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Develop a webservices.xml deployment descriptor for JAX-WS applications

Deployment descriptors are standard text files, formatted using XML and packaged in a web services application. We can optionally use the webservices.xml deployment descriptor to augment or override application metadata specified in annotations within JAX-WS web services.

Similar to JAX-RPC Web services, we can use deployment descriptors to describe JAX-WS web services. For JAX-WS web services, the use of the webservices.xml deployment descriptor is optional because we can use annotations to specify all of the information contained within the deployment descriptor file. Use the deployment descriptor file to augment or override existing JAX-WS annotations. Any information defined in the webservices.xml deployment descriptor overrides any corresponding information specified by annotations.

A JAX-WS web service requires that you annotate your Java class with the javax.jws.WebService annotation or the javax.jws.WebServiceProvider annotation for Provider endpoints. Use server-side deployment descriptors to override corresponding attributes of the annotation or to enhance information in annotations. There is a defined relationship between the deployment descriptor elements and the @WebService and @WebServiceProvider annotations. Refer to section 5.3 in the Web Services for Java EE specification, Version 1.2 for detailed information regarding the deployment descriptor elements and the mapping to the @WebService and @WebServiceProvider annotation attributes. There are also elements in the webservice.xml deployment descriptor that map to other annotations. For example, the deployment descriptor element <protocol-binding> maps to the @BindingType annotation, and the deployment descriptor element <enable-mtom> maps to the @MTOM annotation. For more information regarding the web services deployment descriptor elements, see section 7.1 in the Web Services for Java EE specification.


Tasks

Use assembly tools to generate the webservice.xml deployment descriptor.

We have deployment descriptor templates we can use to override JAX-WS annotation attributes or specify attributes that are not defined by the annotation.


Example

In the following example, the service implementation class for a JAX-WS web service includes the @WebService annotation: 

@WebService(wsdlLocation="http://myhost.com/location/of/the/wsdl/ExampleService.wsdl")
The associated webservices.xml deployment descriptor specifies a different filename for the WSDL document as follows: 
<webservices>
<webservice-description>
<webservice-description-name>ExampleService</webservice-description-name>
<wsdl-file>META-INF/wsdl/ExampleService.wsdl</wsdl-file>
…
</webservice-description>
</webservices>
The value specified in the deployment descriptor, META-INF/wsdl/ExampleService.wsdl, overrides the annotation value.


What to do next

Configure the webservice.xml deployment descriptor. After configuring the deployment descriptors, we must assemble the Web services application for deployment.


Related:

  • Development and assembly tools
  • Implement web services applications with JAX-WS
  • Implement web services applications from existing WSDL files with JAX-WS
  • JAX-WS annotations