Setting Web Services to A Different URL in ActionScript

Some Web Services don't provide a correct port address in its WSDL. To get around this issue, it requires developers to set new endpointURI in MXML/ActionScript files.

There are two ways of calling web service operations in Adobe Flex:

1. Use Flex built-in WebService class


2. Use web service proxy classes (automatically generated by WSDL Instrospection Wizard)

Using Flex Built-In WebService Class

Using the first approach, you can set endpointURI on the WebService instance. The creationComplete event is thrown when the application is initialized. In this case, you can attach a listener (i.e., initApp()) to intercept the event and set the correct endpointURI on the WebService instance. Note that the new endpointURI set on the WebService instance applies to all operations defined in it.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mx:WindowedApplication
xmlns:mx=http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml
layout="vertical"creationComplete="initApp()"
xmlns:search="search.*">

<mx:WebService
id="myWebService"
wsdl="http://www.example.com:7753/search/query/Search?WSDL"
showBusyCursor="true">

<mx:operation name="doSimpleSearch" resultFormat="XML"
fault="onFault(event)"
result="showResult(event)"/>

<mx:operation name="login" resultFormat="XML"
fault="onFault(event)"
result="showResult(event)"/>

</mx:WebService>

<mx:Script>


private function initApp():void
{
myWebService.endpointURI =
  "http://www.example.com:7753/search/query/Search";
myWebService.login("yyy", "yyy");
}
]]>

</mx:WindowedApplication>

Using Web Service Proxy Classes

You can also use the Flex Builder Import Web Service feature to automatically generate connection code for invoking SOAP-based web service operations. The generated code includes client-side (ActionScript) web service proxy classes that return strongly typed objects. You can use the generated code to call web service operations directly and to pass strongly typed objects as operation parameters.

Generated web service proxy files
The Import Web Service feature introspects a provided WSDL file and generates the following ActionScript class files:

• BaseServiceName.as


• IServicename.as


• etc.

To see the full list of generated files and their descriptions, see Adobe Help.

For example, our service is named SearchService which is retrieved from the WSDL file. Using Import Web Service feature in FlexBuilder, it generates the following files:

• BaseSearchService.as


• ISearchService.as


• etc.

To fix the URL issue, you locate endpointURI in the BaseServiceName.as file. Then set it to be the correct URL as shown below:

BaseSearchServicePort.endpointURI = "http://myserver:7777/search/query/Search"

This should work when you use the generated code to call web service operations directly. Without this fix, you will get the notorious stream error #2032.

I also noticed that there is a generated WSDL file in the project under .wsdl folder. It may be a good idea to change the URL in that WSDL file to be correct.