CXF Development Notes

These days, I'm prototyping SOAP web services using CXF. It is a nice framework with spring built-in support. Basically, I can now design, develop and test the web service within eclipse with the help of the WTP plugin (beta).

Here is what I did:

1. Start with a pojo; define the methods that will be exposed to the web
2. Generate getters and setters for the pojo
3. Use the WTP plugin to develop the service following the tutorial described here.
4. Write unit test for the web service

Sound simple, isn't it? However, you will encounter at least 2 problems:

Problem 1:

The pojo has annotations that are not part of the CXF annotations. When I use WTP plugin to generate the web service, the generated web service is usable. The exact cause of the problem is not known yet (not that important for now as I'm prototyping it). The workaround is to remove those unrecognized annotations before going to Step 3.

Problem 2:

Since one of my private members in the pojo represents an interface of a class, the CXF complaints:

javax.xml.ws.WebServiceException: org.apache.cxf.service.factory.ServiceConstructionException

at org.apache.cxf.jaxws.EndpointImpl.doPublish(EndpointImpl.java:275)

at org.apache.cxf.jaxws.EndpointImpl.publish(EndpointImpl.java:209)

at org.apache.cxf.jaxws.spi.ProviderImpl.createAndPublishEndpoint(ProviderImpl.java:84)

at javax.xml.ws.Endpoint.publish(Unknown Source)

at com.boci.sample.test.MarketData_PortTypeTest.setupServer(MarketData_PortTypeTest.java:58)

at com.boci.sample.test.MarketData_PortTypeTest.startServices(MarketData_PortTypeTest.java:43)

at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)

at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)

at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)

at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Unknown Source)

at org.junit.runners.model.FrameworkMethod$1.runReflectiveCall(FrameworkMethod.java:44)

at org.junit.internal.runners.model.ReflectiveCallable.run(ReflectiveCallable.java:15)

at org.junit.runners.model.FrameworkMethod.invokeExplosively(FrameworkMethod.java:41)

at org.junit.internal.runners.statements.RunBefores.evaluate(RunBefores.java:27)

at org.junit.internal.runners.statements.RunAfters.evaluate(RunAfters.java:31)

at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.run(ParentRunner.java:220)

at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit4.runner.JUnit4TestReference.run(JUnit4TestReference.java:46)

at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.TestExecution.run(TestExecution.java:38)

at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.runTests(RemoteTestRunner.java:467)

at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.runTests(RemoteTestRunner.java:683)

at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.run(RemoteTestRunner.java:390)

at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.main(RemoteTestRunner.java:197)

Caused by: org.apache.cxf.service.factory.ServiceConstructionException

at org.apache.cxf.jaxb.JAXBDataBinding.initialize(JAXBDataBinding.java:354)

at org.apache.cxf.service.factory.ReflectionServiceFactoryBean.buildServiceFromClass(ReflectionServiceFactoryBean.java:381)

at org.apache.cxf.jaxws.support.JaxWsServiceFactoryBean.buildServiceFromClass(JaxWsServiceFactoryBean.java:523)

at org.apache.cxf.service.factory.ReflectionServiceFactoryBean.initializeServiceModel(ReflectionServiceFactoryBean.java:444)

at org.apache.cxf.service.factory.ReflectionServiceFactoryBean.create(ReflectionServiceFactoryBean.java:195)

at org.apache.cxf.jaxws.support.JaxWsServiceFactoryBean.create(JaxWsServiceFactoryBean.java:163)

at org.apache.cxf.frontend.AbstractWSDLBasedEndpointFactory.createEndpoint(AbstractWSDLBasedEndpointFactory.java:100)

at org.apache.cxf.frontend.ServerFactoryBean.create(ServerFactoryBean.java:117)

at org.apache.cxf.jaxws.JaxWsServerFactoryBean.create(JaxWsServerFactoryBean.java:167)

at org.apache.cxf.jaxws.EndpointImpl.getServer(EndpointImpl.java:346)

at org.apache.cxf.jaxws.EndpointImpl.doPublish(EndpointImpl.java:259)

... 21 more

Caused by: com.sun.xml.bind.v2.runtime.IllegalAnnotationsException: 2 counts of IllegalAnnotationExceptions

org.openspaces.core.GigaSpace is an interface, and JAXB can't handle interfaces.

this problem is related to the following location:

at org.openspaces.core.GigaSpace

at private org.openspaces.core.GigaSpace com.boci.sample.jaxws_asm.SetGigaSpace.arg0

at com.boci.sample.jaxws_asm.SetGigaSpace

org.openspaces.core.GigaSpace does not have a no-arg default constructor.

this problem is related to the following location:

at org.openspaces.core.GigaSpace

at private org.openspaces.core.GigaSpace com.boci.sample.jaxws_asm.SetGigaSpace.arg0

at com.boci.sample.jaxws_asm.SetGigaSpace

at com.sun.xml.bind.v2.runtime.IllegalAnnotationsException$Builder.check(IllegalAnnotationsException.java:102)

at com.sun.xml.bind.v2.runtime.JAXBContextImpl.getTypeInfoSet(JAXBContextImpl.java:472)

at com.sun.xml.bind.v2.runtime.JAXBContextImpl.(JAXBContextImpl.java:302)

at com.sun.xml.bind.v2.runtime.JAXBContextImpl$JAXBContextBuilder.build(JAXBContextImpl.java:1136)

at com.sun.xml.bind.v2.ContextFactory.createContext(ContextFactory.java:154)

at com.sun.xml.bind.v2.ContextFactory.createContext(ContextFactory.java:121)

at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)

at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)

at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)

at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Unknown Source)

at javax.xml.bind.ContextFinder.newInstance(Unknown Source)

at javax.xml.bind.ContextFinder.find(Unknown Source)

at javax.xml.bind.JAXBContext.newInstance(Unknown Source)

at org.apache.cxf.jaxb.JAXBDataBinding.createJAXBContextAndSchemas(JAXBDataBinding.java:500)

at org.apache.cxf.jaxb.JAXBDataBinding.initialize(JAXBDataBinding.java:337)

... 31 more

This sounds horrible but it can be fixed by annotating the getters and the setters with the @webmethod(exclude=true). and voila, everything should work :)

Hopefully, this trick will be helpful for someone else as well.