[Axis2] problem with WSDL1.1 and multiple ports per service

[Lori Van Gulick]

Hi,

I have been investigating a problem with using WSDL11ToAxisService. WSDL 11 allows multiple services per wsdl file, and multiple ports per service. Currently unless a service and port name are specified, WSDL11ToAxisService will only return the first port on the first service. In order to get all the services and ports we would have to pre-parse the wsdl file and call WSDL11ToAxisService with each port in turn. What we would like to be able to do is call it once with the wsdl and have it return an object which contains the entire structure of the wsdl. I have been considering a couple of ideas to accomplish this and I would like your feedback.

My first thought was that it seems like there should be another object representing the port that would sit between AxisService and AxisOperation (e.g. "AxisPort" - or if you prefer the WSDL 2.0 terminology "AxisEndpoint"). I was wondering if this has ever been considered in the past? This would allow WSDL11ToAxisService.polulateService to return a single AxisService that would contain, as children, all the ports defined to that service in the wsdl.

I realize that adding an AxisPort object at this point. is a potentially disruptive change that may cause some unwanted overhead to existing code (although I think the change could probably be done transparently). So as an alternative I am considering adding something like this:

Add a new class(e.g WSDL11ToAllAxisServices) that would open the wsdl to extract all the service and port names, call the existing WSDL11ToAxisService for each port in the wsdl, modify the name of the resulting AxisService to identify the service/port combination, and return a List of these AxisService objects (or possibly an AxisServiceGroup). We would then treat AxisService objects as essentially representing the port instead of the service.

Perhaps there is some existing method of retrieving all the ports in a wsdl that I am overlooking? It seems to me that others would also need this functionality. I would love to hear some additional ideas.

Thanks,
Lori.

Lori Van Gulick
WebSphere Development
IBM Austin
(512) 838-7929