adding new field to a SOAP Object without having to change client side

[Gabo Manuel]

lets say i have a webservice that returns a soap object, say SOAPProfile, which initially contains name, address and phonenumber.

i publish it out and ppl would create a client program that would retrieve it and return it for updates and/or creation of new objects.

and then i decide to add a new field 'faxnumber'. this would cause serialization problems if the client would pass a soapProfile that has only three fields, ryt? how would it be possible to handle both types(old and new) by the same method, say updateProfile(SOAPProfile)?

tnx in advance

[William Brogden]

If this was my problem I would try to have the SOAP service defined as returning a collection of name - value pairs. That way you can add or remove entries from the collection. Of course this means more work for the client side in terms of maintaining the collection, but it would be flexible.
Bill

[Gabo Manuel]

bill,

i was hoping to use a java.util.properties object to contain the data. unfortunately i am having problems creating the wsdd file. please advise

tnx.