suds
The library suds allows Python to make SOAP calls (that is, Python is the web service client).

We start by installing the suds library on an Ubuntu machine. The Python setuptools are needed to install suds.

sudo apt-get install python-setuptools

Then we download, unpack and install suds.

wget https://fedorahosted.org/releases/s/u/suds/python-suds-0.3.7.tar.gz
tar -zxvf python-suds-0.3.7.tar.gz
cd python-suds-0.3.7
sudo python setup.py install

The library is now ready to use. We start by importing the suds library, creating a client based on a SOAP url, and asking the library to print the SOAP web service methods that are available to us.

import suds
url = "http://www.ecubicle.net/iptocountry.asmx?wsdl"
client = suds.client.Client(url)
print client

From the output of the last print command, we learn that there is a method called FindCountryAsString that takes one argument: the IP address.

print client.service.FindCountryAsString("194.145.200.104")

And it shows (edited for readability):

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<IPAddressService>
   <country>Netherlands</country>
</IPAddressService>

Normally you want to have the contents of the SOAP body. This is what suds provides in a very elegant way. However, you’re a bit stuck when you want to get something from the SOAP header. The author of suds realised this and made a backdoor to get the information anyway. We start by showing what the function last_received contains:

print client.last_received()
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<soap:Envelope>
   <soap:Header>
      <ResponseHeader xmlns="">
         <resultCode>1000</resultCode>
         <resultDescription>Success</resultDescription>
      </ResponseHeader>
   </soap:Header>
   <soap:Body>
...
   </soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>

We can get portions of this data by doing some XML handling. Let’s say we want to print the resultCode:

print client.last_received().getChild("soap:Envelope").getChild("soap:Header").getChild("ResponseHeader").getChild("resultCode").getText()
Python SOAP client with suds
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21 thoughts on “Python SOAP client with suds

  • 2010-03-02 at 13:26
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    Hello!, I have a question: where do you use SUDS as an example? In a python interpreter? Thanks a lot!

    Reply
    • 2010-03-02 at 14:14
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      Yes, the code parts that start with “import suds” must be used within the Python interpreter. You can type “python” on the command prompt and then type the text as shown on the site, or save the text to a file named suds-test.py and run it as “python suds-test.py” from the command prompt.

      Reply
      • 2010-03-02 at 15:38
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        Thanks a lot! I did it. Now i try to invoke from my instance in Plone. Bye

        Reply
      • 2012-02-20 at 08:11
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        Hi,

        I tried the example above and it works within python-suds-0.3.7 directory.
        However, the same file doesnt work from another directory.
        Do I need to change some path variables so that suds can be imported from anywhere?
        Any help in this regard would be highly appreciated.

        Thanks,
        Jane

        Reply
        • 2012-02-20 at 10:01
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          ignore my previous comment. reinstalled and it worked

          Reply
  • 2010-03-06 at 08:17
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    Hello again!, I tried to invoke a python function from my instance in plone, but i couldnt because the imports of suds return a error. Do you know how i must define it? This is my function:
    import suds (these line cause the error)
    def wsdl_AB(self):
    url = “http://vivaldi.cpe.ku.ac.th:443/ACSWWebserviceV1/wsdl/ACSWWebService.wsdl”
    client = suds.client.Client(url)
    return client.service.getAgrovocCSLanguages()

    Thank you so much!

    Reply
    • 2010-03-06 at 10:21
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      I don’t have experience with Plone. Perhaps you can search for others that tried to add python modules to the Plone installation.

      Reply
    • 2012-01-24 at 22:35
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      You likely have not yet installed ‘suds’; you can get around that easily by running `pip install suds` or `easy_install suds`.

      Reply
  • 2010-10-06 at 03:39
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    Hi.
    This worked great.
    Keep up the good work. Now I can integrate suds in my own application.

    Reply
  • 2011-03-25 at 08:22
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    Hi,
    I am using Python 2.7.1 on Windows machine. I have installed suds module (04) but while importing I am getting below exception:
    ImportError: No module named suds

    Please Help

    Reply
    • 2011-07-22 at 13:54
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      I had the same issue, it was on Redhat though, it turned out that the installer was placing the suds modules in the 2.4 dist and not the 2.6 which is what I’m using. Make sure suds is installed in the right directory

      Reply
  • 2011-06-14 at 11:45
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    Hey thanks a lot!! it worked for me

    Reply
  • 2012-01-04 at 14:41
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    Thanks for sharing the examples – this is just what I needed.

    I am developing a SOAP server and I needed a way to automate the testing procedures – SUDS is very simple to use, so I’m sticking to it.

    Reply
  • 2013-07-11 at 13:27
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    Hi, We are using SUDs for calling SOAP Services but facing an issue while parsing the response we are getting. The service support MTOM and we are getting parsing error.

    We tried using the plugin and implemented “received” function following https://fedorahosted.org/suds/wiki/Documentation#PLUGINS

    but its not coming into our hook and failing before that only. Any help would be appreciated.

    Reply
  • 2013-09-03 at 05:09
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    Sorry for bothering your guys…. I know this is old thread… I followed the example but got the error messsage below. do you know how to figure out it? really appreciated if you can share anyting
    URLError:

    Reply
  • 2014-05-07 at 18:00
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    Warning. Check which is the latest version of SUDS before downloading with WGET!

    Reply
  • 2014-05-12 at 08:25
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    Hi, I have a question. I was installed SUDS finished, and import suds. While there an error ” client = suds.client.Client(url)
    AttributeError: ‘module’ object has no attribute ‘client'” occurs when running ‘client = suds.suds.client.Client(url)’. Could you please help me handle it? Thanks a lot!

    Reply
    • 2016-06-06 at 09:54
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      the url you passed is not correct. pass the wsdl url like hjgashjf.kjhkjf.wsdl

      Reply
  • 2016-06-06 at 09:52
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    How to send soap message when it requires use authentication. the header is like

    XXXXXX
    XXXXXXX

    Reply
  • 2018-04-11 at 21:24
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    I’m keep getting error cannot import name client
    I install suds and I’m running python 2.7

    Reply
  • 2019-09-17 at 14:30
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    Hi i have tried this and got exception like Errorno-2

    from suds.client import Client
    url = “http://www.ecubicle.net/iptocountry.asmx?wsdl”
    client = Client(url)
    print(client)

    Returns Error:
    urllib.error.URLError:

    Reply

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