Web service standards question

[Martin Hill]

Hans-Martin Adorf wrote:

> Wil,
> 
> your comments are appreciated. If, for the moment, I follow your 
> suggestion, how do I then specify that the result of calling a SOAP 
> service is a VOTable? Am I supposed to specify that the result will be a 
> String, and it will be up to the receiver to use the latest VOTable 
> parser in order to decode the VOTable?

That's one way.  You can also...

> 
> OK, and then if SOAP by itself does not provide a table model, but we in 
> the VO community have one (implicitely through VOTable) or more 
> (excplicitly inside of Toptable, SAVOT or the GAVO table system), why 
> don't we go ahead and augment the SOAP standard? Id' really like to 
> download a WSDL and submit it to myWSDL2Java compiler, and start using 
> the client.

...you can also 'import' the VOTable schema into your WSDL definition (The 
SkyNode WSDL is, I think, an example), and then your WSDL2Java generator will 
build you a complete VOTable object model too. This is:

Good) because your WSDL 'contract' defines that you expect the parameter to be a 
VOTable, not just a string.

Iffy) because you get an object model built for you by the generator, but 
sometimes this needs some hand-tweaking

Iffy) because you may not want the VOTable to be marshalled/unmarshalled into an 
object model.  For example, if your service is going to transform it using XSLT, 
there is a big Waste of Power in converting it to an object model and back 
again, especially if it's a Really Big Huge table.


-- 
Martin Hill
www.mchill.net
+44 7901 55 24 66