A lot of it depends on the semantics of the interface. How relevant is this removed attribute to the existing client applications? Can you generate a default value for the attribute for these existing clients and still have it work?
One of the easiest ways to make this work is to intercept incoming requests, and if the request contains the now-removed attribute, transform it using XSLT so that it conforms to the new interface. Likewise, response messages also must be intercepted and transformed to the format the client is expecting. If the semantics of the interface have changed so much that it doesn't work, then you need to create a different service -- and then either you must continue to support both versions, or you need to tell your old clients to upgrade. Anne -----Original Message----- From: James CE Johnson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, October 25, 2004 8:41 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: How do I safely evolve data structures? Lets say I have defined a Customer data object, done the java2wsdl2java dance and now I'm using the generated Customer object in my Axis client and server. Time passes and I need to remove an attribute from Customer... If I remove the attribute and redeploy my Axis server calls from an older client (e.g. - one which still has the now-removed attribute) will fail. Is there a way to evolve my server independently of the client? Or is this just a bad idea?
