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Using WSDL Web Service with MATLAB

What Are Web Services in MATLAB?

Web services allow applications running on disparate computers, operating systems, and development environments to communicate with each other. There are two ways to use web services in MATLAB®. When the service you want to use provides:

What Are WSDL Documents?

Using a web service based on Web Services Description Language (WSDL) document technologies, client workstations access and execute APIs residing on a remote server. The client and server communicate via XML-formatted messages, following the W3C® SOAP protocol, and typically via the HTTP protocol.

Using the WSDL interface, MATLAB acts as a web service client, providing functions you use to access existing services on a server. The functions facilitate communication with the server, relieving you of the need to work with XML, complex SOAP messages, and special web service tools. Through these functions, you use services in your normal MATLAB environment, such as in the Command Window and in MATLAB programs you write.

Diagram Showing Web Services in MATLAB

A MATLAB workstation and other workstations communicate through the internet with web services on a server.

An organization that wants to make APIs available to disparate clients creates the APIs and related web service facilities for the server. Organizations either choose to make the services available only to local clients via the organization's intranet, or offer them to the general public via the web.

What You Need to Use WSDL with MATLAB

You need to find out from your own organization and the organizations you work with if they provide a web service of interest to you. There are publicly available services, some for free and some provided for a fee.

Functions for MATLAB WSDL web services work with services that comply with the Basic Profile 1 to SOAP Binding specification.

You need to know basic information about the service you want to use, provided by the documentation for the service.

You need access to the server from the workstation where you use MATLAB. If there is a proxy server, provide any required settings using web preferences. To do so, see Specify Proxy Server Settings for Connecting to the Internet.

To get started, see Call Web Services from MATLAB Using WSDL.

See Also

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