WebServices with Java, Axis, XDoclet and Eclipse

Developing web applications in a J2EE enviroment and in particular web services is supported by very efficient tools, which do not even cost royalties.

With Eclipse as IDE, Tomcat or JBOSS as J2EE-Application-Server, Axis as WebServices Framework and XDoclet one has a powerful toolbox, which enable an efficient development process of web services.

This article will explain the setup of a complete environment and the needed plugins for Eclipse. Thus you can work fast and smoothly and concentrate on the actual business logic. All plugins will be introduced and a sample project will be developed, which implements a web services with Axis and Tomcat. A XDoclet template will be introduced for generating a deployment descriptor and an ant script for deployment. Finally you will see how to debug a web service in Eclipse.

Tools used: Eclipse 2.1.1, Tomcat 4.1.29, Sysdeo Tomcat Plugin 2.1.0, Lomboz-Plugin 2.1.2, Axis 1.1 and XDoclet 1.2 b3.

For WebService Security: VeriSign Trust Gateway 1.1 from 09/26/2003, ws-security 1.7. From IBM (for the additional security provider: IBM Emerging Technologies Toolkit Web Services 1.2. You do not have to download the tools from VeriSign and IBM because

the used Libraries are already in the sample project.

An advanced introduction to Java, J2EE, Tomcat or JBOSS is not the subject of this article. See the chapter Further Reading and additional sources in the Appendix.