Web Service Transformers in Cocoon (Re: [article] XML.com: EAI using Apache Cocoon 2.1)

[Daniel Fagerstrom]

It seem popular to write web service transformers these days. I have 
written one that can be found in 
http://nagoya.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=24402, after that I 
implemented it I have found two other implementations: the one described 
in the article: http://xml.com/pub/a/2003/11/12/cocoon-eai.html, that 
can be found in http://nagoya.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=24391, 
and still another one described in 
http://webservices.xml.com/pub/a/ws/2003/03/18/cocoon.html. The later 
one is AFAIK not submitted to Cocoon and only works for Cocoon 2.0.3, 
although it probably should be easy to port it to 2.1.

There is also an XSP implementation of web service calls within the 
current Cocoon distribution. There are also a number of components that 
provide functionality for request parameter based web services: 
HttpProxyGenerator, WebServiceProxyGenerator and possibly 
GenericProxyGenerator in the Proxy block as well as the CIncludeTransformer.

There is a lot of overlapping functionality in the different web service 
client components in Cocoon.

IMO it would be a good idea to merge at least the different web service 
transformer proposals. I would prefer to put as much functionality as 
possible in the HTTPClientSource as in my proposal, as it seem to be 
better to focus the functionality in one reusable place than having it 
reproduced in various places. The web service enabled HTTPClientSource 
can then be used from generators and transformers as well as from 
flowscripts. I have not studied Tonys and Steves proposals in any 
detail, but at least in Tonys variant there is some login handling that 
my implementation lacks, it would be nice to transfer that functionality 
to the HTTPClientSource.

For the transformer part I have no strong opinions, I put the 
functionality in the SourceWritingTransformer, as it already contained 
various operation on modifyable sources. But it probably makes sense to 
have it in a specialized transformer instead.

What do you think?

/Daniel

Velle Andr� wrote:
The article mentions a web service transformer that seems superior to the one in 2.1.3, and states that it has been submitted to the cocoon-dev list. I haven't been able to find anything like this, and it seems interesting. Anyone know anything about it?

Regards,
Andr�

-----Original Message-----
From: Andreas Hochsteger [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: 15. november 2003 09:11
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [article] XML.com: EAI using Apache Cocoon 2.1

I just got a newsletter from XML.com promoting this article: 
http://xml.com/pub/a/2003/11/12/cocoon-eai.html

It's about "Enterprise Application Integration using Apache 
Cocoon 2.1".