Re: Best Practices?

[Richard Martin]

Same here

Richard

Galbreath, Mark A wrote:

ditto!  I'd be willing to work through the tutorial and give you feedback before publication.

Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: Andrew Premdas [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2004 11:05 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: Best Practices?
Luciano,

If you send it to me (point me to it) I'd be happy to read and review it.

-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: 13 May 2004 15:49
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: Best Practices?


Hi Andrew, 
I started to write a tutorial on how to create a web service using Axis and Ant. 
The tutorial is also taking in consideration attachments and I believe it 
would fit into a Axis beginners page. 

Luciano 

-----Original Message----- 
From: Andrew Premdas [ mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Thursday 13 May 2004 15:58 
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Subject: RE: Best Practices? 

Yes otherwise I wouldn't have posted. However I have 

1) Little knowledge 
2) Not a great deal of time (day job too) 

So I'm happy to 

1) Review any documentation that is newbie orientated 
2) Create a newbie pathway. 

My initial thoughts are to create a newbie trails page on the wiki and start 
from there. 

Comments? 

-----Original Message----- 
From: Davanum Srinivas [ mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: 13 May 2004 14:06 
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Subject: Re: Best Practices? 

Next question: Are u willing to help? As u know all committers have day jobs 
:) 

thanks, 
dims 

On Thu, 13 May 2004 10:43:09 +0100, Andrew Premdas 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 
 

My 2c as a newbie. 

No.1 thing for a better Axis - much better documentation!! 
No.2 thing, better ease of use 

For a newbie, Web Services and Axis are something of a minefield, through 
which there are no clear marked paths. The docs sell .jws when really all 
its good for is persauding people web services are much easier than they 
actually are ... was going to list other faults of docs but instead ... 

How to improve docs: 

Provide a number of real world scenarios that clearly illustrate the 
development of production quality web services. Start with something 
   

simple 
 

and then move on from there. Explain why things are being done in a 
   

certain 
 

way. 

 StockQuote, ServiceSendingAttachment, ServiceSendingComplexType ... 

Provide examples of different ways of working with Axis and explain their 
merits 

 jws, interface -> java2wdsl -> wsdl2java, wsdl by hand, wsdl2java, 

Explain clearly key web services issues 
 xml-oo mismatch, ... 

Provide a number of clear paths through these areas, perhaps following a 
format like the java tutorial. 

How to improve ease of use: 

Improve, or at the very least clearly document the command line interface 
tools - wsdl2java, java2wsdl. Document the ant tasks and provide good 
examples of usage. Provide default log4j configurations inbuilt into the 
command line tools, so if they can't find a properties file on the command 
line they will at least log to the console. Perhaps add a command line 
switch (oh no another one) to set logging level. 

None of this is particularly glamorous, but the reason this thread started 
is because much of this doesn't exist and people need clearer guidance 
   

about 
 

how to get the best out of Axis. 

All best 

Andy 

Andrew Premdas 
Student Systems Developer 
Manchester University 

-----Original Message----- 
From: Davanum Srinivas [ mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2004 1:14 PM 
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Subject: Re: Best Practices? 

Let's twist this discussion on its head.... 
- Is there a list of bugs hiding in there somewhere? (bug reports) 
- What would you do if you were to write/re-write parts of axis? 
(enhancements requests) 

If we can't create new bug reports / enchancements to tell axis 
developers how axis should behave in the future (1.2 Final) then all 
discussion is just water under the bridge. 

thanks, 
-- dims 

On Wed, 12 May 2004 12:12:44 -0500, Joe Plautz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
   

wrote: 
 

Thanks for the advice! This is exactly what I've been looking for. 

It almost seems that people end up using Axis inspite of itself. But, 
     

it's 
 

just too dang easy to get something up and running. I imagine JWS files 
     

have 
   

lead many people astray with their simplicity. If all services could 
     

work 
 

like them, plus using user defined objects/type with little to no 
configuration. The world would be a fabulous place. 

I too have been not tying my service layer to my DAO layer. My reasons 
     

are 
 

more personal preferrance then need. But, I can take my DAO and put it 
behind something else with little changing except creating a new broker. 

-Joe 



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Anderson Jonathan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2004 10:03 AM 
Subject: RE: Best Practices? 

     

I would venture to say that 80% of the complications and frustrations 
implementing interoperable (WS-I compliant Doc/Literal) SOAP web 
       

services 
   

on 
     

Java platforms stem from the XML datatype to Java datatype binding 
       

problem. 
     

If you take the time to learn W3C XML Schema, you'll see the problem: 
       

it's 
   

not an OO type system.  Therefore modeling your data types in Java and 
expecting some automagic Java2WSDL utility to do all of the hard work 
       

to 
 

generate your XML schema is naive, and it is unfortunate that so many 
       

OO 
 

developers think this way. 

I've encountered several approaches for dealing with this problem with 
Axis - virtually all of them involve hand crafting your WSDL and XSD 
       

(with 
   

a 
     

WSDL/XSD IDE, of course) and generating a Java type system using ***a 
particular Java XML binding engine***.  Using Axis's internal XML 
       

binding 
   

engine is one of several options available to you. 

For more info on the XML binding problem in Java, I defer to Dennis 
       

Sosnoski 
     

(www.sosnoski.com), a long-time XML deep thinker.  He first turned me 
       

onto 
   

the XML data binding "problem" with his excellent articles (4 parts) 
       

on 
 

the 
     

issues over at IBM developerWorks. 

http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/x-databdopt/index.html 

If you're trying to use Axis's internal XML binding engine, here's 
       

some 
 

advice: 

http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=axis-user <http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=axis-user&m=107945370506044&w=2> &m=107945370506044&w=2 

We've since moved away from this approach, and are currently using 
       

Axis's 
   

Message Style services to pass the SOAP Request Body DOM straight to 
       

Castor, 
     

which unmarshalls the XML into a Castor generated type system.  We 
       

further 
   

introduced a broker pattern to abstract the SOAP messaging layer from 
       

our 
   

business layer, which currently is not tied to any XSD generated 
       

types. 
 

Axis Message Style Service Implementation -> 
Service Broker Layer (unmarshalls SOAP Request DOM via Castor, 
       

extracts 
 

the 
     

necessary information from Castor types - literally traversing the 
       

graph's 
   

getters - to invoke Business Manager Layer, and catches Business 
       

Exceptions 
     

and maps them to proper SOAP Faults using AxisFault)-> 
Business Manager Layer (not tied to XSD types, but rather pure Java 
       

business 
     

domain types, invokes DAO layer as needed) -> 
DAO Layer (a Spring/Hibernate layer to manage persistence for business 
domain types) 

The problem here is definitely managing and translating between the 
       

two 
 

type 
     

systems: Castor generated classes from XSD and non-generated Business 
       

Domain 
     

classes. 

The alternative, however, is to just try to use the XSD generated type 
system and persist that directly.  This is too big of a leap for us 
       

right 
   

now, as our business layer doesn't "think" in pure XSD type terms. 
       

You'll 
   

probably encounter this a lot given how much legacy functionality 
       

people 
 

are 
     

trying to SOAP service enable. 

Bottom line: implementing a WS-I compliant SOAP service in Java is not 
       

a 
 

trivial thing.  There are two types of people building Web Services in 
       

Java: 
     

those who are extremely frustrated with the completely stupid state of 
       

the 
   

Java based Web Services world right now and yet still trying very hard 
       

to 
   

do 
     

it right, and those who haven't grasped that world is in a completely 
       

stupid 
     

state right now. 

-Jon 

-----Original Message----- 
From: Joe Plautz [ mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2004 10:02 AM 
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Subject: Re: Best Practices? 

My first attemps have started with a WSDL/Schema then I generate 
       

everything. 
     

I was able to find an example at W3.org and I just manipulate it to 
       

the 
 

way 
     

I need it. I thought this to be the best way at the time because of 
interoperability. 

From what I've been finding thus far there are no "Standard" 
       

practices, 
 

just 
     

"Accepted" practices. Starting with a class then using Java2WSDL and 
       

then 
   

WSDL2Java seems to be the most common. But, it almost seems that this 
       

was 
   

not the intention of the designers of Axis. Why use two steps when you 
       

can 
   

use one? Creating a WSDL from scratch seems like the intended way, but 
       

is 
   

not the most accepted way by the developers/users of Axis. Why write 
       

what 
   

you can generate? 

I know this isn't difficult earth shattering stuff, I'm just looking 
       

for 
 

the 
     

best way of doing this. So, when I start working with other people to 
       

create 
     

services, we're doing it the "right" way. 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dorner Thomas" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2004 7:01 AM 
Subject: AW: Best Practices? 

You are right - if you will do a interoperable webservice 
that deal with other clients (.Net ...) its better to go from the 
wsdl. 

But when i use String, int and so on and i generate a wsdl by 
java2wsdl, I hope the wsdl i get, depends on the standard spec. 
for wsdl!???? 

So there should no problem to use the wsdl by other languages!??? 

Dont know how it looks with complex datatypes!???? 

Do you all write your own wsdl by hand???? 

Tomi 

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- 
Von: David Cunningham [ mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 12. Mai 2004 13:14 
An: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Betreff: RE: Best Practices? 

I disagree, the right way is to start with your WSDL and schema files. 
       

If 
   

you want any hope of being WS-I compliant or using doc/literal this is 
       

your 
     

best bet. As soon as you start with an interface, you start dealing 
       

Java 
 

types that do not correlate to schema types very well. For example, if 
       

you 
   

use: public List getStuff() or public String[] getStuff(), you will 
       

either 
   

generate a WSDL file that can't be parsed properly by other consumers 
       

(.NET, 
     

Glue, etc) or be bound to Java collection types that have no chance of 
       

being 
     

parsed properly by .Net (without a lot of hacking around). 

My recommendation, again personal preference, is always give thought 
       

to 
 

the 
     

XML that is going across the wire and what you are trying to 
       

send/receive 
   

and in what structure. This is especially important when dealing with 
doc/literal since you are sending a single document over the wire. 

- david 

-----Original Message----- 
From: Dorner Thomas [ mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2004 2:03 AM 
To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' 
Subject: AW: Best Practices? 

The right way is to write a interface which includes all the Methods 
       

your 
   

webservice should offer. 

Then you use java2wsdl to generate your wsdl. You have to correct your 
parameternames in your auto generated wsdl, cause the the params looks 
       

like 
     

in0, in1, in2... . 

Then you use wsdl2java to generate your stub, locator, skeleton, impl 
       

and 
   

maybe a testclient. 

Now you can implement and deploy your Service by unsing the addtional 
generated .wsdd files. 

Hope this helps you 

Tomi 

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- 
Von: Joe Plautz [ mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Gesendet: Dienstag, 11. Mai 2004 18:48 
An: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Betreff: Best Practices? 

I'm a newbie looking for guidance in creating WebServices with Axis. 
       

I've 
   

gone through the documentation backwards and forwards and have come up 
       

with 
     

me own ways of doing things. I start with a WSDL that I create and use 
WSDL2Java to generate the code and go from there. What I'm looking for 
       

is 
   

a 
     

best practices because I don't feel confident in the way I am going 
       

about 
   

it. 

Do most people start from a WSDL? Do people generate a WSDL from an 
interface and go from there? Do people just create a class and a WSDD 
       

file? 
     

Or, do people use JWS files that accept a string and the string 
       

contains 
 

xml 
     

formated text? 

If there are any sites that cover this information, please forward 
       

them 
 

on 
   

to me. 

Any help will be appreciated!!! 

Thanks, 
Joe Plautz 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 





       

     

   



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