msnp-wiki/docs/services/abservice.md

Introduction

The Address Book Service (abservice) is a SOAP (XML) Web Service. Introduced with MSNP8.

It manages the link(s) between the E-mail Service Address Book and the Forward List (FL).

It's default HTTP URL is http://contacts.msn.com/abservice/abservice.asmx. It's default HTTPS URL is https://contacts.msn.com/abservice/abservice.asmx.

This service requires Passport authentication.

Related: Contact Sharing Service (for other List's members).

Actions

All actions listed have the prefix of http://www.msn.com/webservices/AddressBook/.

• ABFindAll (internal name: Contacts.Pull)
• ABContactAdd (internal name: Contacts.Push.Contact.Add)
• ABContactDelete (internal name: Contacts.Push.Contact.Delete)
• ABContactUpdate (internal name: Contacts.Push.Contact.Update)
• ABGroupContactAdd (internal name: Contacts.Push.Contact.AddToGroup)
• ABGroupContactDelete (internal name: Contacts.Push.Contact.DeleteFromGroup)
• ABGroupAdd (internal name: Contacts.Push.Group)
• ABGroupDelete (internal name: Contacts.Push.Group.Delete)
• ABGroupUpdate (internal name: Contacts.Push.Contact.Edit)

Actions that we don't know much about

• ABFind (internal name: Contacts.FindId)
• ABAdd (internal name: Contacts.AddAb)
• ABDelete (internal name: Contacts.DeleteAb)
• ABFindByContacts (internal name: Contacts.Pull.Id)
• UpdateDynamicItem (internal name: Contacts.Push.DynamicItem.Edit)

Shared Templates

This is used by all Actions listed, as far as we know. The following also applies to the Contact Sharing Service.

Client/Request

The following sub-headings are XML elements for the server's response.

soap:Envelope

This element has four attributes:

• xmlns:soap: Is always set to http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/.
• xmlns:xsi: Is always set to http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance.
• xmlns:xsd: Is always set to http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema.
• xmlns:soapenc: Is always set to http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/.

soap:Header

This element only serves to host the <ABApplicationHeader> and <ABAuthHeader> elements.

ABApplicationHeader

This element has only one attribute:

• xmlns: Is always set to http://www.msn.com/webservices/AddressBook.

This element has three children:

• <ApplicationID>: The GUID of the client that sent the request for this action.
• <IsMigration>: If this request is part of the ABCH Migration process. If it is, set to true, otherwise set to false.
• <PartnerScenario>: What caused this request to happen:
  • Initial: This is the initial request to this action.
  • Timer: This request was done automatically on a timer.
  • ContactSave: When the modified contact is saved by the client.
  • MessengerPendingList: Managing the Pending List (PL).
  • ContactMsgrAPI: General Messenger API.
  • BlockUnblock: Block or unblock of this user.
  • GroupSave: When the modified group is saved by the client.

ABAuthHeader

This element has only one attribute:

• xmlns: Is always set to http://www.msn.com/webservices/AddressBook.

This element has two children:

• <ManagedGroupRequest>: If this is a managed group request, set to true, otherwise set to false.
• <TicketToken> This element contains the XML-encoded Passport token for contacts.msn.com. Added since MSNP15.

soap:Body

Your request element and it's children goes here.

Server/Response

The following sub-headings are XML elements for the server's response.

soap:Envelope

This element has three attributes:

• xmlns:soap: Is always set to http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/.
• xmlns:xsi: Is always set to http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance.
• xmlns:xsd: Is always set to http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema.

soap:Header

This element only serves to host the <ServiceHeader> element.

ServiceHeader

This element has only one attribute:

• xmlns: Is always set to http://www.msn.com/webservices/AddressBook.

This element has five children:

• <Version>: The version of this service.
• <CacheKey>: The current or new address book caching key. Usually starts with 14r2;, then continues with base64-encoded data. The meaning of the appended data is yet to be known. It may be a 128-bit hash of some kind.
• <CacheKeyChanged>: Did the <CacheKey> change? If it did, set to true, otherwise set to false.
• <PreferredHostName>: The domain name that this service would like to receive requests to.
• <SessionId>: The current session GUID.

soap:Body

This element contains the server's response elements and their children for the action.