JAX-WS Web Service Simple Example

By Arvind Rai, November 10, 2013

JAX-WS is java API for XML Web Service. JAX-WS uses XML messages to communicate with the client. These XML messages are Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). JAX-WS contains WSDL description of offered services. WSDL is Web Service Description Language. While using SOAP a contract must be established for the services which are being offered. WSDL describes the contract for SOAP based design.
We will show a simple example of JAX-WS Web Service. In our example we have created Welcome message Web service that returns welcome message to the client. Follow step by step.

Software Requirement for JAX-WS Demo

The example is using below software.
1. JDK 1.6
2. JAX-WS 2.1
3. Eclipse IDE

Create JAX-WS Web Service

Create the class and interface as below.
Welcome.java

package com.concretepage.endpoint;
import javax.jws.WebMethod;
import javax.jws.WebService;
@WebService
public interface Welcome {
  @WebMethod	
  public String getWelcomeMsg(String name);
}

WelcomeImpl.java

package com.concretepage.endpoint;
import javax.jws.WebService;
@WebService(endpointInterface = "com.concretepage.endpoint.Welcome")
public class WelcomeImpl implements Welcome {
	@Override
	 public String getWelcomeMsg(String name){
		 return "Welcome "+name;
	 }
}

@WebService declares a class to be a web service. @WebMethod declares a method to be exposed to outer world.

Publish JAX-WS Web Service

To publish JAX-WS Web Service, we need to create a publisher class as below.
WelcomeMsgPublisher.java

package com.concretepage;
import javax.xml.ws.Endpoint;
import com.concretepage.endpoint.WelcomeImpl;
public class WelcomeMsgPublisher {
	public static void main(String[] args) {
	   Endpoint.publish("http://localhost:8080/WebServiceDemo/Welcome", new WelcomeImpl());	
	}
}

javax.xml.ws.Endpoint has a method publish() that takes two parameters one is URL and another is Web Service Implementation instance.

Eclipse Project Structure for Web Service

Now run the WelcomeMsgPublisher class as java application and access the URL
http://localhost:8080/WebServiceDemo/Welcome?wsdl
You will get XML format data. It means you have successfully published the Web Service. Now you need client to get service.

Create JAX-WS client

To create JAX-WS client we will use a command wsgen . wsgen automatically creates all required java stubs to access the Web Service. To use wsgen, go to command prompt then root directory of Client project. In our case it is WebServiceClient. And run the command as
wsimport -s src/main/java http://localhost:8080/WebServiceDemo/Welcome?wsdl
And then create a client class to get service.
WelcomeMsgClient.java

package com.concretepage.client;
import com.concretepage.endpoint.Welcome;
import com.concretepage.endpoint.WelcomeImplService;
public class WelcomeMsgClient {
	public static void main(String[] args) {
	  WelcomeImplService welService = new WelcomeImplService();	
	  Welcome welcome = welService.getWelcomeImplPort();
	  System.out.println(welcome.getWelcomeMsg("Everyone!"));
	}
}

Run the WelcomeMsgClient as java application, you will get the desired output as