Generating HTML documentation from WSDL

Question

What are your approaches to generating some sort of human-readable documentation from WSDLs? In the past I've used WSDL viewer (by Tomi Vanek) (see my blog post about integrating it into NAnt) and I'm happy with the results, but I'm interested in any possible alternatives.

I've also heard of x3sp, but I haven't tried it.

Answer 1

I know this a poor man's documentation method, but I've used opening the wsdl's XSD in visual studio and doing snag-it prints of that with comments and arrows added for clarity and our customer seems to have liked it without having to use another tool. You also may not have this but could use a version from a free VPC or MSDN subscription I've also used the BizTalk schema editor to view the XSD as well and document it from there using snag-it or another screen capture app. I'd try and use what you have!

-Bryan

Answer 2

Altova's XMLSpy does generates HTML documentation from a WSDL ... but it isn't free ;)

Answer 3

I tried several alternatives

• TechWriter for Web Services: Really powerful, but HTML output was (see comments) multi-file.
• <oXygen/> XML Editor: It doesn't process embedded schema.
• Altova XML Spy: It doesn't process anonymous types.

and ended up tweaking WSDL viewer to my needs.

Answer 4

You can use "wsimport" which is part of the JDK and run Javadoc on the generated files. Presuming you have put in the annotations it will put them as part of the documentation.

Another tool would be Rational Application Developer which allows you to right click and generate the HTML documentation with pretty hyperlinked pictures.