Consume Any Web Service Using Eclipse + Axis

1. Start Eclipse and create a new workspace named wsTest (click File -> Switch Workspace -> Other…)
   
   
   
   
2. Create a new Java Project named wsTest (click File -> New -> Java Project)
   
   
   
   
3. Create a new Web Service Client Proxy (click File -> New -> Other -> Web Services -> Web Service Client). In this case we are consuming a free, public web service that returns weather information for the United States. The URL for the WSDL definition is http://wsf.cdyne.com/WeatherWS/Weather.asmx?wsdl.
   
   
   
   
4. Create a new Java Class named Test.java (click File -> New -> Class)
   
   
   
   
5. Copy and paste the following code into Test.java (overwrite the existing code):
   

   import com.cdyne.ws.WeatherWS.*;
   import java.net.URL;
   
   public class Test
   {
    public static void main(String[] arg)
    {
     try
     {
      WeatherSoapStub service = (WeatherSoapStub)new WeatherLocator().getWeatherSoap(new URL("http://ws.cdyne.com/WeatherWS/Weather.asmx"));
      WeatherReturn weather = service.getCityWeatherByZIP("47710");
      System.out.println("Location: " + weather.getCity() + ", " + weather.getState());
      System.out.println("Description: " + weather.getDescription());
      System.out.println("Temperature: " + weather.getTemperature() + " degrees");
     }
     catch (Exception e)
     {
      e.printStackTrace();
     }
    }
   }
   

   
   Note that we set the endpoint URL on line 10. The endpoint URL is typically the same as the WSDL definition URL except the endpoint URL does not include the ?WSDL query string parameter.
   
   
6. Execute the code (click Run -> Run)
   
   You should see something resembling the following output:
   
   Location: Evansville, IN
   Description: Sunny
   Temperature: 49 degrees

At the time of writing this post I am using Eclipse Helios with the J2EE extensions installed; options may vary slightly if using a different version.

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How It Works

Eclipse is executing the Axis Wsdl2Java process which parses the WSDL file and translates it into a set of Java client files that you can then use in your own application. It is possible to accomplish the same thing outside of Eclipse by directly executing the Axis Wsdl2Java process yourself.