Question: Best practice/way to serialize an object

[minhderien]

I'm tring to serialize an object to look like the following and seeking for the best practice:

<Soap-ENV:Envelope xmlns:Soap-Env="someEnvelopeUri">
    <Soap-ENV:Header xmlns:header="someHeaderUri">
        <header:name>Name</header:name>
    </Soap-ENV:Header>
    <Soap-ENV:Body>
        <ADynamicRequest>
            <service>SomeService</service>
        </ADynamicRequest>
    </Soap-ENV:Body>
</Soap-ENV:Envelope>

Hence my object would look like the following:

import { XMLDecoratorSerializer } from "xmldom-decorators";
import { XMLElement, XMLRoot } from "xmldom-decorators/lib/decorators";

export class Header {
    @XMLElement({ types: [{ name: 'name', namespaceUri: 'someHeaderUri'}]})
    name: string;
}

export class ADynamicRequest {
    @XMLElement({ types: [{ name: 'service'}]})
    service: string;
}

@XMLRoot({ name: 'Envelope', namespaceUri: 'someEnvelopeUri'})
export class SoapEnvelope {
    @XMLElement({ types: [{name: 'Header', namespaceUri: 'someEnvelopeUri'}]})
    header: Header;

    @XMLElement({ types: [{ name: 'Body', namespaceUri: 'someEnvelopeUri'}]})
    //@XMLArray({ name: 'Body', namespaceUri: 'someEnvelopeUri'})
    soapBody: any; // [any], [BodyWrapperClass] type maybe?
    // Works well when the Specific type is given like ADynamicRequest type , but I'm tring to make it more generic so we can serialize any type of Object
    // For example, the type for the body could be a GetDataRequest or GetWeatherRequest

    public static GenerateEnvelope(): string {
        const header: Header = {
            name : 'Name'
        }
        const body : ADynamicRequest = {
            service: 'SomeService'
        }


        const soapEnvelope: SoapEnvelope = {
            header: header,
            soapBody: body
        }

        let serializer = new XMLDecoratorSerializer();
        let serializedObject: string = 
            serializer.serialize(
                soapEnvelope,
                SoapEnvelope,
                {
                    'someEnvelopeUri': 'Soap-ENV',
                    'someHeaderUri': 'header',
                }
            )
        console.log(serializedObject)
        return serializedObject;
    }
}

I do not get the expected result. I'm asking for help/guidance on how should I structure this. Should I serialize bits by bit and append them together instead?
Also I notice that the xmlns prefix is not working like I expect.

[andersnm]

Hi!

Alas, for now this is not a well supported scenario.

The "officially supported" way of doing this is to create one big static schema where the body has an @XMLElement with multiple entries in its types array for each of the possible request/response types.

This approach is however rather tedious because it doesn't generalize, the SOAP definitions gets mixed with the API definitions, and must be coded rather carefully.

In my project, I ended up rewriting this library without decorators and using better-defined object literals for schema. And then using a helper function to combine the SOAP schema with an API schema into a new specialized schema per request/response. The plan was bring these ideas back to this library, but time hasn't allowed for it yet. You could probably achieve something similar by manipulating the internal metadata generated by the decorators.

[minhderien]

Thanks for answering, by curiosity, could you provide an example for this :
The "officially supported" way of doing this is to create one big static schema where the body has an @xmlelement with multiple entries in its types array for each of the possible request/response types.

[andersnm]

Hi!

This technique is demonstrated in one of the tests:

xmldom-decorators/packages/xmldom-decorators-test/src/xmlserializer.test.ts

Lines 223 to 230 in 1666b1b

	@XMLRoot()
	class MultiMemberType {
	@XMLElement({types: [
	{name: "thing1", itemType: () => DerivedMemberType1, isType: (o) => o.type === "type1"},
	{name: "thing2", itemType: () => DerivedMemberType2, isType: (o) => o.type === "type2"}
	]})
	thing?: DerivedMemberType1|DerivedMemberType2;
	}

In this case, MultiMemberType would be the SOAP Body class, and thing1/thing2 are different messages inside the body.

[minhderien]

Hi!

This technique is demonstrated in one of the tests:

xmldom-decorators/packages/xmldom-decorators-test/src/xmlserializer.test.ts

Lines 223 to 230 in 1666b1b

	@XMLRoot()
	class MultiMemberType {
	@XMLElement({types: [
	{name: "thing1", itemType: () => DerivedMemberType1, isType: (o) => o.type === "type1"},
	{name: "thing2", itemType: () => DerivedMemberType2, isType: (o) => o.type === "type2"}
	]})
	thing?: DerivedMemberType1|DerivedMemberType2;
	}

In this case, MultiMemberType would be the SOAP Body class, and thing1/thing2 are different messages inside the body.

Thank you!