I'm trying to write a program to get FedEx shipping rates, and I'm
following their API as outlined in this document:
http://www.fedex.com/us/solutions/wis/pdf/fsm_directmanual.pdf

I need specifically to make a POST request to their server as shown on
page 12.  However I continually get server  error 500, and they FedEx
support advised me that this means my request is incorrect somewhere.

I put the code I"m using at the end of this email.  Unfortunately I
don't know how to "see" the request the code generates either so I
can't paste that here.

Any help would be greatly appriciated.

--
Gregory Piñero
Chief Innovation Officer
Blended Technologies
(www.blendedtechnologies.com)

Code pasted below (contains sample info so it won't work for you):

import urllib
import urllib2

FedEx_API_URL="https://gatewaybeta.fedex.com:443/GatewayDC"

xml_request="""<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<FDXSubscriptionRequest xmlns:api="http://www.fedex.com/fsmapi"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchemainstance"
xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="FDXSubscriptionRequest.xsd">
<RequestHeader>
<CustomerTransactionIdentifier>String</CustomerTransactionIdentifier>
<AccountNumber>123456789</AccountNumber>
</RequestHeader>
<Contact>
<PersonName>Jim Smith</PersonName>
<CompanyName>Creative Widgets</CompanyName>
<Department>Shipping</Department>
<PhoneNumber>5405559900</PhoneNumber>
<PagerNumber>9999999999</PagerNumber>
<FaxNumber>5405559901</FaxNumber>
<E-MailAddress>j...@abc.com</E-MailAddress>
</Contact>
<Address>
<Line1>123 Main Street</Line1>
<Line2>1st Floor</Line2>
<City>Anycity</City>
<StateOrProvinceCode>VA</StateOrProvinceCode>
<PostalCode>24060</PostalCode>
<CountryCode>US</CountryCode>
</Address>
</FDXSubscriptionRequest>"""

values = {'request':xml_request}
headers = { 'Referer' : 'YourCompany',
            'Host':'https://gatewaybeta.fedex.com/GatewayDC',
            'Accept':'image/gif, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, text/plain,
text/html, */*',
            'Content-Type':'image/gif'
            }

i noticed one spelling mistake here:
 > headers = { 'Referer' : 'YourCompany',

'Referrer'

All the best,

Here is what they say my request should look like:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
POST /GatewayDC HTTP/1.0
Referer: YourCompanyNameGoesHere
Host: SSLserver.fedex.com
Accept: image/gif, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, text/plain, text/html, */*
Content-Type: image/gif Content-length: %d

Your FedEx Transaction
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note that Host here is ficticious.  My host should be correct.  And
they have referrer mispelled here so who knows which to use!

Here are some suspicions I have:

1 . One thing that is weird is that the data part just says "Your
FedEx Transaction".  I know I put the XML here, but I also notice that
urllib2 is putting this as:

request=<xml ....

Can I have my xml placed here without that something= part?  That
don't specify what parameter name I should use.

2. urllib2 seems to create my request with \n\r line endings.  Should
it maybe just be \n?  And if so, how to change that?

Thanks again,

--eric

On 1 feb 2006, at 17:34, Gregory Piñero wrote:

    values = {'request':xml_request}
    data = urllib.urlencode(values)

so if you don't want it, all you have to do is to pass in the transaction
xml instead of the urlencoded form data:

    req = urllib2.Request(FedEx_API_URL, xml_request, headers)

do you have to type in a password for your a/c when you look this info
up manually on the web?

if so, you probably need a secure connection in the api too.

e.g. (copied out of my blogger code):
conn= httplib.HTTPSConnection(host)
conn.set_debuglevel(1)
conn.request("POST",path,body,headers)
response=conn.getresponse()
print response.read()

WHERE:
headers = { "Content-type"  : "application/xml"
            ,"Authorization" : basicstring
            ,"Host"          : host
           }

WHERE:
username="YOURACCOUNT"
pwd="YOURPWD"
host="SSLserver.fedex.com"
path="ANYTHINGAPPROPRIATE"
pwdDigest= base64.encodestring(username+":"+pwd).strip()
basicstring = "Basic "+ pwdDigest

skipping the url encoding is what did the trick.  I didn't end up
needing to do anything special for ssl.  I guess urllib2 just handles
that itself.

Thanks again,