how do you send a SOAP request?

Opening this document in browser wouldn't send a request. You have several options:

• write a little script in any familiar language, script should connect to specified server and send a POST request with a body as mentioned in your message
• use some of existing programs to do that for you

If you're inexperienced I would definitely recommend second option. My personal favourite is SoapUI, see here.

This blog post helped me. Python SOAP Request using Requests

#!/usr/bin/env python# encoding: utf-8import requestsfrom XML import XMLrequest = u"""<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>              <soapenv:envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:web="http://www.webserviceX.NET/">                  <soapenv:header>                  <soapenv:body>                      <web:conversionrate>                          <web:fromcurrency>GBP</web:fromcurrency>                          <web:tocurrency>CHF</web:tocurrency>                      </web:conversionrate>                  </soapenv:body>              </soapenv:header></soapenv:envelope>"""encoded_request = request.encode('utf-8')headers = {"Host": "www.webservicex.net",           "Content-Type": "text/xml; charset=UTF-8",           "Content-Length": len(encoded_request)}response = requests.post(url="http://www.webservicex.net/CurrencyConvertor.asmx",                         headers = headers,                         data = encoded_request,                         verify=False)print unicode(XML(response.text))

On linux you can use curl to send the soap xml. Here's how to do it:

curl --header "Content-Type: text/xml;charset=UTF-8" --header "SOAPAction: ACTION_YOU_WANT_TO_CALL" --data @FILE_NAME URL_OF_THE_SOAP_WEB_SERVICE_ENDPOINT

Using the testRequest.xml file created you can

curl --header "Content-Type: text/xml;charset=UTF-8" --header "SOAPAction: ACTION_YOU_WANT_TO_CALL" --data @testRequest.xml URL_OF_THE_SOAP_WEB_SERVICE_ENDPOINT

Here is a link that describes the full process.