Apache CXF is an open source services framework that makes web service development easy, simplified, and standard based. CXF provides many features such as frontend programming, support for different transports and data bindings, support for different protocols, and other advanced concepts like Features and Invokers. It also provides a programming model to build and deploy RESTful services.
The focus of the book is to provide readers with comprehensive details on how to use the CXF framework for web services development. The book begins by giving us an overview of CXF features and architecture. Each feature is explained in a separate chapter, each of which covers well defined practical illustrations using real world examples. This helps developers to easily understand the CXF API. Each chapter provides hands on examples and provides step-by-step instructions to develop, deploy, and execute the code.
The book is about the CXF service development framework. The book covers two of the most widely used approaches, for web services development, SOAP and REST. Each chapter in the book provides hands on examples, where we look in detail at how to use the various CXF features in detail to develop web services in a step-by-step fashion.
Chapter 1: Getting Familiar with CXF revisits web service concepts and provides an introduction to CXF framework and its usage, and prepares the CXF environment for the following chapters. By the end of this chapter the reader will be able to understand the core concepts of CXF.
Chapter 2: Developing a Web Service with CXF focuses on getting the reader quickly started with the CXF framework by developing a simple web service and running it under the Tomcat container.
By the end of this chapter the reader will be able to develop a simple web service using CXF.
Chapter 3: Working with CXF Frontends illustrates the use of different frontends, like JAX-WS and CXF simple fronted API, and shows how to apply code-first and contract-first development approaches for developing web services. We will look at how to create dynamic web service clients, the use of web service context, and how to work directly with XML messages using CXF Provide and Dispatch implementation.
By the end of this chapter the reader will be able to apply different frontends to develop a web service.
Chapter 4: Learning about Service Transports explains basic transport protocols for a service and shows you how to configure HTTP, HTTP(s), JMS, and Local protocol for web services communication. You will get introduced to the concept of HTTP conduit, which enables the client program to apply policies or properties to HTTP and HTTPs protocols, and how to generate a crypto key and a key store for HTTPs based service communication. You will learn how to use JMS protocol for web services communication and how to facilitate web services message exchange using CXF Local service transport.
By the end of this chapter the reader will be able develop services with different transports
Chapter 5: Implementing Advanced Features will explain advanced concepts using CXF Features, Interceptors, and Invokers, and how to integrate these concepts in existing applications.
By the end of this chapter the reader will be able develop services with features like Interceptors and Invokers
Chapter 6: Developing RESTful Services with CXF explains the concept of REST technology and JAX-RS specifications, how CXF realizes the JAX-RS specification, and demonstrates additional features for developing enterprise RESTful services. We will look at how to design, develop, and unit test the RESTful Service by taking a real world example using CXF JAX-RS implementation.
By the end of this chapter the reader will be able to design, develop, and unit test the RESTful service
Chapter 7: Deploying RESTful Services with CXF will explain how to deploy REST services in a container like Tomcat using Spring configuration, and how to test out the various operations exposed by the RESTFul application using CXF RESTful client API using a web service development tool. We will look at how to enable exception handling, JSON message support, and logging support for RESTful applications using CXF framework.
By the end of this chapter the reader would be able utilize various CXF features for developing RESTful services and how to leverage Spring configuration for deploying RESTful service in the tomcat container.
Chapter 8: Working with CXF Tools will explain some of the commonly used CXF tools that assist us in web services development. We will look at how to invoke a real world .NET service over the internet using a Java client and JavaScript, create web service implementation from WSDL files, generate WSDL files from web service implementation, and validate the WSDL file for compliance.
By the end of this chapter the reader will be able to use different CXF tools to develop a service.
Appendix A deals with how to set up the CXF environment, provides details on how the source code for each chapter is organized, and shows how to run the source code examples using the ANT tool and Maven Tool.
Appendix B provides an explanation of the basics of the Spring framework and IoC concepts, along with an end-to-end example which utilizes Spring IoC concepts.
By the end of this Appendix chapter the reader will have a good understanding of Spring capabilities used in the context of CXF web services development in this book.
You will need the following software to be installed before running the code example:
Java 5 or higher. Apache CXF requires JDK 5 or a later version. JDK 5 can be downloaded from the following site: http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/download.jsp
Tomcat 6.0 or higher. There is no strict requirement for Tomcat for CXF. In fact, any servlet container that supports Java 5 or higher can be used with CXF. For our illustrations, we will use Tomcat as our servlet container. Tomcat version 6.0 can be downloaded from the following site: http://tomcat.apache.org/download-60.cgi
Apache Ant 1.7.1 or higher. Ant will be used to build and deploy the code. The build utility can be downloaded from the site: http://ant.apache.org/bindownload.cgi
CXF binary distribution 2.2.3 or latest. CXF binary distribution can be downloaded from the site: http://cxf.apache.org/download.html.
Maven 2.x or higher, if you plan to use Maven instead of ANT for running the code examples. Maven can be downloaded from the site http://maven.apache.org/
Refer to Appendix A for more details on how to set up the environment for running the code examples.
This book is for developers who want to design and develop SOAP and RESTful services using Apache CXF framework, and leverage various CXF features for service development. It is ideal for developers who have some experience in Java application development as well as some basic knowledge of web services, but it covers some of the basic fundamentals of web services and REST to get you acquainted with these technologies before using these concepts to develop services using the CXF framework.
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text are shown as follows: " You need to specify the <http:address> element for sending messages in an HTTP format. "
A block of code is set as follows:
import javax.jws.WebService;
@WebService
public interface OrderProcess {
String processOrder(Order order);
}When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:
<import resource="classpath:META-INF/cxf/cxf.xml" />
<import resource="classpath:META-INF/cxf/cxf-extension-soap.xml" />
<import resource="classpath:META-INF/cxf/cxf-servlet.xml" />
<jaxws:endpoint id="orderProcess" implementor="demo.order.OrderProcessImpl" address="/OrderProcess" />
Any command-line input or output is written as follows:
set ACTIVEMQ_HOME = C:\apache-activemq-5.2.0
set ACTIVEMQ_VERSION = 5.2.0New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "Click the Add To Firefox button. A pop-up screen will appear, as shown in the next screenshot. Click on the install button."
Feedback from our readers is always welcome. Let us know what you think about this book—what you liked or may have disliked. Reader feedback is important for us to develop titles that you really get the most out of.
To send us general feedback, simply send an email to <[email protected]>, and mention the book title via the subject of your message.
If there is a book that you need and would like to see us publish, please send us a note in the SUGGEST A TITLE form on www.packtpub.com or email <[email protected]>.
If there is a topic that you have expertise in and you are interested in either writing or contributing to a book on, see our author guide on www.packtpub.com/authors.
Now that you are the proud owner of a Packt book, we have a number of things to help you to get the most from your purchase.
Tip
Downloading the example code for the book
Visit http://www.packtpub.com/files/code/5401_Code.zip to directly download the example code.
The downloadable files contain instructions on how to use them.
Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of our content, mistakes do happen. If you find a mistake in one of our books—maybe a mistake in the text or the code—we would be grateful if you would report this to us. By doing so, you can save other readers from frustration, and help us to improve subsequent versions of this book. If you find any errata, please report them by visiting http://www.packtpub.com/support, selecting your book, clicking on the let us know link, and entering the details of your errata. Once your errata are verified, your submission will be accepted and the errata added to any list of existing errata. Any existing errata can be viewed by selecting your title from http://www.packtpub.com/support.
Piracy of copyright material on the Internet is an ongoing problem across all media. At Packt, we take the protection of our copyright and licenses very seriously. If you come across any illegal copies of our works, in any form, on the Internet, please provide us with the location address or web site name immediately so that we can pursue a remedy.
Please contact us at <[email protected]> with a link to the suspected pirated material.
We appreciate your help in protecting our authors, and our ability to bring you valuable content.
You can contact us at <[email protected]> if you are having a problem with any aspect of the book, and we will do our best to address it.