Web services are difficult... The wiki at http://nagoya.apache.org/wiki/apachewiki.cgi?AxisProjectPages is helpful, but there isn't enough detail, or I just am not experienced enough with XML to understand.
Does anyone any a recommended step-by-step approach to learning how to write _GREAT_ Web services? For example, what are the appropriate places to use Web services? I have seen a lot of messages about sending attachments up to the server, but that is not how I thought a Web service would be used. I was thinking about an example: I send a invoice number to a getInvoice() web service that returns a PDF file. Is this appropriate for a Web service. It is providing a valued service after all. But then, how in the world would you program this? Heck, I'd love to see a mocked up example that returns any pdf file in a directory just to see it work. Would the client need axis? Could this be accessed with a URL - something like http://somehost/axis/services/InvoiceWS?getInvoice&invoiceno=12345 Would the PDF then render in the browser? I would like to see a book (Idiot's guide or something) that had real examples (working examples): RPC - Send two numbers, get the result back (easy) RPC - Send text, get a pdf back of the text as an attachment (hard) Wrapped seems so close to RPC, that I would include an example of these with the modified .wsdd file. Maybe I am wrong, but that is the only difference I could find. Message services - What a can of worms this has been. I have worked for weeks to get something working (unfortunately, lots of unanswered posts - how do you ask questions that get answered?). This is an area that I have seen very few working examples. The echoMessage Web service really didn't help me. I would love to see a simple example using third type of Message style using documents. I found the book "Professional XML Development with Apache Tools" by Leung to be helpful and also complicated. Are there other good books out there that are current. I keep waiting for the Apache Axis book from O'Reilly to get published. It has a publish date of last March, but I haven't seen it available yet. If I ever get to understand this stuff, I wouldn't mind writing a guide myself - sure, I volunteer, but first I need to learn it! Thanks for listening, Ken Lee
