Introduction

This section describes in detail how to interact with InstantSOAP using a simple commandline client. It assumes that you have installed Java, Tomcat and the instantsoap-ws-echotest service as described in the starter document. This document also shows elementary use of the client.

The InstantSOAP client is not meant for serious use, but it does demonstrate the basics of the interactions with an InstantSOAP service. You can download the client in a variety of formats from here .

Where is my service?

Two things need to be specified for the client to find an InstantSOAP installation. First is the physical machine that it is located on. This defaults to localhost:8080 , but can be altered: 

instantsoap-client --host http://dinley.ncl.ac.uk:8080

Secondly, you need to describe the installation -- a single tomcat can host many different InstantSOAP war files which in turn can carry more than one service. This can be specified with 

instantsoap-client --installation instantsoap-ws-echotest-1.0
As it happens, instantsoap-ws-echotest-1.0 is the default.

What applications are installed?

An InstantSOAP installation can host more than one service. More over the hosted service can be changed dynamically. Therefore, you may well need to list the applications currently hosted. In this case, 

instantsoap-client --list
will return a list of the various applications, using the default locations as described in the previous section.

Describe an application

Each InstantSOAP application can describe itself. 

instantsoap-client --application=stringEcho --describe
This returns basic information, in this case "Application description: Echo any string". Likewise, the application can describe its inputs. 
instantsoap-client --application=stringEcho --inputs
This returns "messageIn messageToEcho".

Invoking a Service

There are two ways of invoking a service. Both appear identical from the users perspective with this client. 

instantsoap-client --application=stringEcho --blocking  messageIn=hello
instantsoap-client --application=stringEcho --nonblocking  messageIn=hello
Both of these return the result "messageOut=hello".

Conclusions

This command line client demonstrates the functionality