Not able to create a SOAP filter in suds

Question

I have a SOAP request that takes below XML body

<x:Body>
    <ser:CreateExportJobRequest>
        <ser:ExportJobTypeName>Products</ser:ExportJobTypeName>
        <ser:ExportColumns>
            <ser:ExportColumn>Id</ser:ExportColumn>
            <ser:ExportColumn>itemName</ser:ExportColumn>
        </ser:ExportColumns>
        <ser:ExportFilters>
            <ser:ExportFilter id="updatedSince">
                <ser:Text>2.0</ser:Text>
            </ser:ExportFilter>
        </ser:ExportFilters>
        <ser:Frequency>ONETIME</ser:Frequency>
    </ser:CreateExportJobRequest>
</x:Body>

I can make a successful request using Boomerang.

Now I actually want to use it in my python code. So I tried,

inputElement = client.factory.create('CreateExportJobRequest')

inputElement.ExportJobTypeName = "Products"
inputElement.ExportColumns.ExportColumn = ["Id", "itemName"]

inputElement.Frequency = 'ONETIME'

if updatedSince:
    inputElement.ExportFilters.ExportFilter = ['updatedSince']

t = client.service.CreateExportJob(inputElement.ExportJobTypeName, inputElement.ExportColumns, inputElement.ExportFilters, None, None, inputElement.Frequency) 

I get an error,

'list' object has no attribute 'id'

Because a somewhat wrong XML request gets created

<ns1:ExportFilters>
    <ns1:ExportFilter>updatedSince</ns1:ExportFilter>
</ns1:ExportFilters>

So I tried few other things for ExportFilter like

inputElement.ExportFilters.ExportFilter = [{'id': 'updatedSince', 'text': updatedSince}]

and

inputElement.ExportFilters.ExportFilter = [('updatedSince', updatedSince)]

and

inputElement.ExportFilters.ExportFilter = [{'updatedSince': updatedSince}]
# says, Type not found: 'updatedSince'

and

inputElement.ExportFilters.ExportFilter = [
    {'key': 'updatedSince', 'value': {'key': 'eq', 'value': updatedSince}}
]
# says, Type not found: 'value'

but nothing is working.

Before setting ExportFilter, it's value is in the form of

ExportFilters: (ExportFilters){
  ExportFilter[] = <empty>
}

Please help.

Answer 1

After debugging and going through some suds code, I have found the fix.

The complete code snippet of the fix:

inputElement = client.factory.create('CreateExportJobRequest')

inputElement.ExportJobTypeName = "Products"
inputElement.ExportColumns.ExportColumn = ["Id", "itemName"]

inputElement.Frequency = 'ONETIME'

if updatedSince:
    efilter = client.factory.create("ExportFilter")
    efilter._id = 'updatedSince'
    efilter.Text = updatedSince
    inputElement.ExportFilters.ExportFilter.append(efilter)

t = client.service.CreateExportJob(inputElement.ExportJobTypeName, inputElement.ExportColumns, inputElement.ExportFilters, None, None, inputElement.Frequency)

Debugging: Because suds was raising TypeNotFound exception, I looked for all the places that raise TypeNotFound inside suds. I put debug points in my PyCharm.

I found that the start method from Typed class inside suds/mx/literal.py was raising the error I was getting.

def start(self, content):
    #
    # Start marshalling the 'content' by ensuring that both the
    # 'content' _and_ the resolver are primed with the XSD type
    # information.  The 'content' value is both translated and
    # sorted based on the XSD type.  Only values that are objects
    # have their attributes sorted.
    #
    log.debug('starting content:\n%s', content)
    if content.type is None:
        name = content.tag
        if name.startswith('_'):
            name = '@'+name[1:]
        content.type = self.resolver.find(name, content.value)
        if content.type is None:
            raise TypeNotFound(content.tag)
    else:
        known = None
        if isinstance(content.value, Object):
            known = self.resolver.known(content.value)
            if known is None:
                log.debug('object has no type information', content.value)
                known = content.type
        frame = Frame(content.type, resolved=known)
        self.resolver.push(frame)
    frame = self.resolver.top()
    content.real = frame.resolved
    content.ancestry = frame.ancestry
    self.translate(content)
    self.sort(content)
    if self.skip(content):
        log.debug('skipping (optional) content:\n%s', content)
        self.resolver.pop()
        return False
    else:
        return True

So from this logic, I came to the fix.

But, It would be really great if somebody suggests a standard procedure for this.