Axis2 Data-binding

Thoughts…

Major changes from Axis 1.x

• Investigate the possibility of using data binding tools…XmlBeans, JAXB, Castor…

• Focus on doc/lit (Hi Glen... )

• RPC lit/enc will be layered on top of doc/lit

Entities involved

“Java” Objects

XML

AXIOM

DOM

StAX or SAX

StAX or SAX

StAX

Generated code (specific to data-binding framework used)

Issues…

• It is desirable to support many data binding tools

• Different tools use very different marshalling/unmarshalling mechanisms– Shall we standardize on JAXB?...

• The data-binding tool, generated code and service implementation are tightly coupled

• So… to change the tool means to regenerate code…

Issues (cont.)

XML Schema Interfaces

Implementation classes

Is it possible to decouple these?

Anyone of aware of type substitution is JAXB?

Issues…

• In the case of RPC lit or enc we shall transform the schema specified in WSDL before passing it on to the data binding framework

• This will not allow the use of multi-refs on outgoing messages…

• However, if it is really important (ahh…) we can tweak the StAX parser/OM to handle it on behalf of the data-binding framework on incoming messages… do we need this???

At the moment…

• We have a WSDL2Java toy that works for WSDL 1.x & Doc/lit ONLY…

• Can generate SEI, Stubs & Skeletons using XMLBeans…

• The tool uses Schema Object Model of XMLBeans… hence cannot plug-in other data-binding tools

Plans for the future…

• Do what we have done for XMLBeans for JAXB, Castor etc…

• Identify a generic architecture where tools are pluggable…

• Support for RPC encoded/literal based on the strategy of schema transformation…

Thanks…