RE: Requesting WSDL Files

I agree with Roger.  In fact, this is the practice we use as well.  It is
simple and effective. The way we do it is slightly different: one attaches a
view=wsdl parameter to the URI.   
 
Hao

-----Original Message-----
From: Cutler, Roger (RogerCutler) [mailto:RogerCutler@chevrontexaco.com]
Sent: Friday, 2 July 2004 8:10
To: Cutler, Roger (RogerCutler); Savas Parastatidis; www-ws-arch@w3.org
Subject: RE: Requesting WSDL Files


Oh, wait a minute, that was dumb. Sorry.
 
Microsoft has chosen, if enabled, to return a test-bed for the service from
the simple GET.  Seems like a reasonable choice to me, but I don't really
want to debate that.  What I'd really like to know is whether other vendors
are using the "?wsdl" convention.  I have heard from one person who seems to
think that it is at least fairly widespread, but I don't have details.

  _____  

From: Cutler, Roger (RogerCutler) 
Sent: Thursday, July 01, 2004 5:02 PM
To: 'Savas Parastatidis'; www-ws-arch@w3.org
Subject: RE: Requesting WSDL Files


How do you distinguish, then, between a GET that is intended to return a
WSDL file and a GET of a Web Service that takes no parameters but returns
something?  At least in the implementation I am familiar with, if GET is
enabled for a Web service that takes no parameters I think it's just the
base URL that invokes it.
 
 From: Savas Parastatidis [mailto:Savas.Parastatidis@newcastle.ac.uk] 
Sent: Thursday, July 01, 2004 4:49 PM
To: Cutler, Roger (RogerCutler); www-ws-arch@w3.org
Subject: RE: Requesting WSDL Files



If we assume HTTP, I would prefer the even simple approach of just doing an
HTTP GET on the URL. No need for a suffix. However, I personally prefer the
WS-MetadataExchange approach because it fits better with SOAP and its
transport protocol-independent. Also, it allows other metadata information
to be transmitted and I would argue that it's a very simple spec. However,
that's just me.

 

Regards,

--
Savas Parastatidis
http://savas.parastatidis.name <http://savas.parastatidis.name> 
  


  _____  


From: www-ws-arch-request@w3.org [mailto:www-ws-arch-request@w3.org] On
Behalf Of Cutler, Roger (RogerCutler)
Sent: Thursday, July 01, 2004 10:46 PM
To: Savas Parastatidis; www-ws-arch@w3.org
Subject: RE: Requesting WSDL Files

 

Hmmm.  Looks like a pretty heavyweight mechanism for such a simple task.
Although you're right that it's not fully general, it seems to me the simple
"?wsdl" HTTP method gets the 80-20 ... and it sure is simple.

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Savas Parastatidis [mailto:Savas.Parastatidis@newcastle.ac.uk] 
Sent: Thursday, July 01, 2004 4:37 PM
To: Cutler, Roger (RogerCutler); www-ws-arch@w3.org
Subject: RE: Requesting WSDL Files

Dear Roger,

 

I don't think that there is a specification and I feel that one would be
unnecessary. The ?WSDL suffix can be used when HTTP is involved but how do
we get the WSDL of a Web Service when we use TCP/IP or SMTP or any other
protocol? That's the reason for the existence of the WS-MetadataExchange
specification. That will be the way to go. If you know the endpoint of a Web
Service, then you can ask it for its WSDL, its policy, etc.

 

http://msdn.microsoft.com/webservices/understanding/specs/default.aspx?pull=
/library/en-us/dnglobspec/html/ws-metadataexchange.asp 

 

Regards,

--
Savas Parastatidis
http://savas.parastatidis.name <http://savas.parastatidis.name> 
  


  _____  


From: www-ws-arch-request@w3.org [mailto:www-ws-arch-request@w3.org] On
Behalf Of Cutler, Roger (RogerCutler)
Sent: Thursday, July 01, 2004 7:27 PM
To: www-ws-arch@w3.org
Subject: Requesting WSDL Files

 

Here's a question that is sort of WSA-like.  I guess.  

We have some experience with WS interop, but so far it's all one direction:
Web service on Windows server, clients on other platforms.  Sooner or later
we will want to go the other direction.  One really nice feature of the
Microsoft .Net implementation of Web services is that if you append "?WSDL"
(or "?wsdl") to the URL of the Web service it will return the WSDL file.  As
far as I know this is not in any spec (I could easily be wrong, of course),
but it's clearly useful and I'm using it.  So the obvious questions are:

1 - Is this indeed part of some spec that I don't know about, so one should
expect it on other platforms? 

2 - If not, have other major vendors been doing this too?  Is it by any
stretch becoming a de facto standard? 

3 - If so, is there any case preference on platforms that tend to be more
case sensitive than Windows?