| <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> |
| <!--Arbortext, Inc., 1988-2005, v.4002--> |
| <!DOCTYPE concept PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Concept//EN" |
| "concept.dtd"> |
| <concept id="cwsdl" xml:lang="en-us"> |
| <title>Web Services Description Language (WSDL)</title> |
| <shortdesc>Web Services Description Language (WSDL) is a standard specification |
| for describing networked, XML-based services. It provides a simple way for |
| service providers to describe the basic format of requests to their systems |
| regardless of the underlying run-time implementation.</shortdesc> |
| <prolog><metadata> |
| <keywords><indexterm>WSDL<indexterm>overview</indexterm></indexterm><indexterm>Web |
| services<indexterm>WSDL</indexterm></indexterm></keywords> |
| </metadata></prolog> |
| <conbody> |
| <p>WSDL defines an XML format for describing network services as a set of |
| <varname>endpoints</varname> that operate on messages that contain either |
| document-oriented or procedure-oriented information. The operations and messages |
| are first described abstractly and then bound to a concrete network protocol |
| and message format in order to define an endpoint. Related concrete endpoints |
| are combined into abstract endpoints (services). WSDL is extensible to allow |
| description of endpoints and their messages, regardless of which message formats |
| or network protocols are used to communicate. This means that interfaces are |
| defined abstractly using XML schema and then bound to concrete representations |
| that are appropriate for the protocol.</p> |
| <p>WSDL allows a service provider to specify the following characteristics |
| of a Web service:</p> |
| <ul> |
| <li>The name of the Web service and addressing information</li> |
| <li>The protocol and encoding style to be used when accessing the public operations |
| of the Web service</li> |
| <li>The type information such as operations, parameters, and data types comprising |
| the interface of the Web service</li> |
| </ul> |
| <p>WSDL documents allow developers to expose their applications as network-accessible |
| services on the Internet. Through UDDI and WSIL, other applications can discover |
| WSDL documents and bind with them to execute transactions or perform other |
| business processes.</p> |
| <p>This development platform supports and encourages the development and use |
| of WS-I compliant WSDL. Business service providers can deploy <tm tmclass="special" |
| tmowner="Sun Microsystems, Inc." tmtype="tm" trademark="Java">Java</tm> beans |
| and enterprise beans as a Web service and generate a WSDL document that describes |
| the service. They can also generate <tm tmclass="special" tmowner="Sun Microsystems, Inc." |
| tmtype="tm" trademark="Java">Java</tm> and enterprise bean skeletons from |
| an existing WSDL file. A business service client can generate a <tm tmclass="special" |
| tmowner="Sun Microsystems, Inc." tmtype="tm" trademark="Java">Java</tm> proxy |
| from a WSDL document, thereby providing an easy-to-use <tm tmclass="special" |
| tmowner="Sun Microsystems, Inc." tmtype="tm" trademark="Java">Java</tm> interface |
| to the Web service. The <tm tmclass="special" tmowner="Sun Microsystems, Inc." |
| tmtype="tm" trademark="Java">Java</tm> interface hides the network communications |
| details from the client enabling the business service provider to focus on |
| business and process portions of the application.</p> |
| <p>In addition to providing tools to create Web services, the workbench provides |
| a WSDL editor that allows you to create WSDL files using a graphical interface, |
| a WSDL validator that ensures that your WSDL file is semantically correct |
| and optionally checks for WS-I compliance, and the Web Services Explorer which |
| allows you to dynamically test Web services without requiring you to generate |
| a proxy.</p> |
| <p>The workbench supports WSDL 1.1. For more information on the WSDL specification, |
| refer to <xref format="html" href="http://www.w3.org/TR/wsdl" scope="external">www.w3.org/TR/wsdl</xref></p> |
| </conbody> |
| <related-links> |
| <linklist><title>Related Concepts</title> |
| <link href="cws.dita"><linktext>Web services overview</linktext></link> |
| <link href="cwsinwsa.dita"><linktext>Tools for Web services development</linktext> |
| </link> |
| </linklist> |
| <linklist><title>Related Tasks</title> |
| <link href="../tasks/toverws.dita" scope="peer"><linktext> Developing Web |
| services</linktext></link> |
| </linklist> |
| </related-links> |
| </concept> |