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Auto Generated Form Editor in soapUI Pro

The form editor attempts to dynamically build a user friendly input form from the underlying XML Schema definition for the current request message. The following screenshot shows the form created for one of the PayPal API calls;

Form created from XML Schema automatically

The toolbar contains buttons to Validate and Clear the current form. Clear will recreate an empty underlying request contain only required elements. Validating will show a clickable list of errors below the editor that can be used to move focus to the corresponding field that caused the error:

Form validations of input data for SOAP Request

By default, the editor creates fields for all elements and attributes in the underlying schema for those structures that are available in the underlying message, which can both be useful for inspection purposes but also annoying for testing purposes. Therefore, the toolbar contains a "View Type" combo which offers the following options:

  • All - will display all fields (default)
  • Mandatory - will display only mandatory fields
  • Data - will display only fields that contain any data. This can come in handy during testing when preparing a request and wanting to hide remaining fields
  • Mandatory and Data - will display all fields containing data and those that are mandatory

For example the following shows the above request with the "Data" value selected

Schema Generated form showing only elements containing data

This setting will be remembered between editing sessions.

Data type Support

The Form Editor uses validating editors for all native XML Schema data types and provides popup dialogs for easy entry of dates, durations, etc.

Example of DateTime support for Web Service Forms

The editors will discard values not allowed by the schema, if it is still required to enter "invalid" values the right-button menu for these fields contains a "Set Value" action for entering any text into the field:

Bypassing Data Type Support in soapUI Pro

Schema Support

The soapUI Pro Form Editor supports most commons XML Schema constructs but may have trouble displaying, editing, or validating more complex schemas. Therefore, it is advisable to initially double check the XML generated by the editor in one of the other editors. Since it is our ambition to fully support XML Schema, please let us know if you have schema constructs that are giving you or the editor trouble...

The following constructs should currently work fine:

  • Standard elements; if maxOccurs is more than 1 a listbox with add,edit, or remove buttons will be shown
  • Enumerations or Booleans will be displayed as combo-boxes
  • Binary fields are linked to the attachment support, a "Browse..." button will be displayed next to the input field allowing browsing and automatic associated of a file with a binary field
  • Attributes are displayed with a @ before the field name
  • Standard Sequence, Choice and All complex types - Choice will be displayed with a combo-box in the section header from which the desired choice should be selected.
  • Multiple occurrences of an complex element will be displayed as a list with add or remove buttons in the top right. Each entry in the list will be displayed with a list index next to the section name, for example in the last screenshot above, the MassPayItem section can contain 1-250 MassPayItems, currently it contains only one (seen with an index of [0]).
  • AbstractTypes will display a drop-down of global derived types from the schema, allowing selection of which derived type to use

A '*' after a field name denotes that it is required. All fields can show a small green question-mark which will show documentation information from the associated type in a tooltip.


Next: Overview View for Understandable SOAP Viewing