#1306 Namespace prefix attached in xsi:type value even for SOAP_XML_DEFAULTNS

[Suyog Jain]

In version - 2.8.17
We are using Amazon.xsd for testing complex attribute with inheritance. And earlier we used to receive

     <Grantee xsi:type="CanonicalUser">
            <ID>sample</ID>
            <DisplayName>sample</DisplayName>
        </Grantee>

But after upgrading to version 2.8.108 -

In version - 2.8.108, additional namespace prefix("s3:") is attached to "CanonicalUser"

     <Grantee xsi:type="s3:CanonicalUser">
            <ID>sample</ID>
            <DisplayName>sample</DisplayName>
        </Grantee>

The reason for this is the code which was removed from stdsoap2.cpp. That was present in 2.8.17 version before line - "if (soap_attribute(soap, "xsi:type", type))"

ifndef WITH_LEAN

if (soap->mode & SOAP_XML_DEFAULTNS)
{ s = strchr(type, ':');
  if (s)
    s++;
  else
    s = type;
}

Expectation is the for flag - SOAP_XML_DEFAULTNS, the xsi:type should return "CanonicalUser", rather it returns "s3:CanonicalUser". Is there any way we can preserve behavior of the older version?

[Robert van Engelen]

The old code was changed/removed after 2.8.17 because it triggered a bug with the SOAP_XML_DEFAULT flag. The code is insufficient. Note that xsi:type is only useful for cases that require inheritance, i.e. to distinguish the base from a derived type. Newer gsoap versiosn do not use xsi:type by default any longer, only to disambiguate base/derived types.

[Robert van Engelen]

Let me explain why the old code fails. Consider:

<xx:name xsi:type="xsd:string">

without prefixes this should be:

<name xmlns="some-uri" xsi:type="xsd:string">

It is not correct to remove the prefix from the xsi:type, but only when the prefix matches the current default namespace of course. Now, normally we don't see any xsi:type attributes like this any longer.

A better solution might be to make the following change to soap_element():

    if ((soap->mode & SOAP_XML_DEFAULTNS))
    {
      size_t n = 0;
      s = strchr(tag, ':');
      if (s)
      {
        n = s++ - tag;
        if (type && !strncmp(type, tag, n + 1))
          type += n + 1;
      }
      else
      {
        s = tag;
      }

[Robert van Engelen]

Upcoming gsoap 2.8.127 has the code update suggested above.