JAX-WS client and server SOAP handler

Motivation

I've found this interesting series of articles form Mkyong where he briefly explains how to write and configure SOAP handlers for client and server JAX-WS Webservices.

Then I've added some features: dependency management via Maven for client and server projects; a helper class to configure client's SOAP handler so it's possible to rebuild endpoint using wsimport any time is needed; and for last, I configured client's Maven POM file to run wsimport during generate-sources phase.

You can find these client and server in my GitHub repository. Clone them using the command:

git clone https://github.com/mroger/jaxws-in-out-interceptor.git

Service

The service runs over a Jetty web container. You can run it with the command (in the hello-server folder):

$ mvn clean jetty:run

You can check the service running, putting this URL in your browser:

http://localhost:8080/SimpleWebService

And to check the WSDL, put this URL:

http://localhost:8080/SimpleWebService?wsdl

This service is very simple. It just send the string "Hello, <name>" over the network, given that the client has sent the expected IP address.
The service class is annotated with @HandlerChain(file="handler-chain.xml") which points to a handler class declaration. This xml file can be found in the src/main/resources folder.

What is cool about this handler is that with it you can intercept the inbound or outbound messages and enrich, validate or decorate them.


Client

The client also has a handler attached to it, intercepting inbound and outbound messages.

In Mkyong's example, the handler is injected via annotation. But the annotation is put over the Webservice class and I wanted it generated automatically at every build. So I took a different approach:

To configure a handler, I implemented HandlerResolver as seen in this article. Then I just added the HandlerResolver to the Webservice class, as seen below.

As seen in client's Maven POM file, all client's Webservice classes are generated  during generate-sources phase.

Conclusion

Using handlers in JAX-WS Webservices is a great and clean way to handle inbound and outbound SOAP messages.