Axis2 comes with a simple service archiver tool. This tool provides easy to use functionality to develop an Axis archive or an "aar" file or a "jar" file that can be deployed as a web service to the Axis2. This tool is in the form of an Eclipse plug-in and can be downloaded from the downloads section. This document describes how the tool can be used.
Download the binary version of the plug-in and extract the content of the zip file into the Eclipse installation folder. (The plug-in will actually go into the plugins directory in the Eclipse installation root). Restarting Eclipse will set the plug-in automatically.
If the plug-in is properly installed you should see a new wizard under the "New" section.(use the File -> New -> Other or Ctrl + N )
Selecting the wizard and pressing the next button will start the service generator wizard. Following is the first wizard page.
Once the class file folder is given (which should be a folder in the file system) the next button will be enabled.
Page 2 of the wizard requires you to locate the wsdl file. Note that the WSDL file cannot be skipped in this version of the tool.
Select the service.XML file in the next wizard page
Note that The service XML file can be generated if needed. To proceed to the service generation page, check the "generate automatically" checkbox.
If the automatic mode is not selected, then the wizard will directly jump to the library selection page. However if the automatic mode is selected the wizard will show the following page.
This is a somewhat complicated page. The service name textbox should include the name of the service that you wish to give the service. For the implementation class, type in the fully qualified class name and hit the load button to view the operations.
The loaded operations should be displayed in a table. Once this is displayed you can filter the methods by selecting/deselecting the methods using the checkbox at each row.
Further filtering can be achieved by using the "search declared methods" only checkbox.
Once the method selection is complete the wizard has enough information to generate a basic services.xml file. If further customization is required, there's no choice but to manually edit it!
The next step is to add the libraries. The library addition page looks like this
The library name (with full path) can be either typed on the text box or browsed for using the browse button.
Hit the Add button to add the library to the list. The added libraries should be displayed in the list box
If any library needs to be removed, highlight it in the list and hit remove. Click next to proceed to the last page of the wizard
The last page of the wizard asks for the output location and the output archive name.
Once all the parameters are filled, hit the finish button to complete the wizard and generate the service archive.
If you see the above message, then you've successfully generated the service archive! This service archive can be hot deployed to Axis2
The plugin also adds a help document to the Eclipse help system. You should see it if you go to Eclipse help content
