Question

I have a web service that returns a dataset object that contains the current weather forecast along with 0 or more weather alerts for a county/state. The dataset object just contains a Weather object and an array of Alerts objects. One of the clients of this would like to have it so the response gives the weather first instead of the alerts. Is there a way to specify the order of the response elements? I thought I could just change the WSDL to map out the weather first then the alerts, but that didn’t do anything.

Here’s the generic WSDL sheet:
(well, it showed formatted in the preview but not after posting… how can I post formatted XML on here? I tried using back-ticks as well as pre and code).

<wsdl:definitions ...>
 <wsdl:types>
  <schema elementFormDefault="qualified" targetNamespace="http://ws.sample.com" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
   <import namespace="http://objects.sample.com"/>
   <element name="getAll">
    <complexType>
     <sequence>
      <element name="county" type="xsd:string"/>
      <element name="state" type="xsd:string"/>
      <element name="latitude" type="xsd:double"/>
      <element name="longitude" type="xsd:double"/>
     </sequence>
    </complexType>
   </element>
   <element name="getAllResponse">
    <complexType>
     <sequence>
      <element name="getAllReturn" type="tns1:DataSet"/>
     </sequence>
    </complexType>
   </element>
   <complexType name="ArrayOf_tns1_Alert">
    <sequence>
     <element maxOccurs="unbounded" minOccurs="0" name="item" type="tns1:Alert"/>
    </sequence>
   </complexType>
  </schema>
  <schema elementFormDefault="qualified" targetNamespace="http://objects.sample.com" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
   <import namespace="http://ws.sample.com"/>
   <complexType name="Alert">
    <sequence>
     <element name="county" nillable="true" type="xsd:string"/>
     <element name="endDate" nillable="true" type="xsd:dateTime"/>
     <element name="locationCode" nillable="true" type="xsd:string"/>
     <element name="startDate" nillable="true" type="xsd:dateTime"/>
     <element name="state" nillable="true" type="xsd:string"/>
     <element name="title" nillable="true" type="xsd:string"/>
     <element name="warning" nillable="true" type="xsd:string"/>
    </sequence>
   </complexType>
   <complexType name="Weather">
    <sequence>
     <element name="chancePrecipitation" type="xsd:int"/>
     <element name="period" nillable="true" type="xsd:string"/>
     <element name="skyConditions" nillable="true" type="xsd:string"/>
     <element name="temperature" type="xsd:int"/>
     <element name="temperatureType" nillable="true" type="xsd:string"/>
     <element name="temperatureUnit" nillable="true" type="xsd:string"/>
     <element name="windDirection" nillable="true" type="xsd:string"/>
     <element name="windSpeed" type="xsd:int"/>
     <element name="windUnit" nillable="true" type="xsd:string"/>
    </sequence>
   </complexType>
   <complexType name="DataSet">
    <sequence>
     <element name="weather" nillable="true" type="tns1:Weather"/>
     <element name="alert" nillable="true" type="impl:ArrayOf_tns1_Alert"/>
    </sequence>
   </complexType>
  </schema>
 </wsdl:types>
   <wsdl:message name="getAllResponse">
      <wsdl:part element="impl:getAllResponse" name="parameters"/>
   </wsdl:message>
   <wsdl:message name="getAllRequest">
      <wsdl:part element="impl:getAll" name="parameters"/>
   </wsdl:message>
   <wsdl:portType name="TSTWeather">
      <wsdl:operation name="getAll">
         <wsdl:input message="impl:getAllRequest" name="getAllRequest"/>
         <wsdl:output message="impl:getAllResponse" name="getAllResponse"/>
      </wsdl:operation>
   </wsdl:portType>
   <wsdl:binding name="TSTWeatherSoapBinding" type="impl:TSTWeather">
      <wsdlsoap:binding style="document" transport="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/http"/>
      <wsdl:operation name="getAll">
         <wsdlsoap:operation soapAction=""/>
         <wsdl:input name="getAllRequest">
            <wsdlsoap:body use="literal"/>
         </wsdl:input>
         <wsdl:output name="getAllResponse">
            <wsdlsoap:body use="literal"/>
         </wsdl:output>
      </wsdl:operation>
   </wsdl:binding>
   <wsdl:service name="TSTWeatherService">
      <wsdl:port binding="impl:TSTWeatherSoapBinding" name="TSTWeather">
         <wsdlsoap:address location="http://localhost:8282/Services/service/TSTWeather"/>
      </wsdl:port>
   </wsdl:service>
</wsdl:definitions>

I don’t see how I could specify the order of my service response.

Answer 1

In many cases, just changing the WSDL does not change the service, and it’s the service that determines the order of the elements in the XML.