Returning an Array of user -defined objects from a JAX-WS Webservice

[Nitin Bhardwaj]

Hi Friends,
I am new to webservices. I've made a really simple WebService. I deploy it to the JBoss 5 AS and JBoss automatically generates the WSDL for it. I use SAAJ API to pass the SOAP Request Message(using an xml file) to this webservice and then I get the response. I am going to provide each of the resources below:
1. Webservice Code:

package com.nit.webservice;

import javax.jws.WebMethod;
import javax.jws.WebParam;
import javax.jws.WebResult;
import javax.jws.WebService;
import javax.jws.soap.SOAPBinding;

import com.nit.model.Company;

@WebService(name="CompanyInformation", targetNamespace="http://webservice.nit.com/NitWS/CompanyInformation")
/*
 * The name property in the @WebService annotation lets you define the web service name 
 * (the wdsl:portType attribute in WDSL 1.1). 
 * The serviceName property lets you define the WDSL service name. 
 * These properties are optional; if undefined, sensible default values will be derived from the class name.
 */

@SOAPBinding
   (
         style = SOAPBinding.Style.RPC,
         use = SOAPBinding.Use.LITERAL,
         parameterStyle = SOAPBinding.ParameterStyle.WRAPPED
    )
public class CompanyInformation {		
	
	@WebMethod
	public @WebResult(name="companies", partName="companies") Company[] getCompaniesArrayStartingWithCode(@WebParam(name="companyCode", partName="companyCode") String companyCode)
	{
		Company[] companies=new Company[2];
		Company company1=new Company();
		company1.setCompanyCode("ABC");
		company1.setCompanyName("ABC CORP");
		company1.setBusinessVertical("Manufacturing");
		company1.setHeadquartersCity("Bhubaneshwar");
		company1.setWorkforce(5000);
		
		Company company2=new Company();
		company2.setCompanyCode("XYZ");
		company2.setCompanyName("XYZ CORP");
		company2.setBusinessVertical("Commercial");
		company2.setHeadquartersCity("Chennai");
		company2.setWorkforce(2000);
		
		companies[0]=company1;
		companies[1]=company2;
		
		return companies;
	}	
}

2. WSDL Generated when I deployed above webservice on JBoss AS:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <definitions name="CompanyInformationService" targetNamespace="http://webservice.nit.com/NitWS/CompanyInformation" xmlns="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/" xmlns:tns="http://webservice.nit.com/NitWS/CompanyInformation" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/soap/"> <types> <xs:schema targetNamespace="http://webservice.nit.com/NitWS/CompanyInformation" version="1.0" xmlns:tns="http://webservice.nit.com/NitWS/CompanyInformation" xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"> <xs:complexType name="company"> <xs:sequence> <xs:element minOccurs="0" name="businessVertical" type="xs:string"/> <xs:element minOccurs="0" name="companyCode" type="xs:string"/> <xs:element minOccurs="0" name="companyName" type="xs:string"/> <xs:element minOccurs="0" name="headquartersCity" type="xs:string"/> <xs:element name="workforce" type="xs:int"/> </xs:sequence> </xs:complexType> <xs:complexType final="#all" name="companyArray"> <xs:sequence> <xs:element maxOccurs="unbounded" minOccurs="0" name="item" nillable="true" type="tns:company"/> </xs:sequence> </xs:complexType> </xs:schema> </types> <message name="CompanyInformation_getCompaniesArrayStartingWithCode"> <part name="companyCode" type="xsd:string"> </part> </message> <message name="CompanyInformation_getCompaniesArrayStartingWithCodeResponse"> <part name="companies" type="tns:companyArray"> </part> </message> <portType name="CompanyInformation"> <operation name="getCompaniesArrayStartingWithCode" parameterOrder="companyCode"> <input message="tns:CompanyInformation_getCompaniesArrayStartingWithCode"> </input> <output message="tns:CompanyInformation_getCompaniesArrayStartingWithCodeResponse"> </output> </operation> </portType> <binding name="CompanyInformationBinding" type="tns:CompanyInformation"> <soap:binding style="rpc" transport="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/http"/> <operation name="getCompaniesArrayStartingWithCode"> <soap:operation soapAction=""/> <input> <soap:body use="literal" namespace="http://webservice.nit.com/NitWS/CompanyInformation"/> </input> <output> <soap:body use="literal" namespace="http://webservice.nit.com/NitWS/CompanyInformation"/> </output> </operation> </binding> <service name="CompanyInformationService"> <port name="CompanyInformationPort" binding="tns:CompanyInformationBinding"> <soap:address location="http://127.0.0.1:8080/NitWS/CompanyInformation"/> </port> </service> </definitions>

3. The SAAJ Client Code that I am using:

package com.nit.webservice.client.company;

import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.net.URL;
import javax.xml.soap.MessageFactory;
import javax.xml.soap.MimeHeaders;
import javax.xml.soap.Name;
import javax.xml.soap.SOAPConnection;
import javax.xml.soap.SOAPConnectionFactory;
import javax.xml.soap.SOAPElement;
import javax.xml.soap.SOAPMessage;
import java.lang.Exception;

public class SAAJCompanyClient {
	
	public static void main(String args[])
	{
		callJAXWSCompanyInfoService();		
	}
	
	private static void callJAXWSCompanyInfoService()
	{
		
        try {
        	MessageFactory msgFactory = MessageFactory.newInstance();
            InputStream in = new FileInputStream("D:/SOAP_REQUEST_XML/CompanyInformation/soapRequest.xml");
            MimeHeaders headers=new MimeHeaders();
            headers.addHeader("content-type", "text/xml");
            SOAPMessage message = msgFactory.createMessage(headers, in);
            in.close();           
            System.out.println("\n");            
            SOAPConnectionFactory soapConnectionFactory = SOAPConnectionFactory.newInstance();            
            SOAPConnection connection = soapConnectionFactory.createConnection();            
            java.net.URL endpoint = new URL("http://127.0.0.1:8080/NitWS/CompanyInformation");            
            SOAPMessage response = connection.call(message, endpoint);           
            response.writeTo(System.out); // This will write the SOAP response message that is being received from the Webservice
            System.out.println("\n");                        
            connection.close();            
        } catch (IOException e) {
            System.out.println("I/O exception: " + e.toString());
            System.exit(1);
        } catch (Exception ex) {
            ex.printStackTrace();
        }
	
	}

	
}

4. The SOAP Request message (or the content of soapRequest.xml) that the above SAAJ Client Code is sending to Webservice:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:nb="http://webservice.nit.com/NitWS/CompanyInformation"> <soap:Body> <nb:getCompaniesArrayStartingWithCode> <companyCode>NITCOMP</companyCode> </nb:getCompaniesArrayStartingWithCode> </soap:Body> </soap:Envelope>

5. The Response that the SAAJ Client Code gets from the Webservice:

<env:Envelope xmlns:env='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/'> <env:Header></env:Header> <env:Body> <nb:getCompaniesArrayStartingWithCodeResponse xmlns:nb='http://webservice.nit.com/NitWS/CompanyInformation'> <companies> <item> <businessVertical>Manufacturing</businessVertical> <companyCode>ABC</companyCode> <companyName>ABC CORP</companyName> <headquartersCity>Bhubaneshwar</headquartersCity> <workforce>5000</workforce> </item> <item> <businessVertical>Commercial</businessVertical> <companyCode>XYZ</companyCode> <companyName>XYZ CORP</companyName> <headquartersCity>Chennai</headquartersCity> <workforce>2000</workforce> </item> </companies> </nb:getCompaniesArrayStartingWithCodeResponse> </env:Body> </env:Envelope>

My Question: The Response that we got from the webservice has a tag <item> under <companies> tag. I want that it should be named as <company>, and not <item>. I believe there should be an annotation for doing this which I may have to apply to the WebMethod in the Webservice code which I've listed.
Request you to let me know what should I do in order to get this done without changing the WSDL manually.

Best Regards,
Nitin

[Wap Rau]

Hello Nitin Bhardwaj,

Have you ever been able to get <item> named as <company>? If yes, how?

Thanks.

Wap Rau

[Ivan Krizsan]

Hi!
I think that the reason for the element in question being named <item> may be related to the fact that you use RPC binding.
Have you tried using DOCUMENT style binding?
Best wishes!

[Wap Rau]

Ivan Krizsan wrote:Hi!
I think that the reason for the element in question being named <item> may be related to the fact that you use RPC binding.
Have you tried using DOCUMENT style binding?
Best wishes!

Thanks Ivan Krizsan, for your reply. I am very new to Web Services. Could you provide me with links to the resources for such DOCUMENT style binding?

Thanks again,

Wap Rau

[Arun Kumar]

Try this in your code
@SOAPBinding
(
style = SOAPBinding.Style.DOCUMENT,
use = SOAPBinding.Use.LITERAL,
parameterStyle = SOAPBinding.ParameterStyle.WRAPPED
)

[Wap Rau]

Arun Kumar wrote:Try this in your code
@SOAPBinding
(
style = SOAPBinding.Style.DOCUMENT,
use = SOAPBinding.Use.LITERAL,
parameterStyle = SOAPBinding.ParameterStyle.WRAPPED
)

Thanks Arun Kumar for your reply. I will try your solution. Thanks again for responding.