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| <a name="Web_Service_Clients_Using_Axis2"></a> | |
| <h1>Writing Web Service Clients Using Axis2's Primary APIs</h1> | |
| <p>This section presents complex yet powerful <strong>XML based client | |
| API</strong> which is intended for advanced users. However if you are a new | |
| user we recommend using code generation given in the <a | |
| href="userguide.html">user guide</a>.</p> | |
| <p>Web services can be used to provide a wide-range of functionality to the | |
| user from simple, less time consuming operations such as "getStockQuote" to | |
| time consuming business services. When we utilize (invoke using client | |
| applications) these Web services we cannot use simple generic invocation | |
| paradigms that suite all the timing complexities involved in the service | |
| operations. For example, if we use a single transport channel (such as HTTP) | |
| to invoke a Web service with an IN-OUT operation that takes a long time to | |
| complete, then most often we may end up with "connection time outs". On the | |
| other hand, if there are simultaneous service invocations that we need to | |
| perform from a single client application, then the use of a "blocking" client | |
| API will degrade the performance of the client application. Similarly, there | |
| are various other consequences such as One-Way transports that come into play | |
| when we need them. Let's try to analyze some common service invocation | |
| paradigms.</p> | |
| <p>Many Web service engines provide users with a Blocking and Non-Blocking | |
| client APIs.</p> | |
| <ul> | |
| <li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><b>Blocking API</b> -Once the service | |
| invocation is called, the client application hangs and only gets control | |
| back when the operation completes, after which the client receives a | |
| response or a fault. This is the simplest way of invoking Web services | |
| and it also suites many business situations.</p> | |
| </li> | |
| <li><p><b>Non-Blocking API </b>- This is a callback or polling based API, | |
| hence once a service invocation is called, the client application | |
| immediately gets the control back and the response is retrieved using the | |
| callback object provided. This approach provides the flexibility to the | |
| client application to invoke several Web services simultaneously without | |
| blocking the operation already invoked.</p> | |
| </li> | |
| </ul> | |
| <p>Both these mechanisms work in the API level. Let's name the asynchronous | |
| behavior that we can get using the Non-Blocking API as <b>API Level | |
| Asynchrony.</b></p> | |
| <p>Both these mechanisms use single transport connections to send the request | |
| and to receive the response. They severely lag the capability of using two | |
| transport connections for the request and the response (either One-Way or | |
| Two-Way). So both these mechanisms fail to address the problem of long | |
| running transactions (the transport connection may time-out before the | |
| operation completes). A possible solution would be to use two separate | |
| transport connections for request and response. The asynchronous behavior | |
| that we gain using this solution can be called <b>Transport Level | |
| Asynchrony</b>.</p> | |
| <p>By <strong>combining API Level Asynchrony & Transport Level | |
| Asynchrony</strong> we can obtain four different invocation patterns for Web | |
| services as shown in the following table.</p> | |
| <a name="table1"></a> | |
| <table width="100%" border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> | |
| <tbody> | |
| <tr> | |
| <td width="33%" height="19"><p><strong>API | |
| (Blocking/Non-Blocking)</strong></p> | |
| </td> | |
| <td width="33%"><p><strong>Dual Transports (Yes/No)</strong></p> | |
| </td> | |
| <td width="33%"><p><strong>Description</strong></p> | |
| </td> | |
| </tr> | |
| <tr> | |
| <td width="33%" height="19"><p>Blocking</p> | |
| </td> | |
| <td width="33%"><p>No</p> | |
| </td> | |
| <td width="33%"><p>The simplest and more familiar invocation pattern</p> | |
| </td> | |
| </tr> | |
| <tr> | |
| <td width="33%" height="19"><p>Non-Blocking</p> | |
| </td> | |
| <td width="33%"><p>No</p> | |
| </td> | |
| <td width="33%"><p>Using callbacks or polling</p> | |
| </td> | |
| </tr> | |
| <tr> | |
| <td width="33%" height="19"><p>Blocking</p> | |
| </td> | |
| <td width="33%"><p>Yes</p> | |
| </td> | |
| <td width="33%"><p>This is useful when the service operation is IN-OUT | |
| in nature but the transport used is One-Way (e.g. SMTP)</p> | |
| </td> | |
| </tr> | |
| <tr> | |
| <td width="33%" height="19"><p>Non-Blocking</p> | |
| </td> | |
| <td width="33%"><p>Yes</p> | |
| </td> | |
| <td width="33%"><p>This is can be used to gain the maximum asynchronous | |
| behavior. Non blocking in the API level and also in the transport | |
| level</p> | |
| </td> | |
| </tr> | |
| </tbody> | |
| </table> | |
| <p>Axis2 provides the user with all these possibilities to invoke Web | |
| services.</p> | |
| <p>Following section present clients that use different possibilities | |
| presented above to invoke a Web Service using <code>ServiceClient</code>s. | |
| All samples mentioned in this guide are located at the <b><font | |
| color="#000000">"samples\userguide\src"</font></b> directory of the binary | |
| distribution.</p> | |
| <p>This section presents four types of clients.</p> | |
| <ol> | |
| <li>Request-Response, Blocking Client</li> | |
| <li>One Way Client</li> | |
| <li>Request-Response, Non-Blocking that uses one transport connection</li> | |
| <li>Request-Response, Non-Blocking that uses two transport connections</li> | |
| </ol> | |
| <a name="EchoBlockingClient"></a> | |
| <h4>Request-Response, Blocking Client</h4> | |
| <p>Axis2 provides the user with several invocation patterns for Web services, | |
| ranging from pure blocking single channel invocations to non-blocking dual | |
| channel invocations. Let's first see how we can write a client to invoke | |
| "echo" operation of "MyService" using the simplest blocking invocation. The | |
| client code you need to write is as follows.</p> | |
| <source><pre> try { | |
| OMElement payload = ClientUtil.getEchoOMElement(); | |
| <span style="color: rgb(36, 193, 19);"> | |
| Options options = new Options(); | |
| options.setTo(targetEPR); // this sets the location of MyService service | |
| ServiceClient serviceClient = new ServiceClient(); | |
| serviceClient.setOptions(options); | |
| OMElement result = serviceClient.sendReceive(payload); | |
| </span> | |
| System.out.println(result); | |
| } catch (AxisFault axisFault) { | |
| axisFault.printStackTrace(); | |
| } | |
| }</pre> | |
| </source> | |
| <p>1. The lines highlighted in green lines show the set of operations that | |
| you need to perform in order to invoke a Web service.</p> | |
| <p>2. The rest is used to create the OMElement that needs to be sent and | |
| display the response OMElement.</p> | |
| <p>To test this client, use the provided ant build file that can be found in | |
| the "<strong>Axis2_HOME/samples/userguide</strong>" directory. Run the | |
| "run.client.blocking" target. If you can see the response OMElement printed | |
| in your command line, then you have successfully tested the client.</p> | |
| <a name="PingClient"></a> | |
| <h4>One Way Client</h4> | |
| <p>In the Web service "MyService" we had an IN-ONLY operation with the name | |
| "ping" (see <a href="userguide.html#Web_Services_Using_Axis2">Creating a New Web Service</a>). Let's write a client to invoke this operation. The client | |
| code is as follows:</p> | |
| <pre> try { | |
| OMElement payload = ClientUtil.getPingOMElement(); | |
| Options options = new Options(); | |
| options.setTo(targetEPR); | |
| ServiceClient serviceClient = new ServiceClient(); | |
| serviceClient.setOptions(options); | |
| serviceClient.fireAndForget(payload); | |
| /** | |
| * We have to block this thread untill we send the request , the problem | |
| * is if we go out of the main thread , then request wont send ,so | |
| * you have to wait some time :) | |
| */ | |
| Thread.sleep(500); | |
| } | |
| catch (AxisFault axisFault) { | |
| axisFault.printStackTrace(); | |
| }</pre> | |
| <p>Since we are accessing an IN-ONLY operation we can directly use the | |
| <code>fireAndForget()</code> in ServiceClient to invoke this operation. This | |
| will not block the invocation and will return the control immediately back to | |
| the client. You can test this client by running the target "run.client.ping" | |
| of the ant build file at "<strong>Axis2Home/samples/userguide</strong>".</p> | |
| <p>We have now invoked the two operations in our service. Are we done? No! | |
| There's a lot more to explore. Let's see some other ways to invoke the same | |
| operations.</p> | |
| <a name="EchoNonBlockingClient"></a> | |
| <h4>Request-Response, Non-Blocking that uses one transport connection</h4> | |
| <p>In the "EchoBlockingClient" once the | |
| <code>serviceClient.sendReceive(payload);</code> is called, the client is | |
| blocked till the operation is complete. This behavior is not desirable when | |
| there are many Web service invocations to be done in a single client | |
| application or within a GUI. A solution would be to use a Non-Blocking API to | |
| invoke Web services. Axis2 provides a callback based non-blocking API for | |
| users.</p> | |
| <p>A sample client for this can be found under | |
| "<strong>Axis2_HOME/samples/userguide/src/userguide/clients</strong>" with | |
| the name "EchoNonBlockingClient". If we consider the changes that users may | |
| have to do with respect to the "EchoBlockingClient" that we have already | |
| seen, it will be as follows:</p> | |
| <pre style="margin-bottom: 0.2in">serviceClient.sendReceiveNonblocking(payload, callback);</pre> | |
| <p>The invocation accepts a callback object as a parameter. Axis2 client API | |
| provides an abstract Callback with the following methods:</p> | |
| <pre>public abstract void onComplete(AsyncResult result); | |
| public abstract void onError(Exception e); | |
| public boolean isComplete() {}</pre> | |
| <p>The user is expected to implement the "onComplete " and "onError " methods | |
| of their extended call back class. The Axis2 engine calls the "onComplete" | |
| method once the Web service response is received by the Axis2 Client API | |
| (ServiceClient). This will eliminate the blocking nature of the Web service | |
| invocation and provide users with the flexibility to use Non Blocking API for | |
| Web service Clients.</p> | |
| <p>To run the sample client ("EchoNonBlockingClient") you can simply use the | |
| <code>run.client.nonblocking</code> target of the ant file found at the | |
| "<strong>Axis2_HOME/samples/userguide</strong>" directory.</p> | |
| <a name="EchoNonBlockingDualClient"></a> | |
| <h4>Request-Response, Non-Blocking that uses two transport connections</h4> | |
| <p>The solution provided by the Non-Blocking API has one limitation when it | |
| comes to Web service invocations which take a long time to complete. The | |
| limitation is due to the use of single transport connections to invoke the | |
| Web service and to retrieve the response. In other words, client API provides | |
| a non blocking invocation mechanism for users, but the request and the | |
| response come in a single transport (Two-Way transport) connection (like | |
| HTTP). Long running Web service invocations or Web service invocations using | |
| One-Way transports (like SMTP) cannot be utilized by simply using a non | |
| blocking invocation.</p> | |
| <p>The trivial solution is to use separate transport connections (either | |
| One-Way or Two-Way) for the request and response. The next problem that needs | |
| to be solved is the correlation (correlating the request and the response). | |
| <a href="http://www.w3.org/2002/ws/addr/" target="_blank">WS-Addressing</a> | |
| provides a neat solution to this using <wsa:MessageID> and | |
| <wsa:RelatesTo> headers. Axis2 provides support for addressing based | |
| correlation mechanism and a complying Client API to invoke Web services with | |
| two transport connections. (Core of Axis2 does not depend on WS-Addressing, | |
| but contains a set of parameters like in addressing that can be populated in | |
| any means. WS-Addressing is one of the uses that may populate them. Even the | |
| transports can populate these. Hence Axis2 has the flexibility to use | |
| different versions of addressing)</p> | |
| <p>Users can select between Blocking or Non-Blocking APIs for the Web service | |
| clients with two transport connections. By simply using a boolean flag, the | |
| same API can be used to invoke Web services (IN-OUT operations) using two | |
| separate transport connections. Let's see how it's done using an example. | |
| Following code fragment shows how to invoke the same "echo" operation using | |
| Non-Blocking API with two transport connections<strong>. The ultimate | |
| asynchrony!!</strong></p> | |
| <pre> try { | |
| OMElement payload = ClientUtil.getEchoOMElement(); | |
| Options options = new Options(); | |
| options.setTo(targetEPR); | |
| options.setTransportInProtocol(Constants.TRANSPORT_HTTP); | |
| options.setUseSeparateListener(true); | |
| options.setAction("urn:echo"); // this is the action mapping we put within the service.xml | |
| //Callback to handle the response | |
| Callback callback = new Callback() { | |
| public void onComplete(AsyncResult result) { | |
| System.out.println(result.getResponseEnvelope()); | |
| } | |
| public void onError(Exception e) { | |
| e.printStackTrace(); | |
| } | |
| }; | |
| //Non-Blocking Invocation | |
| sender = new ServiceClient(); | |
| sender.engageModule(new QName(Constants.MODULE_ADDRESSING)); | |
| sender.setOptions(options); | |
| sender.sendReceiveNonBlocking(payload, callback); | |
| //Wait till the callback receives the response. | |
| while (!callback.isComplete()) { | |
| Thread.sleep(1000); | |
| } | |
| //Need to close the Client Side Listener. | |
| } catch (AxisFault axisFault) { | |
| axisFault.printStackTrace(); | |
| } catch (Exception ex) { | |
| ex.printStackTrace(); | |
| } finally { | |
| try { | |
| sender.cleanup(); | |
| } catch (AxisFault axisFault) { | |
| //have to ignore this | |
| } | |
| }</pre> | |
| <p>The boolean flag (value true) in the | |
| <b><code>options.setUseSeparateListener(...)</code></b> method informs the | |
| Axis2 engine to use separate transport connections for request and response. | |
| Finally <b><code>sender.cleanup()</code></b> informs the Axis2 engine to stop | |
| the client side listener started to retrieve the response.</p> | |
| <p>To run the sample client ("EchoNonBlockingDualClient") you can simply use | |
| the "run.client.nonblockingdual" target of the ant file found at the | |
| "<strong>Axis2_HOME/samples/userguide/</strong>" directory.</p> | |
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