It depends on the SOAP implementation you're using. Most products don't support stateful services. Some do: Systinet WASP, Oracle SOAP, Apache SOAP, maybe a few others. Interoperability is a big issue, though. BEA published a proposed SOAP extension called SOAP Conversation (http://dev2dev.bea.com/techtrack/SOAPConversation.jsp), but I don't think it's getting much traction.
Anne > -----Original Message----- > From: David Peterson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2003 5:25 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Stateful Web Services > > > > Hi All, > > I have a bit of a newbie question in relation to web services: > > Do SOAP-based web services support the concept of state and persistence? > That is, can I easily create a web service where state is preserved > between invocations? > > For example, can I create a "bank account" web service, which supports > deposit(), withdrawl() and getBalance() operations, and have that web > service preserve the current account balance between separate invocations? > > I imagine that I could achieve this with web services by using an > external persistence component, eg an EJB, or a JDBC call to a database. > What I want to know is whether I can preserve state internally (inside a > web service component) by simply declaring an instance variable > appopriately (e.g. "static" - though this might not be the right > approach). > > On the other hand, is my only "stateful web service" option to use an > external persistence layer (JDBC or EJB?) > > Thanks. > > David Peterson > > >
