Register of Antarctic Species (RAS)

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Calling the RAS webservice from Microsoft Excel 95/97/2000

This tutorial assumes you are using any Microsoft Windows Operating System.

Step 1: Install Microsoft SOAP Toolkit

Download Microsoft's SOAP Toolkit 3.0 or here

Step 2: Create a Visual Basic module using the Visual basic Editor

Launch Excel and open the Visual Basic Editor by going to the Tools menu.

To make sure the VB Editor knows that you have the SOAP Toolkit installed, select Tools->References.
Scroll down the list of libraries and pick "Microsoft Soap Type Library v3.0".

References

Add this piece of code by choosing Insert->Module. Copy this code into your Excel VBA module

Option Explicit
   'Excel VBA Function to call the AphiaNameService
   Public Function getAphiaID(taxon As String) As Single
    Dim objSClient As MSSOAPLib30.SoapClient30
    Dim fResult As Single
    Set objSClient = New SoapClient30
    Call objSClient.mssoapinit(par_WSDLFile:="https://ras.biodiversity.aq/aphia.php?p=soap&wsdl=1")
    fResult = objSClient.getAphiaID(taxon, True) 'Optional parameters need to be there in VBA
    Set objSClient = Nothing
    getAphiaID = fResult
   End Function

Your screen should look something like this:

Module

Close the VB Editor.

Step 3: Using the function in Excel

You can now use the function getAphiaID as you would any built-in Excel function.
Select the cell you want the value displayed in, then go to the Insert menu and choose Function.
In the Paste Function dialog box, scroll down to User Defined functions and you should see getAphiaID listed:

Function

The result should be something like this:

Module

Credits for this tutorial go to Rod Page.

Download elaborate example for getAphiaRecordById.
Download elaborate example for getAphiaClassificationByID.