WSDL Generation Tools

Question

Can anyone recommend a good (preferably open source) tool for creating WSDL files for some soap web services?

I've tried playing around with some of the eclipse plug ins available and was less than impressed with what I found.

Answer 1

I am tired of generating massive amounts of files on the filesystem just to transport over SOAP. Now I use Apache CXF for both WS producers and consumers and let it handle the WSDL/stubs generation dynamically.

Answer 2

Depends on which language you're working in, but if you're active in Java then I'd recommend looking at Apache CXF. It's a pretty solid framework for publishing java code as a SOAP web service. It also includes a tool for directly generating WSDL files: java2wsdl

Answer 3

As mentioned above, probably the easiest thing to do is use Apache CXF or Apache Axis2 to automatically generate your WSDL for you.

If you have downloaded the JEE version of Eclipse, you should be able to create a Dynamic Web Project with the Axis2 facets. If you create a simple Java class in the project, you should be able to right-click on it, and choose Web Services->Create Web Service. That should automatically create an Axis2 service for you.

WSDL would then be available from some URL like: http://localhost/axis/{yourservice}?WSDL

Answer 4

One of the more interesting tools for bypassing all the associated headaches with WSDL is the XSLT script created by Arjen Poutsma (the lead developer of Spring Web Services):

http://blog.springframework.com/arjen/archives/2006/07/27/xslt-that-transforms-from-xsd-to-wsdl/

Basically it allows you to develop simple schemas that correspond to your desired operations (i.e. <BuyItem> and <BuyItemResponse>) and then generate all the associated WSDL crap from the XSD. I highly recommend it if you are interested in 'contract-first' web-services but the idea of using a WSDL as the starting point for that contract makes you feel green.