I don't have the answers to these questions, but having implemented demo's
using the IBM and Microsoft (MS SOAP Toolkit 2.0, not .NET) WSDL tools, I
have
some observations that the folks writing the tools could clarify.
The IBM WSDL tools are dependent on Apache SOAP, and the focus seems have
been
on getting Apache SOAP solid before coming out with new versions of the WSDL
tools (BTW, the Apache SOAPers have done a fantastic job in that regard).
The WSDL toolkit I used didn't support user-defined complex datatypes.
The latest toolkit, WSIF, does seem to support complex types, based on the
addressbook WSDL sample.
My demos all used primative datatypes. Since the interop issues for simple
datatypes seem to have been overcome (resolved?) has anyone got interop
working
for complex data? I haven't tried yet, but will soon.
The WSTK toolkit generates WSDL and deployment descriptor mappings from java
classes that implement the JavaBeans API.
Q: If the java class uses an Object as a parameter, does WSDL generation
fail?
On the (Apache) server side, you can map complex data to whatever java class
you want using the deployment descriptor, and it is up to the serializer and
desrializer to "do the right thing". If you are using java on the client,
I would think that a "data-only" class would be preferable to exporting the
actual Java class you are mapping the data to.
Q: Do any of the current crop of WSDL tools generate serializable
client-side
java classes for the datatypes declared in the <types> section?
-----Original Message-----
From: David Wall [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2001 11:30 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: SOAP usage in the real world
I like the concept around SOAP, but I'm wondering if there are any "real
world" uses of it for web services beyond perhaps the intranet. If so, how
are people handling:
1) Interoperabliity. Seems like Apache SOAP server don't work all that well
with most of the MSFT .NET toolkits, especially for APIs needed or more than
simple tests.
2) Service description. WSDL seems like the way things are going to
describe services to potential customers, but Apache SOAP doesn't have plans
to implement it, and Axis seems still a long way from production with the
features currently in Apache SOAP. How are people letting others know about
the format of complex data objects, potentially with attachments, etc.?
3) Object/class sharing. Does anybody provide end-users with the Java
classes that they use on the server to return or accept complex data
objects? If so, did you create special "data only" Java classes for use
with SOAP, since I can't imagine wanting to share the true object classes
because they probably have huge dependencies/references to other project
classes that you may not want to share, have internal logic data elements
that you wouldn't normally share (i.e. the so-called 'transient' fields that
may exist, like 'lastLoginTime' or what have you), additional fields that
you might share via the XML but are perhaps computed in your class logic
(i.e. a 'total' field or a 'timestamp' that you might want to return as the
Java long value, but also expressed as String date/time according to the
caller's timezone), have processing logic that won't make sense except on
the server (i.e. 'saveData' or methods that might interact with other parts
of the your system), etc. It seems like having to create a separate data
only class hierarchy for use with SOAP's XML marshallers is perhaps overly
nasty.
What are people doing with this? We have created our XML APIs around SOAP,
and they tended to work okay in an all-Apache SOAP world, but things got
much nastier once the caller was a .NET VB or COM object, and it was hard to
describe the service's method+parameters for complex objects (objects with
many data elements, optional fields, embedded lists/arrays, references to
other potentially complex objects), and we did need a separate "data object"
that expressed our objects in a more portable format (i.e.
java.sql.Timestamp was shown as both a long and a String defined in GMT).
Thanks for any advice on what successful, complext implementations are doing
with respect to such issues,
David
Yozons Inc. - Secure Delivery and E-Signatures for everyone
www.yozons.com
