how to generate documentation for a webservice

[marzio logiudice]

Hello everybody,

I suppose it is a trivial question, but can anyone suggest the best way to generate documentation for the webservice interface (parameters, exception etc)?

Thanks

[Paulo Salgado]

Hi Marzio.

If you want to create documentation so the users of your Web Services can create client code to use it, you only need to create a WSDL file. If you don't want to generate a WSDL file from scratch, some SOAP engines provide a tool called Java2WSDL, which will create a WSDL file from a Java class.

If you want to provide verbal documentation about your WS then I still think it would go into the WSDL, but I haven't done that. I'm also not aware of a Javadoc-like tool for WSDL files, but there may be one. Hopefully somebody else has done it and will post the experience.

Regards.

[marzio logiudice]

Hello Paulo,

thanks for the help. Yes, I need to provide some human readable documentation for the usage of the interface, together with the wsdl file.
I thought there was some standard way to do that (like javadoc a/o annotations)

Actually, I have to deploy a webservice to be used by a customer to monitor the status of the implementation of new features, and I'd like to authomate the process of creating human readable documentation any time a new feature is released or updated.