Question

I have a project coming up that will require me to call a SOAP web service from my java application. I’m wondering what toolsets I should look at to do this? All advice appreciated.

I’ve looked at jax-ws and Axis2 but these appear to be mostly for creators of web services instead of consumers and I only wish to consume.

Thanks!

Answer 1

First of all you need wsdl. Some service providers might distribute Java client classes, but WSDL is the safest approach.

Once you have it, run tool like wsdl2java for apache-cxf or analogous in apache-axis against it. It will create a bunch of Java classes (you only need the client side). These tools are also capable of generating server-side code, hence the impression you had that they aim service developers.

This is all you need – the client classes will handle XML marshalling/unmarshalling and HTTP connectivity for you. Just use appropriate stub implementing WS endpoint interface.

You can also use WebServiceTemplate from spring-ws portfolio.