Question

I’m trying to refactor an old web service project using new structure (with Maven) and best practices that weren’t applied before. The project is composed of two parts: The first part is the implementation part (relevant only for the server), it contains the web service implementation and some utility classes for the server. The second part is shared by the server and the client, and contains the web service interface and the classes used for transferring the data with SOAP. So, we get a WAR for the first part, and a JAR for the second part. A client would need only the JAR to access the web service.

What are the issues with this structure?

I thought about defining the types used to transfer data between client and server using an XSD. Then, to generate a WSDL from the web service implementation classes. The WSDL would reference the XSD and a tool would generate automatically the transfer classes from the XSD.
What do you think about this solution? Are there issues with it? What do you recommend?

Thanks

Answer 1

Spring web services use a “contract first” approach like the one you’re proposing.