title: How to use request and respond with xml and VB.net?
body: <p>I was asked to send a request to a server to register online a transaction for a point gathering system. I don know much about this request-respond procedure.</p>
  
  <p>They told me that the request should be like this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>request( 
  p1 - loginInfo:UN|PASS|MP1
  p2 - XMLTransactionInfo (below)
  p3 - returnPointBalance:1
  )
  
  &lt;transaction&gt;
    &lt;partnernum&gt;000001&lt;/partnernum&gt;
    &lt;trxndate&gt;2012-10-&gt;12T07:18:27&lt;/trxndate&gt;
    &lt;cardnum&gt;1234567891234567&lt;/cardnum&gt;
    &lt;trxnamount&gt;5.4&lt;/trxnamount&gt;
    &lt;trxnpoints&gt;729&lt;/trxnpoints&gt;
    &lt;posnum&gt;000-001&lt;/posnum&gt;
    &lt;contactidnum&gt;&lt;/contactidnum&gt;
    &lt;contactphone&gt;357&lt;/contactphone&gt;
    &lt;trxnseqnum&gt;12345612345612&lt;/trxnseqnum&gt;
  &lt;/transaction&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>And the response should be like this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>response(    
  &lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt; 
  &lt;transactionresponse xmlns="C:\path\Sth.ear\Sth.war/xmlschema/TransactionResponse.rng"&gt;
    &lt;sequencenum&gt;123123121312&lt;/sequencenum&gt; 
    &lt;errorcode&gt;0&lt;/errorcode&gt; 
    &lt;errormessage&gt;&lt;/errormessage&gt; 
    &lt;trxnnum&gt;6399575&lt;/trxnnum&gt; 
    &lt;balancebefore&gt;1942&lt;/balancebefore&gt; 
    &lt;balanceafter&gt;1213&lt;/balanceafter&gt; 
    &lt;mpcontrib&gt;729&lt;/mpcontrib&gt; 
    &lt;partnercontrib&gt;0&lt;/partnercontrib&gt; 
  &lt;/transactionresponse&gt;
  )
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>They also told me: "You can get the WSDL with this URL: url1..." and "The WS endpoint is: url2..."</p>
  
  <p>So far i've managed to do the following:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Dim request As WebRequest = Nothing
  
    'Create a request for the URL.
    request =WebRequest.Create("URL1")
  
    'set the credentials.
    Dim credentials As NetworkCredential
    loginUser = "username"
    loginPass = "pass"
    credentials = New NetworkCredential(loginUser, loginPass, "MP1")
    request.Credentials = credentials
  
    'create the transaction xml
    request.ContentType = "text/xml"
    Dim transaction As XmlElement
    transaction = xml2.CreateElement("transaction")
    xml2.AppendChild(transaction)
  
    Dim partnernum As XmlElement
    partnernum = xml2.CreateElement("partnernum")
    partnernum.InnerText = "00001"
    transaction.AppendChild(partnernum)
  
    'and so on until i create the exact same xml as above...
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Then I print the XML file to the console for a visual check and then ask for response</p>
  
  <pre><code>  'print to console
    xml2.Save(Console.Out)
    Dim response As WebResponse = request.GetResponse()
    Console.WriteLine(response.ToString())
    'write the response to a textbox
    responseText.Text = response.Headers.ToString()
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The result of the response in the textbox is</p>
  
  <pre><code>Content-Language: el-GR
  Transfer-Encoding: chunked
  Content-Type: text/xml
  Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2012 18:52:33
  GMT Server: WebSphere Application Server/6.0
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Firstly which one of the 2 urls that they gave me I should I use?</p>
  
  <p>Secondly how can I create the request that they told me in order to get the response I am suppose to get?</p>
  
  <p>Is there any step by step guide for that?</p>
  
  <p>I am using VB.net,  WinForms.
  Thank you for your time.</p>