Weblogic 10 web services runtime uses JAX-WS and JAXB for web service generation. Following the preferred contract-first (or wsdl-first) design approach one can use the wsdlc Ant task to generate all web services artifacts (Impl file, proxy classes and java bean types and their xml serializers & deserializers) from a WSDL file and associated xsd schemas.

(Note: Before starting, make sure Weblogic 10 is correctly installed. Also, the web service generation relies on annotations so Java 5 must also be installed. Note that you need the JDK - not just the JRE - as the WSDL generation required tools.jar which comes with the JDK only)

WSDLC takes a WSDL file as parameter and uses custom JAXB binding files to configure the generation of Java files. Although this process is much more complicated than the simple package to namespace mapping file (NStoPkg.properties) used by Apache Axis it is also much more configurable. For example the JAXB binding files allow you to also specify things such as the name of the generated Impl file, names of operations, parameters as well as configure SOAP handlers. It’s basically a one-stop-shop for the configuration of the web service.

I use the JAXB binding files mainly to generate the the correct package structure of the various Java artifacts.

My WSDL and accompanying schema structure is something like this:

/JobMaintenanceService.wsdl                > defines services
/jobmaintenance/JobMaintenanceService.xsd  > defines main types used in the service
/enterprise_schemas/assignment/*.xsd   > defines types from the assignment functional area 
/enterprise_schemas/common/*.xsd       > defines various common types reused by all other schemas
etc..

It is important to note that JobMaintenanceService imports JobMaintenanceService.xsd which in turn imports other schemas which in turn may import or include other schemas as required. See my previous post on the difference between import vs. include.

The package structure I wanted from the above schemas was as follows:

com.mycompany.myapp.ws.client    > to hold service client classes - proxy, etc.
com.mycompany.myapp.ws.service   > to hold JobMaintenanceService impl class
com.mycompany.myapp.ws.dto       > to hold JobMaintenanceService schema files
com.mycompany.myapp.ws.types.assignment  > to hold types from the assignment schemas
com.mycompany.myapp.ws.types.common      > to hold types from common enterprise schemas
etc..

The following is the Ant target to generate the webservice code. The wsdlc ant task comes with Weblogic 10 (weblogic.wsee.tools.anttasks.WsdlcTask) and is actually a wrapper around Sun’s wsimport task so don’t be surprised if you get warnings or errors referring to wsimport.

build.xml:

<property name="bea.home" value="C:/apps/bea10" />
<property name="jdk.home" value="${bea.home}/jdk150_06" />
<property name="weblogic.home" value="${bea.home}/wlserver_10.0" />
<property name="src.dir" value="src"/>
<property name="wsdl.file.name" value="JobMaintenanceService"/>
 
<target name="run-wsdlc">
	<path id="compile.classpath">
		<fileset dir="${jdk.home}">
			<include name="lib/tools.jar" />
		</fileset>
		<fileset dir="${weblogic.home}">
			<include name="server/lib/weblogic.jar"/>
		</fileset>
	</path>
 
	<taskdef name="wsdlc" classname="weblogic.wsee.tools.anttasks.WsdlcTask" classpathref="compile.classpath" />
	<mkdir dir="${src.dir}"/>
 
	<property name="binding.declaration.file" value="schema-jobmaintenance.xjb,wsdl-jobmaintenance.xjb"/>
 
	<wsdlc
		type="JAXWS"
		srcWsdl="etc/job_maint/${wsdl.file.name}.wsdl"
		destJwsDir="${src.dir}/jws" 
		destImplDir="${src.dir}/impl" 
		explode="true" 
		failonerror="true"
	>
                <binding dir="etc" includes="${binding.declaration.file}"/>
		<classpath>
			<path refid="compile.classpath"/>
   		</classpath>
	</wsdlc>
</target>

The above will generate all required java files into the correct package structure. Here is an excerpt from the schemas binding file showing the mappings of the common and assignment namespaces.

schema-jobmaintenance.xjb:

<jxb:bindings
  version="1.0"
  xmlns:jxb="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/jaxb" 
>
    <jxb:bindings
      xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
      schemaLocation="job_maint/enterprise_schemas/common/Common.xsd" 
      node="/xs:schema"
    >
	<jxb:schemaBindings>
		<jxb:package name="com.mycompany.myapp.ws.types.common"/>
	</jxb:schemaBindings>
   </jxb:bindings>
 
   <jxb:bindings
      xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
      schemaLocation="job_maint/enterprise_schemas/assignment/Assignment.xsd" 
      node="/xs:schema"
    >
	<jxb:schemaBindings>
		<jxb:package name="com.mycompany.myapp.ws.types.assignment"/>
	</jxb:schemaBindings>
   </jxb:bindings>  
....   
 
</jxb:bindings>

Some notes:

• The wsdlc Ant task configures namespace to package mappings using custom JAXB binding files - schema-jobmaintenance.xjb and wsdl-jobmaintenance.xjb - one to map schema types and the other to map definitions from the wsdl.
• Do NOT use the wsdlc option “packageName” in the Ant wsdlc task - this will override any custom bindings made in the jaxb config files.
• Make sure you do NOT have Apache Axis and related jars in your classpath - they interfere with the weblogic ones from above and results in the binding files not being read!
• I don’t think you can mix bindings for jaxws (for wsdl) and jaxb (for schema) in the same binding file - I spent quite a bit of time on it but could not get all my bindings to be read from a single binding file - if you know whether this is possible and how this is done please let me know!
• I could not get nested bindings to work correctly for schemas (e.g. you’re supposed to be able to nest bindings for your imported schemas within bindings for the encompassing schema as in one of the example articles further below but that didn’t work for me - it seemed like the xpath expression with the namespace does not get evaluated correctly). I therefore created separate binding entries for each XSD of a particular namespace.
• The only item I could NOT generate in it’s correct location was the JWS file (service Impl skeleton file). I tried many things but it just would not pick up the package from the binding file. I also stumbled on a WL10 support case that had this logged as an issue so maybe it is a true bug in this release of WL. Fortunately this is not too big of a deal as it is only a single file - and the one you have to manually edit anyway - to complete the web service implementation.
• I recommend using an “copy” Ant task to only copy the *.java files into your src project structure as “wsdlc” automatically compiles the java src in the target directory:

  <copy todir="dest/dir">
      <fileset dir="${src.dir}">
          <exclude name="**/*.class"/>
      </fileset>
  </copy>

Finally here is a list of links I recommend to get more information on some of the above:

Wsdlc ant task reference on BEA’s Edocs website
Iterative Development of Weblogic 10 webservices from BEA

The following 2 awesome articles from dev2dev:
Using JAX-WS & JAXB with Weblogic 10
JAX-WS customization binding

Best of luck! If you have any questions or comments please feel free to post below.

• Aggie finally managed to post the first set of our Cuba photos. *Sigh* why are holidays always over so quickly?
• The singularity is near! Or so claims Ray Kurzweil in this article from the New York Times. I’d love this to be true but I have a feeling that we were born one generation too early.. maybe our children will have the opportunity to become one with the machine…Oh and on that note - how is this for BIONIC!
• The Paranoid Americans are making it more difficult to travel - not just for New Zealanders but visitors from any country will require pre-registration when wanting to visit the USA from next year onwards. Check out the news item from the NZ Herald. We’ll most probably be off the American continent by then but it sucks anyway.
• Google Finance now started providing real time prices on some of their stock quotes! I track my stocks using Google Finance but only 40% of the ones I track are real-time - the rest still have a 20 minutes delay but it’s a great start nevertheless. Hopefully they can soon offer discount brokerage services
• Only 3 more weeks of work left!!!

When developing XML schemas we may encounter a situation where we have several XSDs that belong to the same namespace - e.g. a common namespace that contains common types:

• AddressType.xsd - in namespace=”http://company.com/common”
• UserType.xsd - also in namespace=”http://company.com/common”

To use these schemas in a WSDL or another schema programmers often try to incorrectly import them like this:

<xsd:import namespace="http://company.com/common" schemaLocation="common/AddressType.xsd"/>
<xsd:import namespace="http://company.com/common" schemaLocation="common/UserType.xsd"/>

This will NOT work. We are confusing the schema processor by telling it that components from namespace “http://company.com/common” are to be found at two different locations! In most instances the second import location won’t even be processed.

The above syntax is illegal and in Eclipse this will result in failed schema validation with the following error:

src-resolve: Cannot resolve the name 'common:UserType' to a(n) 'type definition' component.

Now, if our target namespace is the SAME as that of the above schemas we can just use “include” to combine them into the current schema with the same namespace. But if the target namespace is different another approach is required.

One way around this (if you want to keep the objects in individual XSDs) is to collect together - using “include” - the various subschemas from the above “http://company.com/common” using “include” and then import the result:

First, include into intermediate.xsd:

<schema targetNamespace="http://company.com/common" ...>
   <include schemaLocation="AddressType.xsd"/>
   <include schemaLocation="UserType.xsd"/>
     ...
</schema>

Then, import the above into someservice.xsd:

<schema targetNamespace="http://company.com/someservice"
    ...>
    <import namespace="http://company.com/common" schemaLocation="intermediate.xsd"/>
     ...
</schema>

Another approach (which I prefer) is to define related objects from the same namespace in a single schema and then import this entire schema when required. This way we would have AddressType and UserType defined in common.xsd directly under the “http://company.com/common” namespace and we would only need to import a single namespace.

While we are living & working overseas (currently in Canada) we are renting out our home back in New Zealand so as to at least cover the interest on our mortgage.

With tax return time approaching in NZ - the New Zealand tax year runs from 1st April to 31st March of the following year, and returns must be filed by 7th July - one of the additional calculations this year will be to account for the extra rental income. I already do the returns for our investment property myself so this was supposed to be easy. But the other day I read an article in the NZ Herald - “Traps in renting out your house“. There was a paragraph that caught my eye:

“First, you’ll have to pay tax on any profit on renting out your house, after deducting expenses such as rates, insurance, routine maintenance and depreciation of chattels.
And you won’t be able to tax deduct your mortgage interest. The deductibility depends on why you took the loans out in the first place, and that was to finance your home, not a rental property.”

Whooaa! This would mean that any mortgage interest we’d paid while renting out our home would not be deductible leaving us to pay tax on the full rental income received! That would have been 000’s of dollars in our case - Screwed! We expected the rental income to cover our interest expenses while away.

This didn’t sound right so I asked about it on Propertytalk.com. Surely enough the readers pointed out that the article was incorrect. In short:

“The test for deductibility is, is the expense incurred, while deriving taxable income.

The rental income is taxable, the expense of the mortgage is incurred while deriving that taxable income, therefore the mortgage expenses are deductible.“

Naturally you cannot claim the interest if you’re still living in the house but for all you going overseas and thinking of renting out your house - breathe a sigh of relief, and never trust a journalist.

No time for a proper weekly update today. It occured to me that going on holiday means that I won’t have time next week to finish all the stuff at work that I’d d said I’ll finish so I’ve been flat out over the last few days trying to squeeze in next weeks deliverables…going on holiday is a lot of work…

• Last weekend spent in Seattle was awesome. I thought the city has a really cool vibe - a bit like Melbourne and Montreal. We really liked how Seattle (unlike Vancouver) was able to protect it’s heritage buildings - giving the city a very unique feel. Looking down from the Space Needle reminded us both of Auckland and Aggie got a bit homesick There will be pictures of the trip up on her website after we come back for sure.
• On Tuesday we went to see Cake in concert. Read about it on Aggie’s blog.
• No technical or other interesting stuff today .. sorry, no time!
• Cuba - Here we come!