bounds, which is easier to memorize than the shorthand forms of bounds from which the :
is removed:
Bounds | Validation Check | Shorthand |
---|---|---|
1 : | 1 <= x | 1 |
1 : 10 | 1 <= x <= 10 | |
: 10 | x <= 10 | |
1 < : < 10 | 1 < x < 10 | 1 < 10 |
1 : < 10 | 1 <= x < 10 | |
: < 10 | x < 10 | < 10 |
1 < : | 1 < x | 1 < |
1 < : 10 | 1 < x <= 10 |
Besides float
, also double
and long double
values can be restricted. For example, consider a nonzero probability extended floating point precision type:
Value range restrictions are validated by the parser for all inbound XML data. A type fault SOAP_TYPE
will be thrown by the deserializer if the value is out of range.
Finally, if your system supports __int128_t
then you can also use this 128 bit integer type with a custom serializer:
Use the xsd__integer
alias of __int128_t
, which has a serializer. Do not use __int128_t
directly, which is transient (not serializable).
To convert numeric values to a string, we use the auto-generated function for numeric type T
:
For numeric types T
, the string returned is stored in an internal buffer of the current soap
context, so you MUST copy it to keep it from being overwritten. For example, use char *soap_strdup(struct soap*, const char*)
.
To convert a string to a numeric value, we use the auto-generated function
where T
is for example int
, LONG64
, float
, decimal
(the custom serializer name of long double
) or xsd__integer
(the custom serializer name of__int128_t
). The function soap_s2T
returns SOAP_OK
on success or an error when the value is not numeric. For floating point types, "INF", "-INF" and "NaN" are valid strings to convert to numbers.
String types
String types are mapped to the built-in xsd:string
and xsd:QName
XSD types.
The wide strings wchar_t*
and std::wstring
may contain Unicode that is preserved in the XML value space.
Strings char*
and std::string
can only contain extended Latin, but we can store UTF-8 content that is preserved in the XML value space when thestruct soap
context is initialized with the flag XML_C_UTFSTRING
.
-
Warning
-
Beware that many XML 1.0 parsers reject all control characters (those between
#x1
and#x1F
) except for#x9
,#xA
, and#xD
. With the newer XML 1.1 version parsers (including gSOAP) you should be fine.
The length of a string of a typedef-defined string type can be restricted:
which maps to a simpleType restriction of xsd:string
in the soapcpp2-generated schema:
<simpleType name="password"> <restriction base="xsd:string"> <minLength value="6"/> <maxLength value="16"/> </restriction> </simpleType>
String length restrictions are validated by the parser for inbound XML data. A value length fault SOAP_LENGTH
will be thrown by the deserializer if the string is too long or too short.
In addition, an XSD regex pattern restriction can be associated with a string typedef:
which maps to a simpleType restriction of xsd:string
in the soapcpp2-generated schema:
<simpleType name="password"> <restriction base="xsd:string"> <pattern value="([a-zA-Z0-9]|-)+"/> <minLength value="6"/> <maxLength value="16"/> </restriction> </simpleType>
Pattern restrictions are validated by the parser for inbound XML data only if the soap::fsvalidate
and soap::fwvalidate
callbacks are defined, see the gSOAP user guide.
Exclusive length bounds can be used with strings:
Fixed-size strings (char[N]
) are rare occurrences in the wild, but apparently still used in some projects to store strings. To facilitate fixed-size string serialization, use soapcpp2 option -b
. For example:
which maps to a simpleType restriction of xsd:string
in the soapcpp2-generated schema:
<simpleType name="buffer"> <restriction base="xsd:string"> <maxLength value="9"/> </restriction> </simpleType>
Note that fixed-size strings MUST contain NUL-terminated text and SHOULD NOT contain raw binary data. Also, the length limitation is more restrictive for UTF-8 content (enabled with the SOAP_C_UTFSTRING
) that requires multibyte character encodings. As a consequence, UTF-8 content may be truncated to fit.
Note that raw binary data can be stored in a xsd__base64Binary
or xsd__hexBinary
structure, or transmitted as a MIME attachment.
The built-in _QName
type is a regular C string type (char*
) that maps to xsd:QName
but has the added advantage that it holds normalized qualified names. There are actually two forms of normalized QName content, to ensure any QName is represented accurately and uniquely:
The first form of string is used when the prefix (and the binding URI) is defined in the namespace table and is bound to a URI (see the .nsmap file). The second form is used when the URI is not defined in the namespace table and therefore no prefix is available to bind and normalize the URI to.
A _QName
string may contain a sequence of space-separated QName values, not just one, and all QName values are normalized to the format shown above.
To define a std::string
base type for xsd:QName
, we use a typedef:
The xsd__QName
string content is normalized, just as with the _QName
normalization.
To serialize strings that contain literal XML content to be reproduced in the XML value space, use the built-in _XML
string type, which is a regular C string type (char*
) that maps to plain XML CDATA.
To define a std::string
base type for literal XML content, use a typedef:
Strings can hold any of the values of the XSD built-in primitive types. We can use a string typedef to declare the use of the string type as a XSD built-in type:
You MUST ensure that the string values we populate in this type conform to the XML standard, which in case of xsd:token
is the lexical and value spaces of xsd:token
are the sets of all strings after whitespace replacement of any occurrence of #x9
, #xA
, and #xD
by #x20
and collapsing.
To copy char*
or wchar_t*
strings with a context that manages the allocated memory, use functions
To convert a wide string to a UTF-8 encoded string, use function
The function allocates and returns a string, with its memory being managed by the context.
To convert a UTF-8 encoded string to a wide string, use function
where to
is set to point to an allocated wchar_t*
string. Pass -1
for minlen
and maxlen
to ignore length constraints on the target string. The function returns SOAP_OK
or an error when the length constraints are not met.
Date and time types
The C/C++ time_t
type is mapped to the built-in xsd:dateTime
XSD type that represents a date and time within a time zone (typically UTC).
The XML value space contains ISO 8601 Gregorian time instances of the form [-]CCYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss.sss[Z|(+|-)hh:mm]
, where Z
is the UTC time zone or a time zone offset (+|-)hh:mm]
from UTC is used.
A time_t
value is considered and represented in UTC by the serializer.
Because the time_t
value range is restricted to dates after 01/01/1970 and before 2038 assuming time_t
is a long
32 bit, care must be taken to ensure the range of xsd:dateTime
values in XML exchanges do not exceed the time_t
range.
This restriction does not hold for struct tm
(<time.h>
), which we can use to store and exchange a date and time in UTC without date range restrictions. The serializer uses the struct tm
members directly for the XML value space of xsd:dateTime
:
You will lose the day of the week information. It is always Sunday (tm_wday=0
) and the day of the year is not set either. The time zone is UTC.
This struct tm
type is mapped to the built-in xsd:dateTime
XSD type and serialized with the custom serializer custom/struct_tm.h
that declares a xsd__dateTime
type:
Compile and link your code with custom/struct_tm.c
.
The struct timeval
(<sys/time.h>
) type is mapped to the built-in xsd:dateTime
XSD type and serialized with the custom serializer custom/struct_timeval.h
that declares a xsd__dateTime
type:
Compile and link your code with custom/struct_timeval.c
.
Note that the same value range restrictions apply to struct timeval
as they apply to time_t
. The added benefit of struct timeval
is the addition of a microsecond-precise clock:
A C++11 std::chrono::system_clock::time_point
type is mapped to the built-in xsd:dateTime
XSD type and serialized with the custom serializer custom/chrono_time_point.h
that declares a xsd__dateTime
type:
Compile and link your code with custom/chrono_time_point.cpp
.
The struct tm
type is mapped to the built-in xsd:date
XSD type and serialized with the custom serializer custom/struct_tm_date.h
that declares a xsd__date
type:
Compile and link your code with custom/struct_tm_date.c
.
The XML value space of xsd:date
are Gregorian calendar dates of the form [-]CCYY-MM-DD[Z|(+|-)hh:mm]
with a time zone.
The serializer ignores the time part and the deserializer only populates the date part of the struct, setting the time to 00:00:00. There is no unreasonable limit on the date range because the year field is stored as an integer (int
).
An unsigned long long
(ULONG64
or uint64_t
) type that contains a 24 hour time in microseconds UTC is mapped to the built-in xsd:time
XSD type and serialized with the custom serializer custom/long_time.h
that declares a xsd__time
type:
Compile and link your code with custom/long_time.c
.
This type represents 00:00:00.000000
to 23:59:59.999999
, from 0 to an upper bound of 86,399,999,999. A microsecond resolution means that a 1 second increment requires an increment of 1,000,000 in the integer value.
The XML value space of xsd:time
are points in time recurring each day of the form hh:mm:ss.sss[Z|(+|-)hh:mm]
, where Z
is the UTC time zone or a time zone offset from UTC is used. The xsd__time
value is always considered and represented in UTC by the serializer.
To convert date and/or time values to a string, we use the auto-generated function for type T
:
For date and time types T
, the string returned is stored in an internal buffer of the current soap
context, so you MUST copy it to keep it from being overwritten. For example, use char *soap_strdup(struct soap*, const char*)
.
To convert a string to a date/time value, we use the auto-generated function
where T
is for example dateTime
(for time_t
), xsd__dateTime
(for struct tm
, struct timeval
, or std::chrono::system_clock::time_point
). The function soap_s2T
returns SOAP_OK
on success or an error when the value is not a date/time.
Time duration types
The XML value space of xsd:duration
are values of the form PnYnMnDTnHnMnS
where the capital letters are delimiters. Delimiters may be omitted when the corresponding member is not used.
A long long
(LONG64
or int64_t
) type that contains a duration (time lapse) in milliseconds is mapped to the built-in xsd:duration
XSD type and serialized with the custom serializer custom/duration.h
that declares a xsd__duration
type:
Compile and link your code with custom/duration.c
.
The duration type xsd__duration
can represent 106,751,991,167 days forward and backward with millisecond precision.
Durations that exceed a month are always output in days, rather than months to avoid days-per-month conversion inacurracies.
Durations that are received in years and months instead of total number of days from a reference point are not well defined, since there is no accepted reference time point (it may or may not be the current time). The decoder simple assumes that there are 30 days per month. For example, conversion of "P4M" gives 120 days. Therefore, the durations "P4M" and "P120D" are assumed to be identical, which is not necessarily true depending on the reference point in time.
Rescaling of the duration value by may be needed when adding the duration value to a time_t
value, because time_t
may or may not have a seconds resolution, depending on the platform and possible changes to time_t
.
Rescaling is done automatically when you add a C++11 std::chrono::nanoseconds
value to a std::chrono::system_clock::time_point
value. To use std::chrono::nanoseconds
as xsd:duration
:
Compile and link your code with custom/chrono_duration.cpp
.
This type can represent 384,307,168 days (2^63 nanoseconds) forwards and backwards in time in increments of 1 ns (1/1000000000 second).
The same observations with respect to receiving durations in years and months apply to this serializer's decoder.
To convert duration values to a string, we use the auto-generated function
The string returned is stored in an internal buffer, so you MUST copy it to keep it from being overwritten, Use soap_strdup(struct soap*, const char*)
for example to copy this string.
To convert a string to a duration value, we use the auto-generated function
The function returns SOAP_OK
on success or an error when the value is not a duration.
Classes and structs
Classes and structs are mapped to XSD complexTypes. The XML value space consists of XML elements with attributes and subelements, possibly constrained by validation rules that enforce element and attribute occurrence contraints, numerical value range constraints, and string length and pattern constraints.
Classes that are declared with the gSOAP tools are limited to single inheritence only. Structs cannot be inherited.
The class and struct name is bound to an XML namespace by means of the prefix naming convention or by using colon notation:
In the example above, we also added a context pointer to the struct soap
that manages this instance. It is set when the instance is created in the engine's context, for example when deserialized and populated by the engine.
The class maps to a complexType in the soapcpp2-generated schema:
<complexType name="record"> <sequence> <element name="name" type="xsd:string" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1"/> <element name="SSN" type="xsd:unsignedLong" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1"/> <element name="spouse" type="ns:record" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1" nillable="true"/> </sequence> </complexType>
Serializable versus transient types and members
Public data members of a class or struct are serialized. Private and protected members are transient and not serializable.
Also const
and static
members are not serializable, with the exception of const char*
and const wchar_t*
. Types and specific class/struct members can also be made transient with the extern
qualifier:
By declaring std::ostream
transient with extern
you can use this type wherever you need it without soapcpp2 complaining that this class is not defined.
Volatile classes and structs
Classes and structs can be declared volatile
with the gSOAP tools. This means that they are already declared elsewhere in your project's source code and you do not want soapcpp2 to generate code with a second declaration of these types.
For example, struct tm
is declared in <time.h>
. You can make it serializable and include a partial list of data members that you want to serialize:
You can declare classes and structs volatile
for any such types you want to serialize by only providing the public data members you want to serialize.
In addition, colon notation is a simple and effective way to bind an existing class or struct to a schema. For example, you can change the tm
name as follows without affecting the code that uses struct tm
generated by soapcpp2:
This struct maps to a complexType in the soapcpp2-generated schema:
<complexType name="tm"> <sequence> <element name="tm-sec" type="xsd:int" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1"/> <element name="tm-min" type="xsd:int" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1"/> <element name="tm-hour" type="xsd:int" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1"/> <element name="tm-mday" type="xsd:int" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1"/> <element name="tm-mon" type="xsd:int" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1"/> <element name="tm-year" type="xsd:int" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1"/> </sequence> </complexType>
Mutable classes and structs
Classes and structs can be declared mutable
with the gSOAP tools. This means that their definition can be spread out over the source code. This promotes the concept of a class or struct as a row of named values, also known as a named tuple, that can be extended at compile time in your source code with additional members. Because these types differ from the traditional object-oriented principles and design concepts of classes and objects, constructors and destructors cannot be defined (also because we cannot guarantee merging these into one such that all members will be initialized). A default constructor, copy constructor, assignment operation, and destructor will be assigned automatically by soapcpp2.
The members are collected into one definition generated by soapcpp2. Members may be repeated from one definition to another, but only if their associated types are identical. So, for example, a third extension with a value
member with a different type fails:
The mutable
concept has proven to be very useful when declaring and collecting SOAP Headers for multiple services, which are collected into one struct SOAP_ENV__Header
by the soapcpp2 tool.
Default member values in C and C++
Class and struct data members in C and C++ may be declared with an optional default initialization value that is provided "inline" with the declaration of the member:
Alternatively, use C++11 default initialization syntax:
These initializations are made by the default constructor that is added by soapcpp2 to each class and struct (in C++ only). A constructor is only added when a default constructor is not already defined with the class declaration.
You can explicitly (re)initialize an object with these initial values by using the soapcpp2 auto-generated functions:
void T::soap_default(struct soap*)
forclass T
(C++ only)void soap_default_T(struct soap*, T*)
forstruct T
(C and C++).
Initializations can only be provided for members that have primitive types (bool
, enum
, time_t
, numeric and string types).
-
See also
- Section operations on classes and structs.
Attribute members and backtick XML tags
Class and struct data members are declared as XML attributes by annotating their type with a @
qualifier:
This class maps to a complexType in the soapcpp2-generated schema:
<complexType name="record"> <sequence> <element name="spouse" type="ns:record" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1" nillable="true"/> </sequence> <attribute name="name" type="xsd:string" use="required"/> <attribute name="SSN" type="xsd:unsignedLong" use="required"/> </complexType>
An example XML instance of ns__record
is:
<ns:record xmlns:ns="urn:types" name="Joe" SSN="1234567890"> <spouse name="Jane" SSN="1987654320"> </spouse> </ns:record>
Attribute data members are restricted to primitive types (bool
, enum
, time_t
, numeric and string types), xsd__hexBinary
, xsd__base64Binary
, and custom serializers, such as xsd__dateTime
. Custom serializers for types that may be used as attributes MUST define soap_s2T
and soap_T2s
functions that convert values of type T
to strings and back.
Attribute data members can be pointers and smart pointers to these types, which permits attributes to be optional.
The XML tag name of a class/struct member is the name of the member with the usual XML tag translation, see colon notation.
To override the standard translation of identifier names to XML tag names of attributes and elements, add the XML tag name in backticks (requires gSOAP 2.8.30 or higher):
This class maps to a complexType in the soapcpp2-generated schema:
<complexType name="record"> <sequence> <element name="married-to" type="ns:record" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1" nillable="true"/> </sequence> <attribute name="full-name" type="xsd:string" use="required"/> <attribute name="tax-id" type="xsd:unsignedLong" use="required"/> </complexType>
An example XML instance of ns__record
is:
<ns:record xmlns:ns="urn:types" full-name="Joe" tax-id="1234567890"> <married-to full-name="Jane" tax-id="1987654320"> </married-to> </ns:record>
A backtick XML tag name may contain any non-empty sequence of ASCII and UTF-8 characters except white space and the backtick character. A backtick tag can be combined with member constraints and default member initializers:
@uint64_t SSN `tax-id` 0:1 = 999;
Qualified and unqualified members
Class, struct, and union data members are mapped to namespace qualified or unqualified tag names of local elements and attributes. If a data member has no prefix then the default form of qualification is applied based on the element/attribute form that is declared with the schema of the class, struct, or union type. If the member name has a namespace prefix by colon notation, then the prefix overrules the default (un)qualified form. Therefore, colon notation is an effective mechanism to control qualification of tag names of individual members of classes, structs, and unions.
The XML schema elementFormDefault and attributeFormDefault declarations control the tag name qualification of local elements and attributes, respectively.
- "unqualified" indicates that local elements/attributes are not qualified with the namespace prefix.
- "qualified" indicates that local elements/attributes must be qualified with the namespace prefix.
Individual schema declarations of local elements and attributes may overrule this by using the form declaration in a schema and by using colon notation to add namespace prefixes to class, struct, and union members in the header file for soapcpp2.
Consider for example an ns__record
class in the ns
namespace in which local elements are qualified and local attributes are unqualified by default:
This class maps to a complexType in the soapcpp2-generated schema with targetNamespace "urn:types", elementFormDefault qualified and attributeFormDefault unqualified:
<schema targetNamespace="urn:types" ... elementFormDefault="qualified" attributeFormDefault="unqualified" ... > <complexType name="record"> <sequence> <element name="spouse" type="ns:record" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1" nillable="true"/> </sequence> <attribute name="name" type="xsd:string" use="required"/> <attribute name="SSN" type="xsd:unsignedLong" use="required"/> </complexType> </schema>
An example XML instance of ns__record
is:
<ns:record xmlns:ns="urn:types" name="Joe" SSN="1234567890"> <ns:spouse> name="Jane" SSN="1987654320"> </ns:spouse> </ns:record>
Note that the root element ns:record is qualified because it is a root element of the schema with target namespace "urn:types". Its local element ns:spouse is namespace qualified because the elementFormDefault of local elements is qualified. Attributes are unqualified.
The default namespace (un)qualification of local elements and attributes can be overruled by adding a prefix to the member name by using colon notation:
The colon notation for member ns:name
forces qualification of its attribute tag in XML. The colon notation for member :spouse
removes qualification from its local element tag:
<schema targetNamespace="urn:types" ... elementFormDefault="unqualified" attributeFormDefault="unqualified" ... > <complexType name="record"> <sequence> <element name="spouse" type="ns:record" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1" nillable="true" form="unqualified"/> </sequence> <attribute name="name" type="xsd:string" use="required" form="qualified"/> <attribute name="SSN" type="xsd:unsignedLong" use="required"/> </complexType> </schema>
XML instances of ns__record
have unqualified spouse elements and qualified ns:name attributes:
<ns:record xmlns:ns="urn:types" ns:name="Joe" SSN="1234567890"> <spouse> ns:name="Jane" SSN="1987654320"> </spouse> </ns:record>
Note that data members can also be prefixed using the prefix__name
convention. However, this has a different effect by referring to global (root) elements and attributes, see document root element definitions.
Backtick tag names can be used in place of the member name annotations and will achieve the same effect as described when these tag names are (un)qualified (requires gSOAP 2.8.30 or higher).
-
Note
-
You must declare a target namespace with a
//gsoap ns schema namespace:
directive to enable theelementForm
andattributeForm
directives in order to generate valid schemas with soapcpp2. See directives for more details.
Defining document root elements
To define and reference XML document root elements we use type names that start with an underscore:
Alternatively, we can use a typedef to define a document root element with a given type:
This typedef maps to a global root element that is added to the soapcpp2-generated schema:
<element name="record" type="ns:record"/>
An example XML instance of _ns__record
is:
<ns:record xmlns:ns="urn:types"> <name>Joe</name> <SSN>1234567890</SSN> <spouse> <name>Jane</name> <SSN>1987654320</SSN> </spouse> </ns:record>
Global-level element/attribute definitions are also referenced and/or added to the generated schema when serializable data members reference these by their qualified name:
These types map to the following comonents in the soapcpp2-generated schema:
<simpleType name="name"> <restriction base="xsd:string"> <minLength value="1"/> <maxLength value="100"/> </restriction> </simpleType> <element name="name" type="ns:name"/> <complexType name="record"> <sequence> <element ref="ns:name" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1"/> <element name="SSN" type="xsd:unsignedLong" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1"/> <element name="spouse" type="ns:record" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1" nillable="true"/> </sequence> <attribute ref="xsi:type" use="optional"/> </complexType> <element name="record" type="ns:record"/>
Use only use qualified member names when their types match the global-level element types that they refer to. For example:
Therefore, we recommend to use qualified member names only when necessary to refer to standard XSD elements and attributes, such as xsi__type
, and xsd__lang
.
By contrast, colon notation has the desired effect to (un)qualify local tag names by overruling the default element/attribute namespace qualification, see qualified and unqualified members.
As an alternative to prefixing member names, use the backtick tag (gSOAP 2.8.30 and higher):
(Smart) pointer members and their occurrence constraints
A public pointer-typed data member is serialized by following its (smart) pointer(s) to the value pointed to. To serialize pointers to dynamic arrays of data, please see the next section on container members and their occurrence constraints.
Pointers that are NULL and smart pointers that are empty are serialized to produce omitted element and attribute values, unless an element is required and is nillable.
To control the occurrence requirements of pointer-based data members, occurrence constraints are associated with data members in the form of a range minOccurs : maxOccurs
. For non-repeatable (meaning, not a container or array) data members, there are only three reasonable occurrence constraints:
0:0
means that this element or attribute is prohibited.0:1
means that this element or attribute is optional.1:1
means that this element or attribute is required.
Pointer-based data members have a default 0:1
occurrence constraint, making them optional, and their XML schema local element/attribute definition is marked as nillable. Non-pointer data members have a default 1:1
occurence constraint, making them required.
A pointer data member that is explicitly marked as required with 1:1
will be serialized as an element with an xsi:nil
attribute, thus effectively revealing the NULL property of its value.
A non-pointer data member that is explicitly marked as optional with 0:1
will be set to its default value when no XML value is presented to the deserializer. A default value can be assigned to data members that have primitive types.
Consider for example:
This class maps to a complexType in the soapcpp2-generated schema:
<complexType name="record"> <sequence> <element name="name" type="xsd:string" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1" nillable="true"/> <element name="SSN" type="xsd:unsignedLong" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1" default="999"/> <element name="spouse" type="ns:record" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1" nillable="true"/> </sequence> </complexType>
An example XML instance of ns__record
with its name
string value set to Joe
, SSN
set to its default, and spouse
set to NULL:
<ns:record xmlns:ns="urn:types" ...> <name>Joe</name> <SSN>999</SSN> <spouse xsi:nil="true"/> </ns:record>
-
Note
-
In general, a smart pointer is simply declared as a
volatile
template in a gSOAP header file for soapcpp2:
-
Note
-
The soapcpp2 tool generates code that uses
NAMESPACE::shared_ptr
andNAMESPACE::make_shared
to create shared pointers to objects, whereNAMESPACE
is any valid C++ namespace such asstd
andboost
if you have Boost installed.
Container members and their occurrence constraints
Class and struct data member types that are containers std::deque
, std::list
, std::vector
and std::set
are serialized as a collection of the values they contain. You can also serialize dynamic arrays, which is the alternative for C to store collections of data. Let's start with STL containers.
You can use std::deque
, std::list
, std::vector
, and std::set
containers by importing:
For example, to use a vector data mamber to store names in a record:
To limit the number of names in the vector within reasonable bounds, occurrence constraints are associated with the container. Occurrence constraints are of the form minOccurs : maxOccurs
:
This class maps to a complexType in the soapcpp2-generated schema:
<complexType name="record"> <sequence> <element name="name" type="xsd:string" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="10"/> <element name="SSN" type="xsd:unsignedLong" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1""/> </sequence> </complexType>
-
Note
-
In general, a container is simply declared as a template in a gSOAP header file for soapcpp2. All class templates are considered containers (except when declared
volatile
, see smart pointers). For example,std::vector
is declared ingsoap/import/stlvector.h
as:
-
Note
-
You can define and use your own containers. The soapcpp2 tool generates code that uses the following members of the
template <typename T> class C
container:
-
Note
-
For more details see the example
simple_vector
container with documentation in the package undergsoap/samples/template
.
Because C does not support a container template library, we can use a dynamically-sized array of values. This array is declared as a size-pointer pair of members within a struct or class. The array size information is stored in a special size tag member with the name __size
or __sizeX
, where X
can be any name, or by an $int
member to identify the member as a special size tag:
This class maps to a complexType in the soapcpp2-generated schema:
<complexType name="record"> <sequence> <element name="name" type="xsd:string" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded" nillable="true"/> <element name="SSN" type="xsd:unsignedLong" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1""/> </sequence> </complexType>
To limit the number of names in the array within reasonable bounds, occurrence constraints are associated with the array size member. Occurrence constraints are of the form minOccurs : maxOccurs
:
This class maps to a complexType in the soapcpp2-generated schema:
<complexType name="record"> <sequence> <element name="name" type="xsd:string" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="10" nillable="true"/> <element name="SSN" type="xsd:unsignedLong" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1""/> </sequence> </complexType>
Tagged union members
A union member in a class or in a struct cannot be serialized unless a discriminating variant selector member is provided that tells the serializer which union field to serialize. This effectively creates a tagged union.
The variant selector is associated with the union as a selector-union pair of members. The variant selector is a member with the name __union
or __unionX
, where X
can be any name, or by an $int
member to identify the member as a variant selector tag:
The variant selector values are auto-generated based on the union name choice
and the names of its members x
, n
, and s
:
xORnORs = SOAP_UNION_choice_x
whenu.x
is valid.xORnORs = SOAP_UNION_choice_n
whenu.n
is valid.xORnORs = SOAP_UNION_choice_s
whenu.s
is valid.xORnORs = 0
when none are valid (should only be used with great care, because XML content validation may fail when content is required but absent).
This class maps to a complexType with a sequence and choice in the soapcpp2-generated schema:
<complexType name="record"> <sequence> <choice> <element name="x" type="xsd:float" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1"/> <element name="n" type="xsd:int" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1"/> <element name="s" type="xsd:string" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1" nillable="true"/> </choice> <element name="names" type="xsd:string" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1" nillable="true"/> </sequence> </complexType>
An STL container or dynamic array of a union requires wrapping the variant selector and union member in a struct:
and an equivalent definition with a dynamic array instead of a std::vector
(you can use this in C with structs):
This maps to two complexTypes in the soapcpp2-generated schema:
<complexType name="data"> <choice> <element name="x" type="xsd:float" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1"/> <element name="n" type="xsd:int" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1"/> <element name="s" type="xsd:string" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1" nillable="true"/> </choice> </complexType> <complexType name="record"> <sequence> <element name="data" type="ns:data" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded"/> </sequence> </complexType>
The XML value space consists of a sequence of item elements each wrapped in an data element:
<ns:record xmlns:ns="urn:types" ...> <data> <n>123</n> </data> <data> <x>3.1</x> </data> <data> <s>hello</s> </data> <data> <s>world</s> </data> </ns:record>
To remove the wrapping data element, simply rename the wrapping struct and member to __data
to make this member invisible to the serializer with the double underscore prefix naming convention. Also use a dynamic array instead of a STL container (you can use this in C with structs):
This maps to a complexType in the soapcpp2-generated schema:
<complexType name="record"> <sequence minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded"> <choice> <element name="x" type="xsd:float" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1"/> <element name="n" type="xsd:int" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1"/> <element name="s" type="xsd:string" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1" nillable="true"/> </choice> </sequence> </complexType>
The XML value space consists of a sequence of <x>
, <n>
, and/or <s>
elements:
<ns:record xmlns:ns="urn:types" ...> <n>123</n> <x>3.1</x> <s>hello</s> <s>world</s> </ns:record>
Please note that structs, classes, and unions are unnested by soapcpp2 (as in the C standard of nested structs and unions). Therefore, the choice
union in the ns__record
class is redeclared at the top level despite its nesting within the ns__record
class. This means that you will have to choose a unique name for each nested struct, class, and union.
Tagged void pointer members
To serialize data pointed to by void*
requires run-time type information that tells the serializer what type of data to serialize by means of a tagged void pointer. This type information is stored in a special type tag member of a struct/class with the name __type
or __typeX
, where X
can be any name, or alternatively by an $int
special member of any name as a type tag:
A type tag member has nonzero values SOAP_TYPE_T
where T
is the name of a struct/class or the name of a primitive type, such as int
, std__string
(for std::string
), string
(for char*
).
This class maps to a complexType with a sequence in the soapcpp2-generated schema:
<complexType name="record"> <sequence> <element name="data" type="xsd:anyType" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1"/> </sequence> </complexType>
The XML value space consists of the XML value space of the type with the addition of an xsi:type
attribute to the enveloping element:
<ns:record xmlns:ns="urn:types" ...> <data xsi:type="xsd:int">123</data> </ns:record>
This xsi:type
attribute is important for the receiving end to distinguish the type of data to instantiate. The receiver cannot deserialize the data without an xsd:type
attribute.
You can find the SOAP_TYPE_T
name of each serializable type in the auto-generated soapStub.h file.
Also all serializable C++ classes have a virtual int T::soap_type()
member that returns their SOAP_TYPE_T
value that you can use.
When the void*
pointer is NULL or when typeOfdata
is zero, the data is not serialized.
An STL container or dynamic array of void*
pointers to xsd:anyType
data requires wrapping the type tag and void*
members in a struct:
and an equivalent definition with a dynamic array instead of a std::vector
(you can use this in C with structs):
This maps to two complexTypes in the soapcpp2-generated schema:
<complexType name="data"> <sequence> <element name="item" type="xsd:anyType" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1" nillable="true"/> </sequence> </complexType> <complexType name="record"> <sequence> <element name="data" type="ns:data" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded"/> </sequence> </complexType>
The XML value space consists of a sequence of item elements each wrapped in a data element:
<ns:record xmlns:ns="urn:types" ...> <data> <item xsi:type="xsd:int">123</item> </data> <data> <item xsi:type="xsd:double">3.1</item> </data> <data> <item xsi:type="xsd:string">abc</item> </data> </ns:record>
To remove the wrapping data elements, simply rename the wrapping struct and member to __data
to make this member invisible to the serializer with the double underscore prefix naming convention. Also use a dynamic array instead of a STL container (you can use this in C with structs):
This maps to a complexType in the soapcpp2-generated schema:
<complexType name="record"> <sequence minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded"> <element name="item" type="xsd:anyType" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1"/> </sequence> </complexType>
The XML value space consists of a sequence of data elements:
<ns:record xmlns:ns="urn:types" ...> <item xsi:type="xsd:int">123</item> <item xsi:type="xsd:double">3.1</item> <item xsi:type="xsd:string">abc</item> </ns:record>
Again, please note that structs, classes, and unions are unnested by soapcpp2 (as in the C standard of nested structs and unions). Therefore, the __data
struct in the ns__record
class is redeclared at the top level despite its nesting within the ns__record
class. This means that you will have to choose a unique name for each nested struct, class, and union.
-
See also
- Section XSD type bindings.
Adding get and set methods
A public get
method may be added to a class or struct, which will be triggered by the deserializer. This method will be invoked right after the instance is populated by the deserializer. The get
method can be used to update or verify deserialized content. It should return SOAP_OK
or set soap::error
to a nonzero error code and return it.
A public set
method may be added to a class or struct, which will be triggered by the serializer. The method will be invoked just before the instance is serialized. Likewise, the set
method should return SOAP_OK
or set set soap::error
to a nonzero error code and return it.
For example, adding a set
and get
method to a class declaration:
To add these and othe rmethods to classes and structs with wsdl2h and typemap.dat
, please see class/struct member additions.
Operations on classes and structs
The following functions/macros are generated by soapcpp2 for each type T
, which should make it easier to send, receive, and copy XML data in C and in C++:
int soap_write_T(struct soap*, T*)
writes an instance ofT
to a file via file descriptorint soap::sendfd)
or to a stream viastd::ostream *soap::os
(C++ only) or saves into a NUL-terminated string by settingconst char **soap::os
to a string pointer to be set (C only). ReturnsSOAP_OK
on success or an error code, also stored insoap->error
.int soap_read_T(struct soap*, T*)
reads an instance ofT
from a file via file descriptorint soap::recvfd)
or from a stream viastd::istream *soap::is
(C++ only) or reads from a NUL-termianted stringconst char *soap::is
(C only). ReturnsSOAP_OK
on success or an error code, also stored insoap->error
.void soap_default_T(struct soap*, T*)
sets an instanceT
to its default value, resetting members of a struct to their initial values (for classes we use methodT::soap_default
, see below).T * soap_dup_T(struct soap*, T *dst, const T *src)
(soapcpp2 option-Ec
) deep copysrc
intodst
, replicating all deep cycles and shared pointers when a managing soap context is provided as argument. Whendst
is NULL, allocates space fordst
. Deep copy is a tree when argument is NULL, but the presence of deep cycles will lead to non-termination. Use flagSOAP_XML_TREE
with managing context to copy into a tree without cycles and pointers to shared objects. Returnsdst
(or allocated space whendst
is NULL).void soap_del_T(const T*)
(soapcpp2 option-Ed
) deletes all heap-allocated members of this object by deep deletion ONLY IF this object and all of its (deep) members are not managed by a soap context AND the deep structure is a tree (no cycles and co-referenced objects by way of multiple (non-smart) pointers pointing to the same data). Can be safely used aftersoap_dup(NULL)
to delete the deep copy. Does not delete the object itself.
When in C++ mode, soapcpp2 tool adds several methods to classes in addition to adding a default constructor and destructor (when these were not explicitly declared).
The public methods added to a class T
:
virtual int T::soap_type(void)
returns a unique type ID (SOAP_TYPE_T
). This numeric ID can be used to distinguish base from derived instances.virtual void T::soap_default(struct soap*)
sets all data members to default values.virtual void T::soap_serialize(struct soap*) const
serializes object to prepare for SOAP 1.1/1.2 encoded output (or withSOAP_XML_GRAPH
) by analyzing its (cyclic) structures.virtual int T::soap_put(struct soap*, const char *tag, const char *type) const
emits object in XML, compliant with SOAP 1.1 encoding style, return error code orSOAP_OK
. Requiressoap_begin_send(soap)
andsoap_end_send(soap)
.virtual int T::soap_out(struct soap*, const char *tag, int id, const char *type) const
emits object in XML, with tag and optional id attribute andxsi:type
, return error code orSOAP_OK
. Requiressoap_begin_send(soap)
andsoap_end_send(soap)
.virtual void * T::soap_get(struct soap*, const char *tag, const char *type)
Get object from XML, compliant with SOAP 1.1 encoding style, return pointer to object or NULL on error. Requiressoap_begin_recv(soap)
andsoap_end_recv(soap)
.virtual void *soap_in(struct soap*, const char *tag, const char *type)
Get object from XML, with matching tag and type (NULL matches any tag and type), return pointer to object or NULL on error. Requiressoap_begin_recv(soap)
andsoap_end_recv(soap)
virtual T * T::soap_alloc(void) const
returns a new object of typeT
, default initialized and not managed by a soap context.virtual T * T::soap_dup(struct soap*) const
(soapcpp2 option-Ec
) returns a duplicate of this object by deep copying, replicating all deep cycles and shared pointers when a managing soap context is provided as argument. Deep copy is a tree when argument is NULL, but the presence of deep cycles will lead to non-termination. Use flagSOAP_XML_TREE
with the managing context to copy into a tree without cycles and pointers to shared objects.virtual void T::soap_del() const
(soapcpp2 option-Ed
) deletes all heap-allocated members of this object by deep deletion ONLY IF this object and all of its (deep) members are not managed by a soap context AND the deep structure is a tree (no cycles and co-referenced objects by way of multiple (non-smart) pointers pointing to the same data). Can be safely used aftersoap_dup(NULL)
to delete the deep copy. Does not delete the object itself.
Also for C++, there are four variations of soap_new_T
for class/struct/template type T
that soapcpp2 auto-generates to create instances on a context-managed heap:
T * soap_new_T(struct soap*)
returns a new instance ofT
with default data member initializations that are set with the soapcpp2 auto-generatedvoid T::soap_default(struct soap*)
method), but ONLY IF the soapcpp2 auto-generated default constructor is used that invokessoap_default()
and was not replaced by a user-defined default constructor.T * soap_new_T(struct soap*, int n)
returns an array ofn
new instances ofT
. Similar to the above, instances are initialized.T * soap_new_req_T(struct soap*, ...)
returns a new instance ofT
and sets the required data members to the values specified in...
. The required data members are those with nonzero minOccurs, see the subsections on (smart) pointer members and their occurrence constraints and container members and their occurrence constraints.T * soap_new_set_T(struct soap*, ...)
returns a new instance ofT
and sets the public/serializable data members to the values specified in...
.
The above functions can be invoked with a NULL soap
context, but we will be responsible to use delete T
to remove this instance from the unmanaged heap.
Special classes and structs
SOAP encoded arrays
A class or struct with the following layout is a one-dimensional SOAP encoded Array type:
where T
is the array element type. A multidimensional SOAP Array is:
where N
is the constant number of dimensions. The pointer points to an array of __size[0]*__size[1]* ... * __size[N-1]
elements.
This maps to a complexType restriction of SOAP-ENC:Array in the soapcpp2-generated schema:
<complexType name="ArrayOfT"> <complexContent> <restriction base="SOAP-ENC:Array"> <sequence> <element name="item" type="T" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded" nillable="true"/> </sequence> <attribute ref="SOAP-ENC:arrayType" WSDL:arrayType="ArrayOfT[]"/> </restriction> </complexContent> </complexType>
The name of the class can be arbitrary. We often use ArrayOfT
without a prefix to distinguish arrays from other classes and structs.
With SOAP 1.1 encoding, an optional offset member can be added that controls the start of the index range for each dimension:
For example, we can define a matrix of floats as follows:
The following code populates the matrix and serializes it in XML:
Matrix A is serialized as an array with 2x3 values:
<SOAP-ENC:Array SOAP-ENC:arrayType="xsd:double[2,3]" ...> <item>1</item> <item>2</item> <item>3</item> <item>4</item> <item>5</item> <item>6</item> </SOAP-ENC:Array>
XSD hexBinary and base64Binary types
A special case of a one-dimensional array is used to define xsd:hexBinary
and xsd:base64Binary
types when the pointer type is unsigned char
:
and
MIME/MTOM attachment binary types
A class or struct with a binary content layout can be extended to support MIME/MTOM (and older DIME) attachments, such as in xop:Include elements:
Attachments are beyond the scope of this document. The SOAP_ENC_MIME
and SOAP_ENC_MTOM
context flag must be set to enable attachments. See the gSOAP user guide for more details.
Wrapper class/struct with simpleContent
A class or struct with the following layout is a complexType that wraps simpleContent:
The type T
is a primitive type (bool
, enum
, time_t
, numeric and string types), xsd__hexBinary
, xsd__base64Binary
, and custom serializers, such as xsd__dateTime
.
This maps to a complexType with simpleContent in the soapcpp2-generated schema:
<complexType name="simple"> <simpleContent> <extension base="T"/> </simpleContent> </complexType>
A wrapper class/struct may include any number of attributes declared with @
.
DOM anyType and anyAttribute
Use of a DOM is optional and enabled by #import "dom.h"
to use the DOM xsd__anyType
element node and xsd__anyAttribute
attribute node:
where name
contains XML stored in a DOM node set and attributes
is a list of all visibly rendered attributes. The name attributes
is arbitrary and any name will suffice.
You should place the xsd__anyType
members at the end of the struct or class. This ensures that the DOM members are populated last as a "catch all". A member name starting with double underscore is a wildcard member name and matches any XML tag. These members are placed at the end of a struct or class automatically by soapcpp2.
An #import "dom.h"
import is automatically added by wsdl2h with option -d
to bind xsd:anyType
to DOM nodes, and also to populate xsd:any
, xsd:anyAttribute
and xsd:mixed
XML content:
where the members prefixed with __
are "invisible" to the XML parser, meaning that these members are not bound to XML tag names.
In C you can use a dynamic arrary instead of std::vector
:
Classes can inherit DOM, which enables full use of polymorphism with one base DOM class:
This permits an xsd__anyType
pointer to refer to a derived class such as ns__record
, which will be serialized with an xsi:type
attribute that is set to "ns:record". The xsi:type
attributes add the necessary type information to distinguish the XML content from the DOM base type. This is important for the receiving end: without xsd:type
attributes with type names, only base DOM objects are recognized and instantiated.
Because C lacks OOP principles such as class inheritance and polymorphism, you will need to use the special `void*` members to serialize data pointed to by a void*
member.
To ensure that wsdl2h generates pointer-based xsd__anyType
DOM nodes with option -d
for xsd:any
, add the following line to typemap.dat
:
xsd__any = | xsd__anyType*
This lets wsdl2h produce class/struct members and containers with xsd__anyType*
for xsd:any
instead of xsd__anyType
. To just force all xsd:anyType
uses to be pointer-based, declare in typemap.dat
:
xsd__anyType = | xsd__anyType*
If you use wsdl2h with option -p
with option -d
then every class will inherit DOM as shown above. Without option -d
, an xsd__anyType
type is generated to serve as the root type in the type hierarchy:
where the _XML __item
member holds any XML content as a literal XML string.
To use the DOM API, compile dom.c
(or dom.cpp
for C++), or link with -lgsoapssl
(or -lgsoapssl++
for C++).
-
See also
- Documentation of XML DOM and XPath for more details.
Directives
You can use //gsoap
directives in the gSOAP header file with the data binding interface for soapcpp2. These directives are used to configure the code generated by soapcpp2 by declaring various. properties of Web services and XML schemas. When using the wsdl2h tool, you will notice that wsdl2h generates directives automatically based on the WSDL and XSD input.
Service directives are applicable to service and operations described by WSDL. Schema directives are applicable to types, elements, and attributes defined by XML schemas.
Service directives
A service directive must start at a new line and is of the form:
where <prefix>
is the XML namespace prefix of a service binding. The <property>
and <value>
fields are one of the following:
Property | Value |
---|---|
name | name of the service, optionally followed by text describing the service |
namespace | URI of the WSDL targetNamespace |
documentation | text describing the service (see also the name property), multiple permitted |
doc | same as above, shorthand form |
style | document (default) SOAP messaging style or rpc for SOAP RPC |
encoding | literal (default), encoded for SOAP encoding, or a custom URI |
protocol | specifies SOAP or REST, see below |
port | URL of the service endpoint, usually an http or https address |
transport | URI declaration of the transport, usually http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/http |
definitions | name of the WSDL definitions/@name |
type | name of the WSDL definitions/portType/@name (WSDL2.0 interface/@name) |
binding | name of the WSDL definitions/binding/@name |
portName | name of the WSDL definitions/service/port/@name |
portType | an alias for the type property |
interface | an alias for the type property |
location | an alias for the port property |
endpoint | an alias for the port property |
The service name
and namespace
properties are required in order to generate a valid WSDL with soapcpp2. The other properties are optional.
The style
and encoding
property defaults are changed with soapcpp2 option -e
to rpc
and encoded
, respectively.
The protocol
property is SOAP
by default (SOAP 1.1). Protocol property values are:
Protocol Value | Description |
---|---|
SOAP | SOAP transport, supporting both SOAP 1.1 and 1.2 |
SOAP1.1 | SOAP 1.1 transport (same as soapcpp2 option -1 ) |
SOAP1.2 | SOAP 1.2 transport (same as soapcpp2 option -2 ) |
SOAP-GET | one-way SOAP 1.1 or 1.2 with HTTP GET |
SOAP1.1-GET | one-way SOAP 1.1 with HTTP GET |
SOAP1.2-GET | one-way SOAP 1.2 with HTTP GET |
HTTP | non-SOAP REST protocol with HTTP POST |
POST | non-SOAP REST protocol with HTTP POST |
GET | non-SOAP REST protocol with HTTP GET |
PUT | non-SOAP REST protocol with HTTP PUT |
DELETE | non-SOAP REST protocol with HTTP DELETE |
You can bind service operations to the WSDL namespace of a service by using the namespace prefix as part of the identifier name of the function that defines the service operation:
You can override the port
endpoint URL at runtime in the auto-generated soap_call_prefix__func
service call (C/C++ client side) and in the C++ proxy class service call.
Service method directives
Service properties are applicable to a service and to all of its operations. Service method directives are specifically applicable to a service operation.
A service method directive is of the form:
where <prefix>
is the XML namespace prefix of a service binding and <method>
is the unqualified name of a service operation. The <property>
and <value>
fields are one of the following:
Method Property | Value |
---|---|
method-documentation | text describing the service operation |
method | same as above, shorthand form |
method-action | "" or URI SOAPAction HTTP header, or URL query string for REST protocols |
method-input-action | "" or URI SOAPAction HTTP header of service request messages |
method-output-action | "" or URI SOAPAction HTTP header of service response messages |
method-fault-action | "" or URI SOAPAction HTTP header of service fault messages |
method-header-part | member name of the SOAP_ENV__Header struct used in SOAP Header |
method-input-header-part | member name of the SOAP_ENV__Header struct used in SOAP Headers of requests |
method-output-header-part | member name of the SOAP_ENV__Header struct used in SOAP Headers of responses |
method-fault | type name of a struct or class member used in SOAP_ENV__Details struct |
method-mime-type | REST content type or SOAP MIME attachment content type(s) |
method-input-mime-type | REST content type or SOAP MIME attachment content type(s) of request message |
method-output-mime-type | REST content type or SOAP MIME attachment content type(s) of response message |
method-style | document or rpc |
method-encoding | literal , encoded , or a custom URI for encodingStyle of messages |
method-response-encoding | literal , encoded , or a custom URI for encodingStyle of response messages |
method-protocol | SOAP or REST, see service directives |
The method-header-part
properties can be repeated for a service operation to declare multiple SOAP Header parts that the service operation requires. You can use method-input-header-part
and method-output-header-part
to differentiate between request and response messages.
The method-fault
property can be repeated for a service operation to declare multiple faults that the service operation may return.
The method-action
property serves two purposes:
- To set the SOAPAction header for SOAP protocols, i.e. sets the definitions/binding/operation/SOAP:operation/@soapAction.
- To set the URL query string for endpoints with REST protocols, i.e. sets the definitions/binding/operation/HTTP:operation/@location, which specifies a URL query string (starts with a
?
) to complete the service endpoint URL or extends the endpoint URL with a local path (starts with a/
).
Use method-input-action
and method-output-action
to differentiate the SOAPAction between SOAP request and response messages.
You can always override the port endpoint URL and action values at runtime in the auto-generated soap_call_prefix__func
service call (C/C++ client side) and in the auto-generated C++ proxy class service calls. A runtime NULL endpoint URL and/or action uses the defaults set by these directives.
The method-mime-type
property serves two purposes:
- To set the type of MIME/MTOM attachments used with SOAP protocols. Multiple attachment types can be declared for a SOAP service operation, i.e. adds definitions/binding/operation/input/MIME:multipartRelated/MIME:part/MIME:content/@type for each type specified.
- To set the MIME type of a REST operation. This replaces XML declared in WSDL by definitions/binding/operation/(input|output)/MIME:mimeXml with MIME:content/@type. Use
application/x-www-form-urlencoded
with REST POST and PUT protocols to send encoded form data automatically instead of XML. Only primitive type values can be transmitted with form data, such as numbers and strings, i.e. only types that are legal to use as attributes members.
Use method-input-mime-type
and method-output-mime-type
to differentiate the attachment types between SOAP request and response messages.
Schema directives
A schema directive is of the form:
where <prefix>
is the XML namespace prefix of a schema. The <property>
and <value>
fields are one of the following:
Property | Value |
---|---|
namespace | URI of the XSD targetNamespace |
namespace2 | alternate URI for the XSD namespace (i.e. URI is also accepted by the XML parser) |
import | URI of imported namespace |
form | unqualified (default) or qualified local element and attribute form defaults |
elementForm | unqualified (default) or qualified local element form default |
attributeForm | unqualified (default) or qualified local attribute form default |
typed | no (default) or yes for serializers to add xsi:type attributes to XML |
To learn more about the local form defaults, see qualified and unqualified members.
The typed
property is implicitly yes
when soapcpp2 option -t
is used.
Schema type directives
A schema type directive is of the form:
where <prefix>
is the XML namespace prefix of a schema and <name>
is an unqualified name of a C/C++ type, and the optional <member>
is a class/struct members or enum constant.
You can describe a type:
Type Property | Value |
---|---|
type-documentation | text describing the schema type |
type | same as above, shorthand form |
For example, you can add a description to an enumeration:
This documented enumeration maps to a simpleType restriction of xsd:string
in the soapcpp2-generated schema:
<simpleType name="Vowels"> <annotation> <documentation>The letters A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y</documentation> </annotation> <restriction base="xsd:string"> <enumeration value="A"/> <enumeration value="E"/> <enumeration value="I"/> <enumeration value="O"/> <enumeration value="U"/> <enumeration value="Y"> <annotation> <documentation>A vowel, sometimes</documentation> </annotation> <enumeration/> </restriction> </simpleType>
Serialization rules
A presentation on XML data bindings is not complete without discussing the serialization rules and options that put your data in XML on the wire or store it a file or buffer.
There are several options to choose from to serialize data in XML. The choice depends on the use of the SOAP protocol or if SOAP is not required. The wsdl2h tool automates this for you by taking the WSDL transport bindings into account when generating the service functions in C and C++ that use SOAP or REST.
The gSOAP tools are not limited to SOAP. The tools implement generic XML data bindings for SOAP, REST, and other uses of XML. So you can read and write XML using the serializing operations on classes and structs.
The following sections briefly explain the serialization rules with respect to the SOAP protocol for XML Web services. A basic understanding of the SOAP protocol is useful when developing client and server applications that must interoperate with other SOAP applications.
SOAP/REST Web service client and service operations are represented as functions in your gSOAP header file with the data binding interface for soapcpp2. The soapcpp2 tool will translate these function to client-side service invocation calls and server-side service operation dispatchers.
A discussion of SOAP clients and servers is beyond the scope of this document. However, the SOAP options discussed here also apply to SOAP client and server development.
SOAP document versus rpc style
The wsdl:binding/soap:binding/@style
attribute in the wsdl:binding section of a WSDL is either "document" or "rpc". The "rpc" style refers to SOAP RPC (Remote Procedure Call), which is more restrictive than the "document" style by requiring one XML element in the SOAP Body to act as the procedure name with XML subelements as its parameters.
For example, the following directives in the gSOAP header file for soapcpp2 declare that DBupdate
is a SOAP RPC encoding service method:
The XML payload has a SOAP envelope, optional SOAP header, and a SOAP body with one element representing the operation with the parameters as subelements:
<SOAP-ENV:Envelope xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:SOAP-ENC="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlsn:ns="urn:DB"> <SOAP-ENV:Body> <ns:DBupdate> ... </ns:DBupdate> </SOAP-ENV:Body> </SOAP-ENV:Envelope>
The "document" style puts no restrictions on the SOAP Body content. However, we recommend that the first element's tag name in the SOAP Body should be unique to each type of operation, so that the receiver can dispatch the operation based on this element's tag name. Alternatively, the HTTP URL path can be used to specify the operation, or the HTTP action header can be used to dispatch operations automatically on the server side (soapcpp2 options -a and -A).
SOAP literal versus encoding
The wsdl:operation/soap:body/@use
attribute in the wsdl:binding section of a WSDL is either "literal" or "encoded". The "encoded" use refers to the SOAP encoding rules that support id-ref multi-referenced elements to serialize data as graphs.
SOAP encoding is very useful if the data internally forms a graph (including cycles) and we want the graph to be serialized in XML in a format that ensures that its structure is preserved. In that case, SOAP 1.2 encoding is the best option.
SOAP encoding also adds encoding rules for SOAP arrays to serialize multi-dimensional arrays. The use of XML attributes to exchange XML data in SOAP encoding is not permitted. The only attributes permitted are the standard XSD attributes, SOAP encoding attributes (such as for arrays), and id-ref.
For example, the following directives in the gSOAP header file for soapcpp2 declare that DBupdate
is a SOAP RPC encoding service method:
The XML payload has a SOAP envelope, optional SOAP header, and a SOAP body with an encodingStyle attribute for SOAP 1.1 encoding and an element representing the operation with parameters that are SOAP 1.1 encoded:
<SOAP-ENV:Envelope xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:SOAP-ENC="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlsn:ns="urn:DB"> <SOAP-ENV:Body SOAP-ENV:encodingStyle="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/"> <ns:DBupdate> <records SOAP-ENC:arrayType="ns:record[3]"> <item> <name href="#_1"/> <SSN>1234567890</SSN> </item> <item> <name>Jane</name> <SSN>1987654320</SSN> </item> <item> <name href="#_1"/> <SSN>2345678901</SSN> </item> </records> </ns:DBupdate> <id id="_1" xsi:type="xsd:string">Joe</id> </SOAP-ENV:Body> </SOAP-ENV:Envelope>
Note that the name "Joe" is shared by two records and the string is referenced by SOAP 1.1 href and id attributes.
While gSOAP only introduces multi-referenced elements in the payload when they are actually multi-referenced in the data graph, other SOAP applications may render multi-referenced elements more aggressively. The example could also be rendered as:
<SOAP-ENV:Envelope xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:SOAP-ENC="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlsn:ns="urn:DB"> <SOAP-ENV:Body SOAP-ENV:encodingStyle="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/"> <ns:DBupdate> <records SOAP-ENC:arrayType="ns:record[3]"> <item href="#id1"/> <item href="#id2"/> <item href="#id3"/> </records> </ns:DBupdate> <id id="id1" xsi:type="ns:record"> <name href="#id4"/> <SSN>1234567890</SSN> </id> <id id="id2" xsi:type="ns:record"> <name href="#id5"/> <SSN>1987654320</SSN> </id> <id id="id3" xsi:type="ns:record"> <name href="#id4"/> <SSN>2345678901</SSN> </id> <id id="id4" xsi:type="xsd:string">Joe</id> <id id="id5" xsi:type="xsd:string">Jane</id> </SOAP-ENV:Body> </SOAP-ENV:Envelope>
SOAP 1.2 encoding is cleaner and produces more accurate XML encodings of data graphs by setting the id attribute on the element that is referenced:
<SOAP-ENV:Envelope xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope" xmlns:SOAP-ENC="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-encoding" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlsn:ns="urn:DB"> <SOAP-ENV:Body> <ns:DBupdate SOAP-ENV:encodingStyle="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-encoding"> <records SOAP-ENC:itemType="ns:record" SOAP-ENC:arraySize="3"> <item> <name SOAP-ENC:id="_1">Joe</name> <SSN>1234567890</SSN> </item> <item> <name>Jane</name> <SSN>1987654320</SSN> </item> <item> <name SOAP-ENC:ref="_1"/> <SSN>2345678901</SSN> </item> </records> </ns:DBupdate> </SOAP-ENV:Body> </SOAP-ENV:Envelope>
-
Note
-
Some SOAP 1.2 applications consider the namespace
SOAP-ENC
ofSOAP-ENC:id
andSOAP-ENC:ref
optional. The gSOAP SOAP 1.2 encoding serialization follows the 2007 standard, while accepting unqualified id and ref attributes.
To remove all rendered id-ref multi-referenced elements in gSOAP, use the SOAP_XML_TREE
flag to initialize the gSOAP engine context.
Some XML validation rules are turned off with SOAP encoding, because of the presence of additional attributes, such as id and ref/href, SOAP arrays with arbitrary element tags for array elements, and the occurrence of additional multi-ref elements in the SOAP 1.1 Body.
The use of "literal" puts no restrictions on the XML in the SOAP Body. Full XML validation is possible, which can be enabled with the SOAP_XML_STRICT
flag to initialize the gSOAP engine context. However, data graphs will be serialized as trees and cycles in the data will be cut from the XML rendition.
SOAP 1.1 versus SOAP 1.2
There are two SOAP protocol versions: 1.1 and 1.2. The gSOAP tools can switch between the two versions seamlessly. You can declare the default SOAP version for a service operation as follows:
The gSOAP soapcpp2 auto-generates client and server code. At the client side, this operation sends data with SOAP 1.2 but accepts responses also in SOAP 1.1. At the server side, this operation accepts requests in SOAP 1.1 and 1.2 and will return responses in the same SOAP version.
As we discussed in the previous section, the SOAP 1.2 protocol has a cleaner multi-referenced element serialization format that greatly enhances the accuracy of data graph serialization with SOAP RPC encoding and is therefore recommended.
The SOAP 1.2 protocol default can also be set by importing and loading gsoap/import/soap12.h
:
Non-SOAP XML serialization
You can serialize data that is stored on the heap, on the stack (locals), and static data as long as the serializable (i.e. non-transient) members are properly initialized and pointers in the structures are either NULL or point to valid structures. Deserialized data is put on the heap and managed by the gSOAP engine context struct soap
, see also memory management.
You can read and write XML directly to a file or stream with the serializing operations on classes and structs.
To define and use XML Web service client and service operations, we can declare these operations in your gSOAP header file with the data binding interface for soapcpp2 as functions. The function are translated by soapcpp2 to client-side service invocation calls and server-side service operation dispatchers.
The REST operations POST, GET, and PUT are declared with //gsoap
directives in the gSOAP header file for soapcpp2. For example, a REST POST operation is declared as follows:
There is no SOAP Envelope and no SOAP Body in the payload for DBupdate
. Also the XML serialization rules are identical to SOAP document/literal. The XML payload only has the operation name as an element with its parameters serialized as subelements:
<ns:DBupdate xmln:ns="urn:DB" ...> ... </ns:DBupdate>
To force id-ref serialization with REST similar to SOAP 1.2 multi-reference encoding, use the SOAP_XML_GRAPH
flag to initialize the gSOAP engine context. The XML serialization includes id and ref attributes for multi-referenced elements as follows:
<ns:DBupdate xmln:ns="urn:DB" ...> <records> <item> <name id="_1">Joe</name> <SSN>1234567890</SSN> </item> <item> <name>Jane</name> <SSN>1987654320</SSN> </item> <item> <name ref="_1"/> <SSN>2345678901</SSN> </item> </records> </ns:DBupdate>
Input and output
Reading and writing XML from/to files, streams and string buffers is done via the managing context by setting one of the following context members that control IO sources and sinks:
Normally, all of these context members are NULL, which is required to send and receive data over sockets by gSOAP clients and servers. Therefore, if you set any of these context members in a client or server application then you MUST reset them to NULL to ensure that socket communications are not blocked.
Note: the use of soap->is
and soap->os
in C requires gSOAP 2.8.28 or later.
In the following sections, we present more details on how to read and write to files and streams, and use string buffers as sources and sinks for XML data.
In addition, you can set IO callback functions to handle IO at a lower level.
For more details, see the gSOAP user guide.
Reading and writing from/to files and streams
The default IO is standard input and output. Other sources and sinks (those listed above) will be used until you (re)set them. For example with file-based input and output:
Similar code with streams in C++:
Reading and writing from/to string buffers
For C++ we recommend to use std::stringstream
objects from <sstream>
as illustrated in the following example:
For C we can use soap->is
and soap->os
to point to strings of XML content as follows (this requires gSOAP 2.8.28 or later):
Note that soap->os
is a pointer to a const char*
string. The pointer is set by the managing context to point to the XML data that is stored on the context-managed heap.
For earlier gSOAP versions we recommend to use IO callbacks soap->frecv
and soap->fsend
, see the gSOAP user guide.
Memory management
Memory management with the soap
context enables us to allocate data in context-managed heap space that can be collectively deleted. All deserialized data is placed on the context-managed heap by the gSOAP engine.
Memory management in C
In C (wsdl2h option -c
and soapcpp2 option -c
), the gSOAP engine allocates data on a context-managed heap with:
void *soap_malloc(struct soap*, size_t len)
.
You can also make shallow copies of data with soap_memdup
that uses soap_malloc
and a safe version of memcpy
to copy a chunk of data src
with length len
to the context-managed heap:
void *soap_memdup(struct soap*, const void *src, size_t len)
This function returns a pointer to the copy. This function requires gSOAP 2.8.27 or later.
The soap_malloc
function is a wrapper around malloc
, but which also permits the struct soap
context to track all heap allocations for collective deletion with soap_end(soap)
:
The soapcpp2 auto-generated deserializers in C use soap_malloc
to allocate and populate deserialized structures, which are managed by the context for collective deletion.
To make char*
and wchar_t*
string copies to the context-managed heap, we can use the functions:
char *soap_strdup(struct soap*, const char *str)
andwchar_t *soap_wstrdup(struct soap*, const wchar_t *wstr)
.
If your C compiler supports typeof
then you can use the following macro to simplify the managed heap allocation and initialization of primitive values:
Pointers to primitive values are often used for optional members. For example, assume we have the following struct:
Use soap_assign
to create a SSN value on the managed heap:
Without the soap_assign
macro, you will need two lines of code, one to allocate and one to assign (you should also use this if your system can run out of memory):
The gSOAP serializer can serialize any heap, stack, or static allocated data. So we can also create a new record as follows:
Use the soapcpp2 auto-generated soap_dup_T
functions to duplicate data into another context (this requires soapcpp2 option -Ec
to generate), here shown for C with the second argument dst
NULL because we want to allocate a new managed structure:
Note that the only reason to use another context and not to use the primary context is when the primary context must be destroyed together with all of the objects it manages while some of the objects must be kept alive. If the objects that are kept alive contain deep cycles then this is the only option we have, because deep copy with a managing context detects and preserves these cycles unless the SOAP_XML_TREE
flag is used with the context:
The resulting deep copy will be a full copy of the source data structure as a tree without co-referenced data (i.e. no digraph) and without cycles. Cycles are pruned and (one of the) pointers that forms a cycle is repaced by NULL.
You can also deep copy into unmanaged space and use the auto-generated soap_del_T()
function (requires soapcpp2 option -Ed
to generate) to delete it later, but you MUST NOT do this for any data that has deep cycles in its runtime data structure:
Cycles in the data structure will lead to non-termination when making unmanaged deep copies. Consider for example:
The code to populate a structure with a mutual spouse relationship:
As we can see, the gSOAP serializer can serialize any heap, stack, or static allocated data, such as in the code above. So we can serialize the stack-allocated pers1
record as follows:
which produces an XML document record.xml that is similar to:
<ns:record xmlns:ns="urn:types" id="Joe"> <name>Joe</name> <SSN>1234567890</SSN> <spouse id="Jane"> <name>Jane</name> <SSN>1987654320</SSN> <spouse ref="#Joe"/> </spouse> </ns:record>
Deserialization of an XML document with a SOAP 1.1/1.2 encoded id-ref graph leads to the same non-termination problem when we later try to copy the data into unmanaged space:
Copying data with soap_dup_T(soap)
into managed space is always safe. Copying into unmanaged space requires diligence. But deleting unmanaged data is easy with soap_del_T()
.
You can also use soap_del_T()
to delete structures that you created in C, but only if these structures are created with malloc
and do NOT contain pointers to stack and static data.
Memory management in C++
In C++, the gSOAP engine allocates data on a managed heap using a combination of void *soap_malloc(struct soap*, size_t len)
and soap_new_T()
, where T
is the name of a class, struct, or class template (container or smart pointer). Heap allocation is tracked by the struct soap
context for collective deletion with soap_destroy(soap)
and soap_end(soap)
.
Only structs, classes, and class templates are allocated with new
via soap_new_T(struct soap*)
and mass-deleted with soap_destroy(soap)
.
There are four variations of soap_new_T
for class/struct/template type T
that soapcpp2 auto-generates to create instances on a context-managed heap:
T * soap_new_T(struct soap*)
returns a new instance ofT
with default data member initializations that are set with the soapcpp2 auto-generatedvoid T::soap_default(struct soap*)
method), but ONLY IF the soapcpp2 auto-generated default constructor is used that invokessoap_default()
and was not replaced by a user-defined default constructor.T * soap_new_T(struct soap*, int n)
returns an array ofn
new instances ofT
. Similar to the above, instances are initialized.T * soap_new_req_T(struct soap*, ...)
returns a new instance ofT
and sets the required data members to the values specified in...
. The required data members are those with nonzero minOccurs, see the subsections on (smart) pointer members and their occurrence constraints and container members and their occurrence constraints.T * soap_new_set_T(struct soap*, ...)
returns a new instance ofT
and sets the public/serializable data members to the values specified in...
.
The above functions can be invoked with a NULL soap
context, but you are responsible to use delete T
to remove this instance from the unmanaged heap.
For example, to allocate a managed std::string
you can use:
Primitive types and arrays of these are allocated with soap_malloc
by the gSOAP engine. As we stated above, all types except for classes, structs, class templates (containers and smart pointers) are allocated with soap_malloc
for reasons of efficiency.
You can use a C++ template to simplify the managed allocation and initialization of primitive values as follows (this is for primitive types only, because structs and classes are allocated with soap_new_T
):
For example, assuming we have the following class:
You can instantiate a record by using the auto-generated soap_new_set_ns__record
and use soap_make
to create a SSN value on the managed heap:
Note however that the gSOAP serializer can serialize any heap, stack, or static allocated data. So we can also create a new record as follows:
which will be fine to serialize this record as long as the local SSN
stack-allocated value remains in scope when invoking the serializer and/or using record
. It does not matter if soap_destroy
and soap_end
are called beyond the scope of SSN
.
To facilitate class methods to access the managing context, we can add a soap context pointer to a class/struct:
The context is set when invoking soap_new_T
(and similar) with a non-NULL context argument.
Use the soapcpp2 auto-generated soap_dup_T
functions to duplicate data into another context (this requires soapcpp2 option -Ec
to generate), here shown for C++ with the second argument dst
NULL to allocate a new managed object:
To duplicate base and derived instances when a base class pointer or reference is provided, use the auto-generated method T * T::soap_dup(struct soap*)
:
Note that the only reason to use another context and not to use the primary context is when the primary context must be destroyed together with all of the objects it manages while some of the objects must be kept alive. If the objects that are kept alive contain deep cycles then this is the only option we have, because deep copy with a managing context detects and preserves these cycles unless the SOAP_XML_TREE
flag is used with the context:
The resulting deep copy will be a full copy of the source data structure as a tree without co-referenced data (i.e. no digraph) and without cycles. Cycles are pruned and (one of the) pointers that forms a cycle is repaced by NULL.
You can also deep copy into unmanaged space and use the auto-generated soap_del_T()
function or the T::soap_del()
method (requires soapcpp2 option -Ed
to generate) to delete it later, but we MUST NOT do this for any data that has deep cycles in its runtime data structure graph:
Cycles in the data structure will lead to non-termination when making unmanaged deep copies. Consider for example:
The code to populate a structure with a mutual spouse relationship:
Note that the gSOAP serializer can serialize any heap, stack, or static allocated data, such as in the code above. So we can serialize the stack-allocated pers1
record as follows:
which produces an XML document record.xml that is similar to:
<ns:record xmlns:ns="urn:types" id="Joe"> <name>Joe</name> <SSN>1234567890</SSN> <spouse id="Jane"> <name>Jane</name> <SSN>1987654320</SSN> <spouse ref="#Joe"/> </spouse> </ns:record>
Deserialization of an XML document with a SOAP 1.1/1.2 encoded id-ref graph leads to the same non-termination problem when we later try to copy the data into unmanaged space:
Copying data with soap_dup_T(soap)
into managed space is always safe. Copying into unmanaged space requires diligence. But deleting unmanaged data is easy with soap_del_T()
.
You can also use soap_del_T()
to delete structures in C++, but only if these structures are created with new
(and new []
for arrays when applicable) for classes, structs, and class templates and with malloc
for anything else, and the structures do NOT contain pointers to stack and static data.
Context flags to initialize the soap struct
There are several context initialization flags and context mode flags to control XML serialization at runtime. The flags are set with soap_new1()
for heap allocation of contexts:
and with soap_init1()
with stack allocated contexts:
where <flag>
is one of:
SOAP_C_UTFSTRING
: enables allstd::string
andchar*
strings to contain UTF-8 content. This option is recommended.SOAP_C_NILSTRING
: treat empty strings as if they were NULL pointers, i.e. omits elements and attributes when empty.SOAP_XML_STRICT
: strictly validates XML while deserializing. Should not be used together with SOAP 1.1/1.2 encoding style of messaging. Use soapcpp2 option-s
to hard codeSOAP_XML_STRICT
in the generated serializers. Not recommended with SOAP 1.1/1.2 encoding style messaging.SOAP_XML_INDENT
: produces indented XML.SOAP_XML_CANONICAL
: c14n canonocalization, removes unusedxmlns
bindings and adds them to appropriate places by applying c14n normalization rules. Should not be used together with SOAP 1.1/1.2 encoding style messaging.SOAP_XML_TREE
: write tree XML without id-ref, while pruning data structure cycles to prevent nontermination of the serializer for cyclic structures.SOAP_XML_GRAPH
: write graph (digraph and cyclic graphs with shared pointers to objects) using id-ref attributes. That is, XML with SOAP multi-ref encoded id-ref elements. This is a structure-preserving serialization format, because co-referenced data and also cyclic relations are accurately represented.SOAP_XML_DEFAULTNS
: uses xmlns default namespace declarations, assuming that the schema attribute form is "qualified" by default (be warned if it is not, since attributes in the null namespace will get bound to namespaces!).SOAP_XML_NIL
: emit empty element withxsi:nil
for all NULL pointers serialized.SOAP_XML_IGNORENS
: the XML parser ignores XML namespaces, i.e. element and attribute tag names match independent of their namespace.SOAP_XML_NOTYPE
: removes allxsi:type
attribuation. This option is usually not needed unless the receiver rejects allxsi:type
attributes. This option may affect the quality of the deserializer, which relies onxsi:type
attributes to distinguish base class instances from derived class instances transported in the XML payloads.SOAP_IO_CHUNK
: to enable HTTP chunked transfers.SOAP_IO_STORE
: full buffering of outbound messages.SOAP_ENC_ZLIB
: compress messages, requires compiling with-DWITH_GZIP
and linking with zlib (-lz
).SOAP_ENC_MIME
: enable MIME attachments, see MIME/MTOM attachment binary types.SOAP_ENC_MTOM
: enable MTOM attachments, see MIME/MTOM attachment binary types.
Features and limitations
In general, to use the generated code:
- Make sure to
#include "soapH.h"
in your code and also define a namespace table or#include "ns.nsmap"
with the generated table, wherens
is the namespace prefix for services. - Use soapcpp2 option -j (C++ only) to generate C++ proxy and service objects. The auto-generated files include documented inferfaces. Compile with soapC.cpp and link with -lgsoap++, or alternatively compile stdsoap2.cpp.
- Without soapcpp2 option -j: client-side uses the auto-generated soapClient.cpp and soapC.cpp (or C versions of those). Compile and link with -lgsoap++ (-lgsoap for C), or alternatively compile stdsoap2.cpp (stdsoap2.c for C).
- Without soapcpp2 option -j: server-side uses the auto-generated soapServer.cpp and soapC.cpp (or C versions of those). Compile and link with -lgsoap++ (-lgsoap for C), or alternatively compile stdsoap2.cpp (stdsoap2.c for C).
- Use
soap_new()
orsoap_new1(int flags)
to allocate and initialize a heap-allocated context with or without flags. Delete this context withsoap_free(struct soap*)
, but only aftersoap_destroy(struct soap*)
andsoap_end(struct soap*)
. - Use
soap_init(struct *soap)
orsoap_init1(struct soap*, int flags)
to initialize a stack-allocated context with or without flags. End the use of this context withsoap_done(struct soap*)
, but only aftersoap_destroy(struct soap*)
andsoap_end(struct soap*)
.
Additional notes with respect to the wsdl2h and soapcpp2 tools:
- Nested classes, structs, and unions in a gSOAP header file are unnested by soapcpp2.
- Use
#import "file.h"
instead of#include
to import other header files in a gSOAP header file for soapcpp2. The#include
,#define
, and#pragma
are accepted by soapcpp2, but are moved to the very start of the generated code for the C/C++ compiler to include before all generated definitions. Often it is useful to add an#include
with a volatile type that includes the actual type declaration, and to ensure transient types are declared when these are used in a data binding interface declared in a gSOAP header file for soapcpp2. - To remove any SOAP-specific bindings, use soapcpp2 option
-0
. - A gSOAP header file for soapcpp2 should not include any code statements, only data type declarations. This includes constructor initialization lists that are not permitted. Use member initializations instead.
- C++ namespaces are supported. Use wsdl2h option
-qname
. Or add anamespace name { ... }
to the header file, but the{ ... }
MUST cover the entire header file content from begin to end. - Optional XML DOM support can be used to store mixed content or literal XML content. Otherwise, mixed content may be lost. Use wsdl2h option
-d
for XML DOM support and compile and link withdom.c
ordom.cpp
. For details, see XML DOM and XPath.
Removing SOAP namespaces from XML payloads
The soapcpp2 tool generates a .nsmap
file that includes two bindings for SOAP namespaces. We can remove all SOAP namespaces (and SOAP processing logic) with soapcpp2 option -0
or by simply setting the two entries to NULL:
Note that once the .nsmap
is generated, you can copy-paste the content into your project code. However, if we rerun wsdl2h on updated WSDL/XSD files or typemap.dat
declarations then we need to use the updated table.
In cases that no XML namespaces are used at all, for example with XML-RPC, you may use an empty namespace table:
However, beware that any built-in xsi attributes that are rendered will lack the proper namespace binding. At least we suggest to use SOAP_XML_NOTYPE
for this reason.
Examples
Select the project files below to peruse the source code examples.
Source files
address.xsd
Address book schemaaddress.cpp
Address book app (reads/writes address.xml file)addresstypemap.dat
Schema namespace prefix name preference for wsdl2hgraph.h
Graph data binding (tree, digraph, cyclic graph)graph.cpp
Test graph serialization as tree, digraph, and cyclic
Generated files
address.h
gSOAP-specific data binding definitions from address.xsdaddressStub.h
C++ data binding definitionsaddressH.h
SerializersaddressC.cpp
Serializersaddress.xml
Address book data generated by address appgraphStub.h
C++ data binding definitionsgraphH.h
SerializersgraphC.cpp
Serializersg.xsd
XSD schema withg:Graph
complexTypeg.nsmap
xmlns bindings namespace mapping table
Build steps
Building the AddressBook example:
wsdl2h -g -t addresstypemap.dat address.xsd soapcpp2 -0 -CS -I../../import -p address address.h c++ -I../.. address.cpp addressC.cpp -o address -lgsoap++
Option -g
produces bindings for global (root) elements in addition to types. In this case the root element a:address-book
is bound to _a__address_book
. The complexType a:address
is bound to class a__address
, which is also the type of _a__address_book
. This option is not required, but allows you to use global element tag names when referring to their serializers, instead of their type name. Option -0
removes the SOAP protocol. Options -C
and -S
removes client and server code generation. Option -p
renames the output soap
files to address
files.
See the address.cpp
implementation and related pages.
The addresstypemap.dat
file specifies the XML namespace prefix for the bindings:
# Bind the address book schema namespace to prefix 'a' a = "urn:address-book-example" # By default the xsd:dateTime schema type is translated to time_t # To map xsd:dateTime to struct tm, enable the following line: # xsd__dateTime = #import "../../custom/struct_tm.h" # ... and compile/link with custom/struct_tm.c
The DOB field is a xsd:dateTime
, which is bound to time_t
by default. To change this to struct tm
, enable the import of the xsd__dateTime
custom serializer by uncommenting the definition of xsd__dateTime
in addresstypemap.dat
. Then change soap_dateTime2s
to soap_xsd__dateTime2s
in the code.
Building the graph serialization example:
soapcpp2 -CS -I../../import -p graph graph.h c++ -I../.. graph.cpp graphC.cpp -o graph -lgsoap++
To compile without using the libgsoap++
library: simply compile stdsoap2.cpp
together with the above.
Usage
To execute the AddressBook example:
./address
To execute the Graph serialization example:
./graph
Copyright (C) 2016, Robert van Engelen, Genivia Inc., All Rights Reserved. Converted on Wed Mar 2 2016 10:24:54 by Doxygen 1.8.10