The Server

You can develop your web service using a groovy script and/or a groovy class. The following two groovy files are valid for building a web-service.

1. MathService.groovy

   public class MathService {
       double add(double arg0, double arg1) {
         return (arg0 + arg1)
       }
       double square(double arg0) {
         return (arg0 * arg0)
       }
   }

2. Then the easy part ... no need for comments
   
   

   import groovyx.net.ws.WSServer
   
   def server = new WSServer()
   
   server.setNode("MathService", "http://localhost:6980/MathService")

   
   
   That's all !

The Client

1. Oh ... you want to test it ... two more lines.

   import groovyx.net.ws.WSClient
   
   def proxy = new WSClient("http://localhost:6980/MathService?wsdl", this.class.classLoader)
   
   def result = proxy.add(1.0 as double, 2.0 as double)
   assert (result == 3.0)
   
   result = proxy.square(3.0 as double)
   assert (result == 9.0)

2. You're done!

The Server

Let say we have a server that manage a library in which you can add a book, find a book and get all the books. The server code will probably look like this

1. BookService.groovy
   
   

   class BookService {
   
     private List allBooks = new ArrayList()
   
     Book findBook(String isbn) {
       for (book in allBooks) {
         if (book.isbn == isbn) return book
       }
       return null
     }
   
     void addBook(Book book) {
       allBooks.add(book)
     }
   
     Book[] getBooks() {
       return (Book[])allBooks.toArray(new Book[allBooks.size()])
     }
   
   }

   
   
   
2. with the class Book being something like that.
   
   
   Book.groovy

   class Book {
     String author
     String title
     String isbn
   }

   
   
   To ignore the metaClass property a custom type mapping must be defined (for details refer to Aegis Binding).
   
   
   Book.aegis.xml

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
   <mappings xmlns:sample="http://DefaultNamespace">
     <mapping name="sample:Book">
       <property name="metaClass" ignore="true"/>
     </mapping>
   </mappings>

   
   
   However, if you compile custom data types from Java the bytecode won't contain a metaClass property and, hence, there is no need to define a custom mapping.

The Client

The good think here is that the client does not have to know about the Book class. It is automatically generated during the proxy creation time and can be used by your client. Here it is located in the defaultnamespace package since no package was used on the server side.

Here is how the client looks like now:

import groovyx.net.ws.WSClient

def proxy = new WSClient("http://localhost:6981/BookService?wsdl", this.class.classLoader)

def books =  proxy.getBooks()

for (book in books) println book

def book = proxy.create("defaultnamespace.Book")

book.title = "Groovy in Action"
book.author = "Dierk"
book.isbn = "123"

proxy.addBook(book)

def bks =  proxy.getBooks()

println bks.books[0].isbn

Iterating over the books is slightly more complicated since SOAP wrap the arrays in an element (in our case ArrayOfBook). Therefore you have to extract a field from that element. In our case:

def aob =  proxy.getBooks()

for (book in aob.books) println book.name

Using proxies

If you are using a proxy for accessing internet, you can use the following environment variables to get rid of it:

• proxyHost
• proxyPort
• proxy.user
• proxy.password

Using basic authentication

If your server use basic authentication, you need to set up the following properties:

• http.user
• http.password

TODO

 If you have ideas how the API should look, do not hesitate to post on the user list ;-

Known problems (and work around)

You will not be able to create a proxy directly for a service that requires a username and password to fetch the WSDL. One alternate way is to download the WSDL (using wget or curl with the username and password set) and to create the proxy using the local file.