WSDL consume - What tool to use?

Question

I'm having trouble understanding how to make a web service client. The story is that I need to make a call to a web service. As I then understand it I need to somehow consume the web service to get the correct classes of the web service.

I've investigated a numerous of ways to do this. For example I've tried consuming them with a script and then just import the classes.

However, a colleague of my recommended that I would try using the Maven-plugin wsdl2code since we already use Maven-2 . Doing this works but creates a lot of junk files as I see it. I've added following into my pom.xml file:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.axis2</groupId>
    <artifactId>axis2-wsdl2code-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>1.4</version>
     <executions>
         <execution>
            <goals>
                <goal>wsdl2code</goal>
            </goals>
            <configuration>
                <packageName>ws.client.test</packageName>
                <wsdlFile>http://localhost:8088/test?WSDL</wsdlFile>
                <databindingName>xmlbeans</databindingName>
                <outputDirectory>target/ws/test</outputDirectory>
            </configuration>
         </execution>
      </executions>
</plugin>

This creates the files successfully, but as said, there's also a lot of junk files( xmlsoap/schemas/soap/encoding/...) or at least a lot more files for no use (as I see it) than the other WSDLconsume I tried.

Questions

• Is there a general guidelines how to consume a web service? Since the WSDL file is external it could also be changing, and therefor I thought it could be good having this done automatically in Maven (though there would be other side effects if the WSDL suddenly changed...).

• If the wsdl2code is a good choice, should all the files always be created in the target-catalouge so
  that they are being removed when executing mvn clean)?

• Is there any other tool that might fit better?

Update/Edit
By using for example JAX-WS wsimport I get the generated files that I desire. However, by having these created in the /target-folder I want to reach them in the same project to actually call the web service. Is this possible?

Answer 1

If you have java-1.6 you can (should) use jax-ws, its very easy with onboard java tools. There is a good maven plugin that will create a webservice client, that can be used without any additional dependencies. Have a look at http://jax-ws-commons.java.net/jaxws-maven-plugin/

See http://blogs.oracle.com/enterprisetechtips/entry/using_jax_ws_with_maven for a detailed walkthrough.

Answer 2

You can try CXF wsdl2java plugin. Also it's a good idea to store generated source in a separate source folder to avoid mess. So finally the configurations looks like this:

        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.apache.cxf</groupId>
            <artifactId>cxf-codegen-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>2.3.0</version>
            <executions>
                <execution>
                    <id>generate-sources</id>
                    <phase>generate-sources</phase>
                    <configuration>
                        <sourceRoot>src/main/generated</sourceRoot>
                        <wsdlOptions>
                            <wsdlOption>
                                <wsdl>src/main/resources/your-service.wsdl</wsdl>
                            </wsdlOption>
                        </wsdlOptions>
                    </configuration>
                    <goals>
                        <goal>wsdl2java</goal>
                    </goals>
                </execution>
            </executions>
        </plugin>
        <plugin>
            <artifactId>maven-clean-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>2.4.1</version>
            <executions>
                <execution>
                    <id>auto-clean</id>
                    <phase>initialize</phase>
                    <goals>
                        <goal>clean</goal>
                    </goals>
                </execution>
            </executions>
            <configuration>
                <filesets>
                    <fileset>
                        <directory>src/main/generated</directory>
                        <includes>
                            <include>**/*.java</include>
                        </includes>
                        <followSymlinks>false</followSymlinks>
                    </fileset>
                </filesets>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>

        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
            <artifactId>build-helper-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>1.5</version>
            <executions>
                <execution>
                    <id>add-source</id>
                    <phase>generate-sources</phase>
                    <goals>
                        <goal>add-source</goal>
                    </goals>
                    <configuration>
                        <sources>
                            <source>src/main/generated</source>
                        </sources>
                    </configuration>
                </execution>
            </executions>
        </plugin>