WSAD 5.1.1 SOAP RPC return type of Object[]

[Antoine Catalfano]

I have a java bean with a method:
public Object[] methodOne(String s, Object obj) {...}
I've used the WSAD wizard to generate a web service from the java bean.
The client looks like this:
Service service = new Service();
Call call = (Call) service.createCall();
call.setTargetEndpointAddress(new URL("http://localhost:9080/RPCWeb/services/AWebService"));
call.setOperationName(new QName(getNamespace(), getMethodName()));
Object[] invocationParameters =new Object[] { "input", "more input" };
Object returnValue = call.invoke(invocationParameters);
I can see that the request is getting to the web service. However, the returnValue from the call.invoke(...) is always null.
Any ideas?
Thanks

[Vinod John]

Did you check whether the webservice is returing a valid response ?. An easy way to moniter this is by writing a simple app that stands between the web service and the client an trace out the XML and redirects the req/res to the corresponding destination. Apache SOAP used to have one utility to this. I don't know about WSAD impl

[Lasse Koskela]

Axis has tcpmon (see the Axis User's Guide). There are other "logging proxy" type of programs out there as well. One of the good ones is tcpsniffer.

[Kyle Brown]

This won't work in Apache SOAP (which you're using) or Apache Axis for that matter because the SOAP engine doesn't know what type of objects it is serializing and during the generation of the stub and server will not generate/link in the appropriate serializer types. You should never use an Object type or Object Array in Web Services -- use an array typed to your actual type you want returned instead.
Kyle

[Antoine Catalfano]

I'm using the TCPMonitor in WSAD. I see the following response is being sent:
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: WebSphere Application Server/5.0
Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8
Content-Language: en-US
Connection: close
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:soapenc="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<soapenv:Body>
<methodOneResponse xmlns="http://service.web">
<methodOneReturn xsi:type="soapenc:Array" soapenc:arrayType="xsd:anyType[2]" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/1999/XMLSchema" xmlns="">
<item xsi:type="xsd:string" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">Morandi</item>
<item xsi:type="xsd:string" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">Hello Antoine</item>
</methodOneReturn>
</methodOneResponse>
</soapenv:Body>
</soapenv:Envelope>
I'm just not sure how to get it.

[Antoine Catalfano]

This is currently working using Apache AXIS and a Jetty server. We (John Deere and Thought Works) built a custom EAI framework. Our SOAP adapters support RPC and JAXM Messaging. We've exposed our framework as a SOAP service.
The method signature is as follows:
public Object[] execute(String service, String activity, String ativityMsgVersion, String sourceSystem,Object payload) throws ISFException
The .wsdd looks like:
<deployment xmlns="http://xml.apache.org/axis/wsdd/"
xmlns:java="http://xml.apache.org/axis/wsdd/providers/java">
<service name="isf" provider="java:RPC">
<parameter name="className" value="com.deere.isf.adapters.soap.ISFSOAP"/>
<parameter name="allowedMethods" value="*"/>
<namespace>http://www.deere.com/isf/duck</namespace>;
</service>
</deployment>
We have a JUnit script that generates wsdl, stubs, starts a Jetty server, deploys the web service and tests it. I'm currently trying to get the unit tests running in WSAD.

[Antoine Catalfano]

I should have mentioned that since this is an integration framework, we have to support taking a payload of any type (a java Object).