Having written the article “How to build a Confluence SOAP client in 5 minutes” some readers asked me for some more information and help using the  JAX-WS plugin that I mentioned in the article instead of the Axis plugin – so here we go ;)

• Create a simple maven project first using archetype:create or archetype:generate

  mvn archetype:create -DgroupId=com.hascode.jaxws -DartifactId=soap-tutorial

• We get a pom.xml like this:

  <project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
   <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
   <groupId>com.hascode.jaxws</groupId>
   <artifactId>soap-tutorial</artifactId>
   <version>0.1</version>
  </project>

• Insert plugin references and dependencies to your pom.xml

  <dependencies>
  	<dependency>
  		<groupId>com.sun.xml.ws</groupId>
  		<artifactId>jaxws-rt</artifactId>
  		<version>2.2</version>
  	</dependency>
  </dependencies>
  <build>
  	<plugins>
  		<plugin>
  			<groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
  			<artifactId>jaxws-maven-plugin</artifactId>
  			<executions>
  				<execution>
  					<goals>
  						<goal>wsimport</goal>
  					</goals>
  				</execution>
  			</executions>
  			<configuration>
  				<packageName>com.hascode.schema</packageName>
  			</configuration>
  		</plugin>
  	</plugins>
  </build>

• Specify the package name for the generated java files in the plugin configuration – I used com.hascode.schema – you might want to edit this ;)
• JAX-WS needs at least Java5 so add this source/target information to the build element

  <plugin>
  	<artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
  	<configuration>
  		<source>1.5</source>
  		<target>1.5</target>
  	</configuration>
  </plugin>

• If you wish to use a specific version of JAX-WS you may specify your needs adding this plugin configuration to the build element

  <dependencies>
  	<groupId>com.sun.xml.ws</groupId>
  	<artifactId>jaxws-tools</artifactId>
  	<version>2.2.1</version>
  </dependencies>

• If maven cries about unresolved dependencies to com.sun.xml.ws-rt you should add the Sun Maven Repository to your  pom.xml

  <repositories>
  	<repository>
  		<id>maven2-repository.dev.java.net</id>
  		<name>Java.net Repository for Maven</name>
  		<url>http://download.java.net/maven/2</url>
  	</repository>
  </repositories>

• In conclusion – my pom.xml looks like this:

  <project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  	xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
  	<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
  	<groupId>com.hascode.jaxws</groupId>
  	<artifactId>soap-tutorial</artifactId>
  	<version>0.1</version>
  	<dependencies>
  		<dependency>
  			<groupId>com.sun.xml.ws</groupId>
  			<artifactId>jaxws-rt</artifactId>
  			<version>2.2</version>
  		</dependency>
  	</dependencies>
  	<build>
  		<plugins>
  			<plugin>
  				<groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
  				<artifactId>jaxws-maven-plugin</artifactId>
  				<executions>
  					<execution>
  						<goals>
  							<goal>wsimport</goal>
  						</goals>
  					</execution>
  				</executions>
  				<configuration>
  					<packageName>com.hascode.schema</packageName>
  				</configuration>
  			</plugin>
   
  			<plugin>
  				<artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
  				<configuration>
  					<source>1.5</source>
  					<target>1.5</target>
  				</configuration>
  			</plugin>
  		</plugins>
  	</build>
  	<repositories>
  		<repository>
  			<id>maven2-repository.dev.java.net</id>
  			<name>Java.net Repository for Maven</name>
  			<url>http://download.java.net/maven/2</url>
  		</repository>
  	</repositories>
  </project>

• Create a directory named wsdl in your src directory – the WSDL files go there – the maven plugin searches for files matching *.wsdl in this directory
• Get a valid WSDL somewhere an store it in src/wsdl – I used a sample wsdl file from a IBM tutorial I once read for testing.
• Generate your java files using the jaxws-plugin:

  mvn jaxws:wsimport

• Enjoy the generated files in target/jaxws/wsimport/java with the defined package name com.hascode.schema

• wsimport often needs some extra tuning to get some wsdl definitions going – so if you did not succeed try to configure the process in adjusting the plugin parameters, get one or more bottles of wine and parse through the jax-ws documentation or switch to axis and get the stuff running in minutes – nah just kidding :)
• In Eclipse you sometimes have to adjust the Java VM defined in the build path and the compiler target level (Project Properties > Java Compiler | Build Path)
• In Eclipse you can easily validate your stored wsdl file by opening it in the xml editor and selecting “Validate” in the context menu
• “[ERROR] undefined element declaration ‘xs:schema’” xs:schema is referenced but an import is missing – read this nice article from Vivek Pandey on Java.net how to fix this problem

• Goal documentation: jaxws:wsimport
• Java.net: JAX-WS Maven Plugin
• Sun blog article: Using JAX-WS with Maven
• My article explaining the Axis-Maven-Plugin
• Oracle/Sun Jax-WS Homepage
• IBM.com: Developing a JAX-WS client from a WSDL file
• Axis Maven Plugin Homepage
• Vivek Pandey. Java.net: How to deal with unresolved schema references

Tags: Axis, Axis2, jax-ws, maven, maven2, soap, tutorial, webservice, wsdl, wsimport

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 8th, 2010 at 8:09 pm and is filed under Java, Web Services. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.