Question

Similar to How can I access the ServletContext from within a JAX-WS web service?, is there a way to access applicationContext, easier than this?

import javax.annotation.Resource; import javax.jws.WebService; import javax.servlet.ServletContext; import javax.xml.ws.WebServiceContext; import javax.xml.ws.handler.MessageContext;  import org.springframework.web.context.WebApplicationContext; import org.springframework.web.context.support.WebApplicationContextUtils;  @WebService public class MyWebService {     // boilerplate code begins :(      @Resource     private WebServiceContext context;     private WebApplicationContext webApplicationContext = null;      /**      * @return      * @throws IllegalStateException      */     private WebApplicationContext getWebApplicationContext()             throws IllegalStateException {         if (webApplicationContext != null)             return webApplicationContext;         ServletContext servletContext =                 (ServletContext) context.getMessageContext().get(                         MessageContext.SERVLET_CONTEXT);         webApplicationContext =                 WebApplicationContextUtils.getRequiredWebApplicationContext(servletContext);         return webApplicationContext;     } } 

Answer 1

I don’t think that the web service should have to know about web or servlet contexts or its application context. I don’t see why it should have to know any of that. Shouldn’t it be far more passive? Inject what it needs and let it do its work. The service interactions with a client should be based on a contract defined up front. If it has to get unknown values from a context of some kind, how will clients know what needs to be set or how to set it?

I’d go further and say that a web service should be a wrapper for a Spring service interface. It’s just one more choice among all the possible ways to expose it. Your web service should do little more than marshal and unmarshal the XML request/response objects and collaborate with Spring services.