Generic return types with @WebMethod JAX-WS

[Marius Popescu]

Hi,

I have the fallowing problem : can JAX-WS handle the code below ? It can't make the cast to subclasses of Person ...

@WebService
public interface Greetings {
	 
	@WebMethod 
	 public String sayHello(String name);
	 
	@WebMethod
	 public List<? extends Person> getPerson(String name);	
		
}

For the code above, a call to getPerson will return in SOAP UI:

<S:Envelope xmlns:S="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"> <S:Body> <ns2:getPersonResponse xmlns:ns2="http://ws.server.scopert.ro/"> <return/> <return/> </ns2:getPersonResponse> </S:Body> </S:Envelope>

but if I add another method, no matter what it does, return null, etc, as long as it has the specific type declared than JAX WS works well :

@WebService
public interface Greetings {
	 
	@WebMethod 
	 public String sayHello(String name);
	 
	@WebMethod
	 public List<? extends Person> getPerson(String name);	
	
	@WebMethod
	public List<BulgarianPerson> getAnything(String name);
	
}

For the code above, a call to getPerson will return in SOAP UI:

<S:Envelope xmlns:S="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"> <S:Body> <ns2:getPersonResponse xmlns:ns2="http://ws.server.scopert.ro/"> <return xsi:type="ns2:bulgarianPerson" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"> <adress> <contry>TARA 1</contry> <number>1</number> <street>STRADA 1</street> </adress> <adress> <contry>TARA 2</contry> <number>2</number> <street>STRADA 2</street> </adress> <age>20</age> <name>Marius</name> </return> <return xsi:type="ns2:bulgarianPerson" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"> <adress> <contry>t1</contry> <number>1</number> <street>str1</street> </adress> <adress> <contry>str2</contry> <number>2</number> <street>str2</street> </adress> <age>20</age> <name>Marius</name> </return> </ns2:getPersonResponse> </S:Body> </S:Envelope>

So I guess the problem is that it can't map those objects unless they are declared somehow, in this case in the return type of another object.
Can they be declared in another way ?
Thank you for your help