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Posted to java-user@axis.apache.org by Tuncay <tu...@o2.pl> on 2004/07/09 19:28:56 UTC
Design questions
Hello all,
I need to design and implement a bridge like application between a
legacy banking application and a web service. The banking application is
written in ADABAS NATURAL and is on a UNIX platform.
Below is a sketch of my current design to explain the situation better:
+----------+ +----------+ |
| UNIX | HTTP | Java | HTTP | Web
| ADABAS | <-------> | Web | <-------> | Service
| NATURAL | | App | |
+----------+ +----------+ |
Because of the inabilities of NATURAL version I wrote a C module that
opens an HTTP connection to Java Web App and sends web service
parameters as normal request parameters, and fetches the returned data
to NATURAL.
Web application receives the parameters, in a large if-else block
decides which method to call and using Axis generated proxy classes
invokes the method. By using the returned object it prepares a very
long formatted string and sends back. (Btw, Java Web Application is
another host for security and performance related reasons.)
The number of methods is increasing a lot lately and there are a dozens
of web services that we need to integrate with the banking application.
Thus, it is getting difficult and extra boring to manually code method
invocations. For these reasons I decided to implement a package that
parses WSDL and automatically invokes methods by using request
parameters and lots of reflection code. The only part left is generating
the result string from the object returned by method invocation.
I have several questions:
* Am I on the right way?
* Is using Axis on the web application side favorable?
* If favorable, should I choose an alternative to use proxy classes?
* If not, which API should I learn and use?
* And btw, why is parsing a WSDL is so hard?
I'm very new to whole web services stuff. I need your very valuable
suggestions. For the last couple of days questions preoccupying my mind. :-\
Best regards.
/tb.
Re: Design questions
Posted by "matthew.hawthorne" <ma...@apache.org>.
Tuncay wrote:
> Below is a sketch of my current design to explain the situation better:
>
> +----------+ +----------+ | | UNIX |
> HTTP | Java | HTTP | Web
> | ADABAS | <-------> | Web | <-------> | Service
> | NATURAL | | App | |
> +----------+ +----------+ |
>
> Because of the inabilities of NATURAL version I wrote a C module that
> opens an HTTP connection to Java Web App and sends web service
> parameters as normal request parameters, and fetches the returned data
> to NATURAL.
>
> Web application receives the parameters, in a large if-else block
> decides which method to call and using Axis generated proxy classes
> invokes the method. By using the returned object it prepares a very
> long formatted string and sends back. (Btw, Java Web Application is
> another host for security and performance related reasons.)
I think you'll want to get rid of the manual WSDL parsing, and also get
rid of your big if/else block in the webapp. On the client (NATURAL)
side, could you use Axis C++, or perhaps a SOAP library for C, Perl,
Python, etc to just invoke the service methods directly? I may be
missing something, but it seems that this would save you a lot of work.
RE: Design questions
Posted by Anne Thomas Manes <an...@manes.net>.
I agree with Matthew. I suggest you call Web services directly from your
Natural app. SOAP engines for C/C++ include:
Axis C++
gSOAP (http://www.cs.fsu.edu/~engelen/soap.html) (GPL)
Systinet Server for C++ (http://www.systinet.com) (commercial)
There's no reason for you to implement your own WSDL parser. (btw -- WSDL
parsing isn't really all that hard (it's no harder than parsing any other
XML document) -- but it's a complex document with many options.)
Anne
-----Original Message-----
From: Tuncay [mailto:tuncay@o2.pl]
Sent: Friday, July 09, 2004 1:29 PM
To: axis-user@ws.apache.org
Subject: Design questions
Hello all,
I need to design and implement a bridge like application between a
legacy banking application and a web service. The banking application is
written in ADABAS NATURAL and is on a UNIX platform.
Below is a sketch of my current design to explain the situation better:
+----------+ +----------+ |
| UNIX | HTTP | Java | HTTP | Web
| ADABAS | <-------> | Web | <-------> | Service
| NATURAL | | App | |
+----------+ +----------+ |
Because of the inabilities of NATURAL version I wrote a C module that
opens an HTTP connection to Java Web App and sends web service
parameters as normal request parameters, and fetches the returned data
to NATURAL.
Web application receives the parameters, in a large if-else block
decides which method to call and using Axis generated proxy classes
invokes the method. By using the returned object it prepares a very
long formatted string and sends back. (Btw, Java Web Application is
another host for security and performance related reasons.)
The number of methods is increasing a lot lately and there are a dozens
of web services that we need to integrate with the banking application.
Thus, it is getting difficult and extra boring to manually code method
invocations. For these reasons I decided to implement a package that
parses WSDL and automatically invokes methods by using request
parameters and lots of reflection code. The only part left is generating
the result string from the object returned by method invocation.
I have several questions:
* Am I on the right way?
* Is using Axis on the web application side favorable?
* If favorable, should I choose an alternative to use proxy classes?
* If not, which API should I learn and use?
* And btw, why is parsing a WSDL is so hard?
I'm very new to whole web services stuff. I need your very valuable
suggestions. For the last couple of days questions preoccupying my mind. :-\
Best regards.
/tb.