[newbie] Incorrect bean array serialization

[Pablo Muñiz García]

Hi all,

  first of all I'd like to apologize for the length of this message, but I need help 
before becaming crazy.
The fact is I'm developing a web service wich receives a bean like the one belllow :

public class Shop  implements java.io.Serializable {
    private java.lang.String description;
    private java.lang.String name;
    private com.comercia.mall.ws.Section[] sections;

    public Shop() {
    }
    .....
     // getters and setters
}

I've used java2WSDL and WSDL2Java to generate both stubs and skeletons.
The wsdd I get looks like this one : 

<deployment
    xmlns="http://xml.apache.org/axis/wsdd/";
    xmlns:java="http://xml.apache.org/axis/wsdd/providers/java";>

  <!-- Services from MallWSService WSDL service -->

  <service name="MallWS" provider="java:RPC" style="rpc" use="literal">
      <parameter name="wsdlTargetNamespace" value="urn:MallWS"/>
      <parameter name="wsdlServiceElement" value="MallWSService"/>
      <parameter name="wsdlServicePort" value="MallWS"/>
      <parameter name="className" 
value="com.comercia.mall.ws.MallWSSoapBindingSkeleton"/>
      <parameter name="wsdlPortType" value="MallWS"/>
      <parameter name="allowedMethods" value="*"/>
      <parameter name="scope" value="Request"/>

      <typeMapping
        xmlns:ns="urn:MallWS"
        qname="ns:XtraAttribute"
        type="java:com.comercia.mall.ws.XtraAttribute"
        serializer="org.apache.axis.encoding.ser.BeanSerializerFactory"
        deserializer="org.apache.axis.encoding.ser.BeanDeserializerFactory"
        encodingStyle=""
      />
      <typeMapping
        xmlns:ns="urn:MallWS"
        qname="ns:Section"
        type="java:com.comercia.mall.ws.Section"
        serializer="org.apache.axis.encoding.ser.BeanSerializerFactory"
        deserializer="org.apache.axis.encoding.ser.BeanDeserializerFactory"
        encodingStyle=""
      />
      <typeMapping
        xmlns:ns="urn:MallWS"
        qname="ns:ArrayOfProduct"
        type="java:com.comercia.mall.ws.Product[]"
        serializer="org.apache.axis.encoding.ser.ArraySerializerFactory"
        deserializer="org.apache.axis.encoding.ser.ArrayDeserializerFactory"
        encodingStyle=""
      />
      <typeMapping
        xmlns:ns="urn:MallWS"
        qname="ns:Product"
        type="java:com.comercia.mall.ws.Product"
        serializer="org.apache.axis.encoding.ser.BeanSerializerFactory"
        deserializer="org.apache.axis.encoding.ser.BeanDeserializerFactory"
        encodingStyle=""
      />
      <typeMapping
        xmlns:ns="urn:MallWS"
        qname="ns:ArrayOfXtraAttribute"
        type="java:com.comercia.mall.ws.XtraAttribute[]"
        serializer="org.apache.axis.encoding.ser.ArraySerializerFactory"
        deserializer="org.apache.axis.encoding.ser.ArrayDeserializerFactory"
        encodingStyle=""
      />
      <typeMapping
        xmlns:ns="urn:MallWS"
        qname="ns:Shop"
        type="java:com.comercia.mall.ws.Shop"
        serializer="org.apache.axis.encoding.ser.BeanSerializerFactory"
        deserializer="org.apache.axis.encoding.ser.BeanDeserializerFactory"
        encodingStyle=""
      />
      <typeMapping
        xmlns:ns="urn:MallWS"
        qname="ns:Catalog"
        type="java:com.comercia.mall.ws.Catalog"
        serializer="org.apache.axis.encoding.ser.BeanSerializerFactory"
        deserializer="org.apache.axis.encoding.ser.BeanDeserializerFactory"
        encodingStyle=""
      />
      <typeMapping
        xmlns:ns="urn:MallWS"
        qname="ns:ArrayOfSection"
        type="java:com.comercia.mall.ws.Section[]"
        serializer="org.apache.axis.encoding.ser.ArraySerializerFactory"
        deserializer="org.apache.axis.encoding.ser.ArrayDeserializerFactory"
        encodingStyle=""
      />
  </service>
</deployment>

When I use the stub to invoke one of the methods, wich takes a Shop bean as parameter, 
using SOAP monitor I figure out the next surprise :

   <in0 xmlns="">
    <description xsi:nil="true" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"/>
    <name xsi:nil="true" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"/>
    <sections xmlns:ns1="urn:MallWS">
     <description>Descripción de la sección 1</description>
     <name>seccion 1</name>
    </sections>
    <sections>
     <description>Descripción de la sección 2</description>
     <name>seccion 2</name>
    </sections>
   </in0>
  </notifyShopStructure>

Like you can appreciate, Section [] is not properly serialized. This causes that 
deserialization only takes the first of the two sections.
Why Section [] is not serialized this way ?

    <sections>
       <section>
         <description>Descripción de la sección 1</description>
         <name>seccion 1</name>
       </section>
       <section>
         <description>Descripción de la sección 2</description>
         <name>seccion 2</name>
       </section>
    </sections>

Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I can't realize what it is.
Could it be that generated stubs doesn't work properly?

Well, thanks in advance. Any help will be very,very appreciated.

Thanks again.

Pablo.