As you said in a subsequent response, Axis provides rudimentary support for automatic marshalling of document-style messages (simple beans). This support is less than what you can find in some of the other Java SOAP implementations. See, for example, WASP's serialization framework: http://www.systinet.com/doc/wasp_jserver/messageProcessing/serializationFram ework.html. WASP provides equivalent serialization capabilities in RPC and Document styles. And WASP's java2wsdl tool generates document-style by default.
Microsoft started the "document style by default" trend. Both MS SOAP Toolkit and .NET Framework generate document-style by default. Most of the other SOAP vendors followed suit. WS-I has just published its Basic Profile draft, which only supports document-style. Pretty much every SOAP vendor is involved with WS-I, so it won't be long before all SOAP implementations generate document style by default. I agree with you that it isn't always trivial to map an existing schema to existing Java objects. When I said "no problem building automatic serializers", I was referring to a situation where you have the ability to generate one from the other. RE: multi-refs. You can certainly design a schema that includes type=idref or keyref. That's how soap encoding works (although soap encoding doesn't necessarily conform to a schema, which is why it so hard to validate.) Anne > -----Original Message----- > From: Dennis Sosnoski [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Thursday, November 21, 2002 4:04 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: Document style web services > > > Hi Anne, > > Does Axis support automatic marshalling of document-style messages? I > was under the impression it does not, which was why I suggested a > DataBindingProvider might be useful to add this support. I agree that > document-style is a better approach for the future, though I'd hardly > call it a "predominant consensus" at this point. AFAIK document style > interfaces are not as widely supported as RPC style, though, and I'm > surprised to see your statement that most SOAP implementations support > automatic marshalling for document style. Can you give me any figures > for this? > > As for "no problem building automatic serializers" I have to disagree. A > Schema definition does not, in general, provide enough information to > directly map to Java data structures. If you use an approach where the > data structures are either pre-generated from the Schema or constrained > to obey a predefined mapping to and from the Schema you can get around > this, but that's hardly automatic. > > I'm also puzzled by your statement that it's difficult handle > multi-referencing object structures using document style. Is there a > reason this can't be handled with ID/IDREF or key/keyref links? > > Thanks, > > - Dennis > > Dennis M. Sosnoski > Enterprise Java, XML, and Web Services Support > http://www.sosnoski.com > > Anne Thomas Manes wrote: > > >Dennis, > > > >This is a pretty antiquated view of document style. Document style is no > >longer used just for XML messaging. Most SOAP implementations support > >automatic marshalling of both RPC-style and document-style > messages. As long > >as you have a WSDL description of the message structure, there's > no problem > >building automatic serializers. > > > >The predominant consensus in the industry at this point is to use > >document-style by default. Document style is much easier to validate, > >transform, and manipulate. The primary reason to consider using > rpc/encoded > >is if you need to send multi-referencing object structures. SOAP encoding > >does a really nice job marshalling these structures. It's much harded to > >represent them using literal XML Schema. But if you're not using > multi-refs, > >it's a better practice to use document-style. > > > >Regards, > >Anne > > > > > > > >>-----Original Message----- > >>From: Dennis Sosnoski [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > >>Sent: Thursday, November 21, 2002 1:25 PM > >>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >>Subject: Re: Document style web services > >> > >> > >>Hi Matt, > >> > >>The whole point of document style is that your application gets passed > >>the XML message payload as XML document fragments. See the "message" > >>sample for an example of this. With a document style interface your > >>class would look like: > >> > >>public class SomeXMLService { > >> public Element[] someXMLMethod(Element[] elems) { > >> ... > >> } > >>} > >> > >>If you want to convert the XML into objects you need to do it yourself, > >>perhaps using a framework such as Castor (http://www.castor.org). I know > >>there's been some integration of Castor with Axis, though I think this > >>was for custom serialization with RPC style. > >> > >>This brings up an interesting point, though. Why not have a Java > >>DataBindingProvider as a replacement for the MsgProvider? This should > >>allow easy use of document style while converting seamlessly between XML > >>and objects without the application needing any special code. I'm > >>looking into some data binding code currently, perhaps I'll see if I can > >>work in this direction. > >> > >> - Dennis > >> > >>Dennis M. Sosnoski > >>Enterprise Java, XML, and Web Services Support > >>http://www.sosnoski.com > >> > >> > > > > >
