Chris,
It is up to you when you define your mappings and/or write your
serializers whether the classes implementing interfaces will be
serialized with just information for the interface or for the actual
class. I personally prefer to have separate mappings for each concrete
class. I don't like to have one serializer for an interface that
internally actually knows how to serialize each class that implements
the interface. Big switch statements or multiple if/else branches don't
feel right to me in the O-O world.
Anyway, in your case this means I would write serializers (and
deserializers) for SimpleData and ComplexData, then map each type to the
corresponding [de-]serializer. The server will correctly resolve these
types as parameters to the doSomething method.
Scott Nichol
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Kelly" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, December 01, 2002 7:48 PM
Subject: passing interfaces instead of classes
> Consider:
>
> interface IData {
> int getValue();
> }
>
> class SimpleData implements IData {
> int value;
> public SimpleData( int v ) { value = v; }
> public int getValue() { return value; }
> }
>
> class ComplexData implements IData {
> float value, multiplier;
> public SimpleData( float v, float m; ) {
> value = v;
> multiplier = m;
> }
> public int getValue() {
> return (int) ( multiplier * value );
> }
> }
>
> Then, consider a service that accepts an IData object:
>
> class SoapService {
> public doSomething( IData data ) {...}
> }
>
> If I pass an IData object in a bean-like fashion, only the 'value'
will be
> sent in the XML, not the 'multiplier' if the IData object I'm sending
is a
> ComplexData object.
>
> If I change SoapService.doSomething to accept either a SimpleData or a
> ComplexData, then the other class can't be sent.
>
> So, am I missing something, or is it difficult to represent passed
objects
> as interfaces? Must they be represented as classes?
>
> One way around this would be to pass IData objects as the name in the
XML,
> and include the name of the implementing class in the XML as well. An
IData
> de/serializer would then determine the implementing class, and call a
> de/serializer specific to that implementing class. Is there an
automatic
> way to do this?
>
>
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