I understand your problem is how to call a SOAP (JAX-WS) web service from Java and get it's returning object. In that case, you have two possible approaches:
- Generate the Java classes through
wsimport and use them; or
- Create a SOAP client that:
- Serializes the object to XML;
- Calls the web method through HTTP manipulation; and
- Parse the returning XML response back into an object.
About the first approach (using wsimport):
I understand that you already have the services' (entities or other) business classes and that thewsimport generates a whole new set of classes (that are somehow duplicates of the classes you already have).
I'm afraid, though, in this scenario, you can only either:
- Adapt (edit) the
wsimport generated code to make it use your business classes (this is difficult and somehow not worth it - bear in mind everytime the WSDL changes, you'll have to regenerate and readapt the code); or
- Give up and use the
wsimport generated classes.
About the second approach (create your custom SOAP client):
In order to implement the second approach, you'll have to:
- Make the call:
- Use the SAAJ (SOAP with Attachments API for Java) framework (see below, it's shipped with JSE 1.6) to make the calls; or
- You can also do it through
java.net.HttpUrlconnection (and some java.iohandling).
- Turn the objects into XML and vice-versa:
- Use an OXM (Object to Xml Mapping) framework such as JAXB to serialize/deserialize the XML from/into objects
- Or, if you must, manually create/parse the XML (this can be the best solution if the received object is only a little bit differente from the sent one).
Creating a SOAP client using classic
java.net.HttpUrlConnection is not that hard (but not that simple either), and you can find in
this link a very good starting code.
I recomment you use the SAAJ framework:
SOAP with Attachments API for Java (SAAJ) is mainly used for dealing directly with SOAP Request/Response messages which happens behind the scenes in any Web Service API. It allows the developers to directly send and receive soap messages instead of using JAX-WS.
See below a working example (run it!) of a SOAP web service call using SAAJ. It calls
this web service.
import javax.xml.soap.*;
import javax.xml.transform.*;
import javax.xml.transform.stream.*;
public class SOAPClientSAAJ {
/**
* Starting point for the SAAJ - SOAP Client Testing
*/
public static void main(String args[]) {
try {
// Create SOAP Connection
SOAPConnectionFactory soapConnectionFactory = SOAPConnectionFactory.newInstance();
SOAPConnection soapConnection = soapConnectionFactory.createConnection();
// Send SOAP Message to SOAP Server
String url = "http://ws.cdyne.com/emailverify/Emailvernotestemail.asmx";
SOAPMessage soapResponse = soapConnection.call(createSOAPRequest(), url);
// Process the SOAP Response
printSOAPResponse(soapResponse);
soapConnection.close();
} catch (Exception e) {
System.err.println("Error occurred while sending SOAP Request to Server");
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
private static SOAPMessage createSOAPRequest() throws Exception {
MessageFactory messageFactory = MessageFactory.newInstance();
SOAPMessage soapMessage = messageFactory.createMessage();
SOAPPart soapPart = soapMessage.getSOAPPart();
String serverURI = "http://ws.cdyne.com/";
// SOAP Envelope
SOAPEnvelope envelope = soapPart.getEnvelope();
envelope.addNamespaceDeclaration("example", serverURI);
/*
Constructed SOAP Request Message:
mutantninja@gmail.com
123
*/
// SOAP Body
SOAPBody soapBody = envelope.getBody();
SOAPElement soapBodyElem = soapBody.addChildElement("VerifyEmail", "example");
SOAPElement soapBodyElem1 = soapBodyElem.addChildElement("email", "example");
soapBodyElem1.addTextNode("mutantninja@gmail.com");
SOAPElement soapBodyElem2 = soapBodyElem.addChildElement("LicenseKey", "example");
soapBodyElem2.addTextNode("123");
MimeHeaders headers = soapMessage.getMimeHeaders();
headers.addHeader("SOAPAction", serverURI + "VerifyEmail");
soapMessage.saveChanges();
/* Print the request message */
System.out.print("Request SOAP Message = ");
soapMessage.writeTo(System.out);
System.out.println();
return soapMessage;
}
/**
* Method used to print the SOAP Response
*/
private static void printSOAPResponse(SOAPMessage soapResponse) throws Exception {
TransformerFactory transformerFactory = TransformerFactory.newInstance();
Transformer transformer = transformerFactory.newTransformer();
Source sourceContent = soapResponse.getSOAPPart().getContent();
System.out.print("\nResponse SOAP Message = ");
StreamResult result = new StreamResult(System.out);
transformer.transform(sourceContent, result);
}
}
(The code above was taken and adapted from
this page.)
