CODEWITHSUNDEEP
xmlweb-servicessoapfedex
Randy Gamage
Randy Gamage

Reputation: 1941

FedEx XML API - How to call without SOAP?

I'm developing a FedEx API client to process shipments, using C#, .NET Core 3.1. Everything works if I use a SOAP message, but I want to use plain XML posts instead. I've used this method successfully with the DHL API. I don't want to use all the WCF overhead and code generation and have found the SOAP exceptions to be difficult to deal with. The docs say plain XML should work, but I have not been able to get a simple tracking request working without the SOAP envelope, and there are no examples in the docs. Wrapping a plain XML request in a SOAP envelope seems easy, but is actually pretty complicated to do programmatically for a lot of different namespaces, etc. I would prefer to get the plain XML working. Some old posts say the xml URL is different (with /xml at the end), but the current docs do not mention any other URL than this one: https://wsbeta.fedex.com:443/web-services and I've tried adding the /xml to the end as well.

Here's a working SOAP request:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Envelope xmlns="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
    <Body>
        <TrackRequest xmlns="http://fedex.com/ws/track/v19">
            <WebAuthenticationDetail>
                <UserCredential>
                    <Key>MYKEY</Key>
                    <Password>MYPWD</Password>
                </UserCredential>
            </WebAuthenticationDetail>
            <ClientDetail>
                <AccountNumber>510087380</AccountNumber>
                <MeterNumber>119194031</MeterNumber>
            </ClientDetail>
            <TransactionDetail>
                <CustomerTransactionId>***Track Request using VC#***</CustomerTransactionId>
            </TransactionDetail>
            <Version>
                <ServiceId>trck</ServiceId>
                <Major>19</Major>
                <Intermediate>0</Intermediate>
                <Minor>0</Minor>
            </Version>
            <SelectionDetails>
                <PackageIdentifier>
                    <Type>TRACKING_NUMBER_OR_DOORTAG</Type>
                    <Value>794959156726</Value>
                </PackageIdentifier>
            </SelectionDetails>
            <ProcessingOptions>INCLUDE_DETAILED_SCANS</ProcessingOptions>
        </TrackRequest>
    </Body>
</Envelope>

And here's the non-working plain XML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<TrackRequest xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns="http://fedex.com/ws/track/v19">
  <WebAuthenticationDetail>
    <UserCredential>
      <Key>MYKEY</Key>
      <Password>MYPWD</Password>
    </UserCredential>
  </WebAuthenticationDetail>
  <ClientDetail>
    <AccountNumber>510087380</AccountNumber>
    <MeterNumber>119194031</MeterNumber>
  </ClientDetail>
  <TransactionDetail>
    <CustomerTransactionId>***Track Request using VC#***</CustomerTransactionId>
  </TransactionDetail>
  <Version>
    <ServiceId>trck</ServiceId>
    <Major>19</Major>
    <Intermediate>0</Intermediate>
    <Minor>0</Minor>
  </Version>
  <SelectionDetails>
    <PackageIdentifier>
      <Type>TRACKING_NUMBER_OR_DOORTAG</Type>
      <Value>794959156726</Value>
    </PackageIdentifier>
  </SelectionDetails>
  <ProcessingOptions>INCLUDE_DETAILED_SCANS</ProcessingOptions>
</TrackRequest>

For the plain XML, I get SOAP-encoded response, stating "Error code 500 Internal system error. Please try again later."

Does anyone know the secret formatting needed to get the plain XML requests to work?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 930

Answers (1)

dilico
dilico

Reputation: 754

That plain xml is correct: I only changed key, password, account and meter numbers, and I got a valid response.

Just to confirm, the request is a POST to https://wsbeta.fedex.com:443/xml (url for the testing environment), the headers are Accept: image/gif, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, text/plain, text/html, */*" and Content-Type: text/xml, and the body is the plain xml you included (i.e. without the SOAP elements).

Upvotes: 1

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