Deploying an existing set of classes/XML files as a web service

[Michael Fecina]

Hello,   I have installed, tested, and deployed example services using Apache Axis 1.0 with Tomcat 4.1.12 on Linux Redhat 8.0.  I've been through all the nifty tutorials, documents, etc.   I have a set of classes, along with external XML files which one of the classes depends on, that I would like to deploy as a web service.  I have followed Axis' tutorial on how to deploy services using the WSDD method.  Everything works just fine, and my service shows up as being deployed and all that great stuff.  However, when using a client toa ccess it, the client connects and things seem to work fine, yet the client *should* get valid returns from the service, and it doesn't.  I am nearly positive something is wrong with my idea of how to instantiate the service.  Let me detail my current setup/classes breakdown:   First, a very brief idea of what it is I'm trying to do.  I'm setting up a 'demo' web service for a term project at PSU.  Our teams idea is to create a generic web service that is a grocery web service that allows a user to query all grocery stores that have web services and compare product prices.  So, the way I see it, we'll have a web service named pws (price web service), and multiple gws (grocery web services).  The pws will query a UDDI (xmethods.org) to retrieve a listing of gws services.  It will then poll each service for prices.  So, right now, I'm on the gws part -- creating and deploying a generic gws.   Instead of wasting anymore of everyone's time, I will do two things:   1.  give the location of a zip file that contains all of my .jar,.java,.class, *SoapBinding* and .xml files so those interested can see what the heck I'm talking about here(http://www.personal.psu.edu/~mdf161/gws.zip), and 2.  for those who don't wanna see the whole setup but just try to answer a quick question, explain it as follows:   I have a file named GroceryWebService.java which contains the methods I want to be accessible through a web service.  It also contains a main method that creates an instance of itself.  It depends on some other classes to work properly.  It accesses an outside file, productlist.xml, that is used to populate a tree in one of my classes.   PROBLEM: I deploy this thing as a web service.  It deploys fine. I write a client.  I change the *SoapBindingImpl file to create an instance of the web service, since the Axis tutorial says to do this. The client runs fine...takes a bit so I assume ita ccesses the deployed .jar file and does its thing.  However, I have the client simply calling one of the methods which should return a Product object, and then it should print out some stuff about this product object if the product object is not null.  Unfortunately, the Product object I receive from the service is null.  Does the GroceryWebService.java's main method get called when the client creates a new instance of it?  Or, just the constructor get called?  or what?  Please let me know.  Also, if you have the time, you can easily tell exactly what I'm talking about by taking a quick look at my .zip file.  I really appreciate any help.   Thank you very much, Michael Fecina ([EMAIL PROTECTED])