So it turns out that I’ll be working on a project between now and whenever to implement web services into a Java application server. I have no experience in this, but from what I’ve seen, this boils down to being nothing more than some fancy XML combined with some mediocre knowledge of ports and basic networking. I’m sure there’s more to this–especially when the Java gets into the picture, of course–but my biggest question about this is how SOAP plays into it (because there’s going to be some of this involved, too) and how all this gets processed in general.
You see, the specific project I’ll be working on deals with this WSDL acting as a listener for incoming data transmissions. This service (or WSDL file) needs to be set up to hear this incoming transmission, but in my mind, I’m struggling to understand how exactly the program / server / whatever knows how to listen to this. I know that PHP has a module for SOAP and I’m wondering if all this is how it’s processed (i.e. - by some form of module or server library that tells the server what this specific kind of file is and what to do with it when a certain incoming “ping” hits this file). From there, I guess it’s all up to the XML file in respect to where the data goes and how it’s handled, but could someone maybe help me fill in the holes here with some of this? I’ve done work before with XML, and I’ve also done work with Java with some basic server management, but the WSDL / SOAP / overall Web Services-specific stuff is fairly new territory to me. In my mind, I can’t help but think it’s nothing too complex, but again, I’d love to know what some of you have to offer me with this mindset…
Any insight is appreciated and if some of you know how to test for this using Windows XP Tomcat, I’d love to know how you went about doing that, too.
