Axis 1.6 not handling methods with null parameters

[Leon Koch <Le...@global-health.com>]

Hi,

We have encountered an issue when upgrading from Axis 1.5.4 to 1.6.0

We have several WSDLs containing methods without parameters, eg:

<wsdl:operation name="getDisciplinesIndividuals">
  <wsdl:input message="ns:getDisciplinesIndividualsRequest" wsaw:Action="urn:getDisciplinesIndividuals">
</wsdl:input>

...

<wsdl:message name="getDisciplinesIndividualsRequest">
</wsdl:message>

This WSDL was generated from a Java class using axis 1.5.4 tool java2wsdl.
We then generated server side stubs using wsdl2java.
This WSDL + stub code handled client requests without soap parameters (the method being specified in the 'action' http header). eg

<soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope">
   <soap:Header/>
   <soap:Body/>
</soap:Envelope>

However, when updating the server stub to axis 1.6.0, the new stub code no longer handles null parameters.
Taken from the generated *MessageReceiverInOut.java:

if (gh.GetDisciplinesIndividuals.class.equals(type)){
  return gh.GetDisciplinesIndividuals.Factory.parse(param.getXMLStreamReaderWithoutCaching());
}

This code throws an nullpointerexception when our existing clients pass a request without a empty parameter node. eg.

<soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope" xmlns:adm="http://gh.com">
   <soap:Header/>
   <soap:Body>
      <adm:getDisciplinesIndividuals/>
   </soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>

While axis 1.6.0 does update the WSDL to require this parameter (shown below), this means that axis 1.6.0 is not backwards compatible with our existing clients (obviously a fairly large issue).

<wsdl:operation name="getDisciplinesIndividuals">
  <wsdl:input message="ns:getDisciplinesIndividualsRequest" wsaw:Action="urn:getDisciplinesIndividuals">
</wsdl:input>

...

<wsdl:message name="getDisciplinesIndividualsRequest">
  <wsdl:part name="parameters" element="ns:getDisciplinesIndividuals">
  </wsdl:part>
</wsdl:message>

Any suggestions how we can generate axis 1.6.0 stubs that will handle these null requests from existing clients?

Thanks

Leon Koch