Show TOC Start of Content Area

Process documentation Web Service Invocation (Client-Side)  Locate the document in its SAP Library structure

Purpose

This process describes how the Web services framework handles a Web service call form a client’s point of view.

Process Flow

The figure below presents the process of invoking a Web service implementation.

This graphic is explained in the accompanying text

These components are similar to the server-side ones, however, they have slightly different responsibilities.

...

       1.      The application that uses the Web service functions is called a Web service client. It communicates with the Web service using a service endpoint interface, implemented by a generated stub. The service endpoint interface is generated from the WSDL port type. It represents the remote Web service.

       2.      The client can directly access the protocols through methods of the generated stub class.

The stub is an entity that is generated by a concrete transport binding. It implements the service endpoint interface, but contains specific transport binding information.

       3.      The proxy generator parses a WSDL document and generates the service endpoint interfaces for all port types and schema classes. Afterwards, it processes the WSDL binding elements. For each of them, it identifies the proper transport binding implementation and calls it in order to generate the generated stub.

       4.      The transport binding takes care of generating the stub, and later during runtime, it generates a request message based on the settings generated in the stub. When the response arrives, the transport binding needs to process it and create the Java objects out of it. The transport binding is a pluggable component, and is implemented as a Java service.

       5.      As on the server side, the protocol is a piece of logic that performs message or system processing. Like the transport binding, this is a pluggable element that is implemented as a Java service.

       6.      The transport takes the request message and sends it to the Web service based on the settings in the context. It may add headers or make configuration to the underlying transport. Then, it waits for the response and sends it back. This is also a pluggable component implemented as a Java service.

 

See also:

Web Service Clients Development

 

End of Content Area