Axis2 wsdl2java - Generate Better Code with -uw

This is a question asked regularly on the axis-user list. "Code generated by the wsdl2java tool is hard to use. Is there any better way that I can generate code?".

The answer to this is that you could actually use wsdl2java to generate better code. Lets take an example scenario. For this I will be using a Service that I have deployed on Mooshup.com. This simple service has a operation called demo which accepts three parameters (firstParam, secondParam and thirdParam). I will be using the wsdl of this service for explanation. Lets first try to use wsdl2java on this wsdl and see what happens and how -uw can help.

If i was to generate a stub for this using the following command,

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1. sh wsdl2java.sh -uri http://mooshup.com/services/keith/DemoService?wsdl -o /home/keith/projects/demo  

sh wsdl2java.sh -uri http://mooshup.com/services/keith/DemoService?wsdl -o /home/keith/projects/demo

I would have to use this stub as follows,

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1. DemoServiceStub stub = new DemoServiceStub();  
2. DemoServiceStub.Demo demo = new DemoServiceStub.Demo();  
3. DemoServiceStub.DemoType demoType = new DemoServiceStub.DemoType();  
4. demo.setDemo(demoType);  
5. demoType.setFirstParam("firstParam");  
6. demoType.setSecondParam(10.0);  
7. demoType.setThirdParam(true);  
8. stub.demo(demo);  

DemoServiceStub stub = new DemoServiceStub();
DemoServiceStub.Demo demo = new DemoServiceStub.Demo();
DemoServiceStub.DemoType demoType = new DemoServiceStub.DemoType();
demo.setDemo(demoType);
demoType.setFirstParam("firstParam");
demoType.setSecondParam(10.0);
demoType.setThirdParam(true);
stub.demo(demo);

Now this does not look too elegant, but if I were to generate code using the -uw option with the following command,

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1. sh wsdl2java.sh -uri http://mooshup.com/services/keith/DemoService?wsdl -o /home/keith/projects/demo -uw  

sh wsdl2java.sh -uri http://mooshup.com/services/keith/DemoService?wsdl -o /home/keith/projects/demo -uw

I would be able to use the stub as,

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1. DemoServiceStub stub = new DemoServiceStub();  
2. stub.demo("firstParam", 20.0, true);  

DemoServiceStub stub = new DemoServiceStub();
stub.demo("firstParam", 20.0, true);

Now what is more elegant and easier? Its a easy answer.

The secret to this lies in the schema. You wont be able to generate easy to use stubs such as this all the time. What gets unwrapped (when -uw is used) is the sequence within the complex type. In our case the schema was as follows,

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1. <xs:complexType name="demoType">  
2.   
3.    <xs:sequence>  
4.   
5.        <xs:element name="firstParam" type="xs:string" />  
6.   
7.        <xs:element name="secondParam" type="xs:double" />  
8.   
9.        <xs:element name="thirdParam" type="xs:boolean" />  
10.   
11.    </xs:sequence>  
12.   
13. </xs:complexType>  
14.   
15. <xs:element name="demo" type="ws:demoType" />  

<xs:complexType name="demoType">

   <xs:sequence>

       <xs:element name="firstParam" type="xs:string" />

       <xs:element name="secondParam" type="xs:double" />

       <xs:element name="thirdParam" type="xs:boolean" />

   </xs:sequence>

</xs:complexType>

<xs:element name="demo" type="ws:demoType" />

So the bottom line is use the -uw option when generating code with wsdl2java, this would generate code that is easy to use. (This should have been the default in wsdl2java ;))

Most users are not aware of the set of options that wsdl2java offer (Will cover that in another post).