Unexpected element name: expected WHEN INVOKING A WEB SERVICE

Question

I am pretty new to Web Services and need some helping in resolving the following error. I created following two classes and published one of the method savePerson. When I tried to invoke the webservice through my browser passing the following:
<ns1:savePersonElement xmlns:ns1="http://mypackage17/Person.wsdl/types">
<ns1:sex>simpleType value</ns1:sex>
<ns1:human>
<ns2:last xmlns:ns2="http://tempuri.org">simpleType value</ns2:last>
<ns3:first xmlns:ns3="http://tempuri.org">simpleType value</ns3:first>
</ns1:human>
</ns1:savePersonElement>
I get the following error:
<env:Envelope xmlns:env="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:ns0="http://mypackage17/Person.wsdl/types">
<env:Body>
<env:Fault>
<faultcode>env:Client</faultcode>
<faultstring>caught exception while handling request: unexpected element name: expected={http://mypackage17/Person.wsdl/types}name, actual={http://mypackage17/Person.wsdl/types}sex</faultstring>
</env:Fault>
</env:Body>
</env:Envelope>
But passing the following works fine as have passed all the parameters data:
<ns1:savePersonElement xmlns:ns1="http://mypackage17/Person.wsdl/types">
<ns1:name>simpleType value</ns1:name>
<ns1:sex>simpleType value</ns1:sex>
<ns1:human>
<ns2:last xmlns:ns2="http://tempuri.org">simpleType value</ns2:last>
<ns3:first xmlns:ns3="http://tempuri.org">simpleType value</ns3:first>
</ns1:human>
</ns1:savePersonElement>
Here is the code I have for the webservice:
package mypackage17;
*@oracle.ws.WebService name = "MyWebService2", serviceName = "MyWebService2", description = "", targetNamespace = "http://tempuri.org", schemaTargetNamespace = "http://mypackage17/Person.wsdl/types", endpointInterface = "mypackage17.MyWebService1SEI"
*@oracle.ws.SOAPBinding style = "DOCUMENT", use = "LITERAL", documentWrapped = "true", bindingName = "MyWebService1SoapHttp", portName = "MyWebService1Port"
public class Person extends Human
private String name;
private String sex;
public Person(){}
public void setName(String name)
this.name = name;
public void setSex(String sex)
this.sex = sex;
public String getName()
return this.name;
public String getSex()
return this.sex;
*@oracle.ws.DocumentWrapper requestType = "savePerson", requestElement = "savePersonElement", requestPart = "parameters", responseType = "savePersonResponse", responseElement = "savePersonResponseElement", responsePart = "parameters"
*@oracle.ws.WebMethod operationName = "savePerson", description = "", oneway = "false", documentWrapped = "true", inputMessage = "MyWebService1SEI_savePerson", outputMessage = "MyWebService1SEI_savePersonResponse", responsePart = "result"
*@oracle.ws.ParamPart position = "0", partName = "name", mode = "IN", soapHeader = "false"
*@oracle.ws.ParamPart position = "1", partName = "sex", mode = "IN", soapHeader = "false"
*@oracle.ws.ParamPart position = "2", partName = "human", mode = "IN", soapHeader = "false"
public void savePerson(String name, String sex, Human[] human)
System.out.println("Name: " + name);
System.out.println("Sex: " + sex);
System.out.println(human.length);
System.out.println("1 First: " + human[0].getFirst());
System.out.println("1 Last: " + human[0].getLast());
System.out.println("2 First: " + human[1].getFirst());
System.out.println("2 Last: " + human[1].getLast());
/****** THE OTHER CLASS ********/
package mypackage17;
public class Human
private String first;
private String last;
public Human(){}
public void setFirst(String first)
this.first = first;
public void setLast(String last)
this.last = last;
public String getFirst()
return this.first;
public String getLast()
return this.last;
Here is the WSDL generated using JDeveloper 10.1.3:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<definitions
name="MyWebService2"
targetNamespace="http://tempuri.org"
xmlns="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/"
xmlns:tns="http://tempuri.org"
xmlns:mime="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/mime/"
xmlns:soap12="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/soap12/"
xmlns:ns1="http://mypackage17/Person.wsdl/types"
xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/soap/"
>
<types>
<schema xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" targetNamespace="http://tempuri.org" elementFormDefault="qualified"
xmlns:tns="http://tempuri.org" xmlns:wsdl="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:soap11-enc="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/">
<import namespace="http://mypackage17/Person.wsdl/types"/>
<complexType name="Human">
<sequence>
<element name="last" type="string" nillable="true"/>
<element name="first" type="string" nillable="true"/>
</sequence>
</complexType>
</schema>
<schema xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" targetNamespace="http://mypackage17/Person.wsdl/types"
elementFormDefault="qualified" xmlns:tns="http://mypackage17/Person.wsdl/types"
xmlns:wsdl="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:soap11-enc="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/" xmlns:ns1="http://tempuri.org">
<import namespace="http://tempuri.org"/>
<complexType name="savePerson">
<sequence>
<element name="name" type="string" nillable="true"/>
<element name="sex" type="string" nillable="true"/>
<element name="human" type="ns1:Human" nillable="true" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded"/>
</sequence>
</complexType>
<complexType name="savePersonResponse">
<sequence/>
</complexType>
<element name="savePersonElement" type="tns:savePerson"/>
<element name="savePersonResponseElement" type="tns:savePersonResponse"/>
</schema>
</types>
<message name="MyWebService1SEI_savePerson">
<part name="parameters" element="ns1:savePersonElement"/>
</message>
<message name="MyWebService1SEI_savePersonResponse">
<part name="parameters" element="ns1:savePersonResponseElement"/>
</message>
<portType name="MyWebService2">
<operation name="savePerson">
<input message="tns:MyWebService1SEI_savePerson"/>
<output message="tns:MyWebService1SEI_savePersonResponse"/>
</operation>
</portType>
<binding name="MyWebService1SoapHttp" type="tns:MyWebService2">
<soap:binding style="document" transport="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/http"/>
<operation name="savePerson">
<soap:operation soapAction="http://tempuri.org:savePerson"/>
<input>
<soap:body use="literal" parts="parameters"/>
</input>
<output>
<soap:body use="literal" parts="parameters"/>
</output>
</operation>
</binding>
<service name="MyWebService2">
<port name="MyWebService1Port" binding="tns:MyWebService1SoapHttp">
<soap:address location="http://192.168.2.101:8988/JavaWebService/MyWebService2"/>
</port>
</service>
</definitions>
Can someone tell what am I doing wrong. As it looks like I have to pass all the parameters for the method that is published but what if some are missing basically I want to keep all the parameters optional. How can I make the service to return the same what is passed when invoked. Any help is appreciated. I am using JDeveloper 10.1.3.

Answer 1

To make the service return "whatever is passed", you have to take a step back and realize that there is a little understanding of XML Schema required.
When using a complexType, which is defined as a sequence, then you are implying an ordered sequence of elements. Default value for the 'minOccurs' attribute is 1. It's also important to understand that there is a difference between minOccurs=0 and nillable="true".
nillable="true" just means that the name element can carry a null value. If you want the name element to be optional, then you must use the minOccurs=0 and keep the maxOccurs to it's default value of 1. Using an array is just a bad work around. This is for deserialization (XML to JAVA).
The second part of you problem is on the serialization (or JAVA to XML). When you have a JAVA Bean, there is no way to make the difference between a member's value being null or not set, so it's impossible to decide if you need to send back a nul (xsi:nil="true"), an empty element <ns1:name/> or nothing.
That said, if you do want to go the XML route, you can use the dataBinding="false" flag in the different WSA command. Instead of converting XML into JAVA, you will have SOAPElement parameters, where you can do all you want (see WS user's guide [1] for details - chapter 16). Note that you have to make sure that the WSDL (your contract) reflect what you are doing on the wire (format of your messages), so that you do not geopardize your interoperability with other toolkit.
Note that this only applies to literal message formats (use attribute in WSDL), which is your case.
Hope this helps,
Eric
[1] http://download-west.oracle.com/otn_hosted_doc/ias/preview/web.1013/b14434.pdf