null handling in apache soap2.2

[John Mani]

Hi

I'm implementing an apache SOAP client that interacts with a WebLogic 6.1
sp2
based SOAP server application.

The server has a method that's supposed to return a null object.
For example,
    Person getPerson(String id)
and if this 'id' is bogus, this method returns a null object. Note that the
Person
class is a standard JavaBean.

Now, when I actually invoke this method on the weblogic hosted service with
a bogus id, I get the following XML fragment as the SOAP response:

<SOAP-env:
   ......
   <getPersonResponse>
      <return xsi:null='1' xsi:type='bean.Person'></return>
   </getPersonResponse>
<SOAP-env>

I was assuming that the SOAP deserializer would convert this into a 'null'
object.
Instead, within my apache based client, I get a Person object that has null
fields within.

btw, I'm using Apache SOAP 2.2 on the client side, with the standard
BeanSerializer/BeanDeserializer used to marshall/unmarshall the .java
classes

thanx
-john