Scripting support with Axis2

As we all know Apache Axis2 is a Java based Web service framework. In addition to that Axis2 is becoming as the de facto Java based Web service framework. Which is obvious when we look at the number of daily downloads as well as a number of companies who use Axis2. It took about four years to come to this position with great support from the community.

Now we can find a number of scripting languages which run on JVM. If a scripting language is running on the JVM then we can easily write scripting extension to Axis2. At the moment Axis2 has scripting extensions for;

• Groovy
• Java Script (WSO2 Mashup server)
• JRuby support
• Jython support

Meaning of language extension is , one can deploy scripting services in Axis2 as well as one can use scripting language to invoke or access a service deploy in anywhere.

With the Axis2 architecture , we can easily plug a new language extension. It is just a matter of writing few components and registry in Axis2.

• Deployer – to process the scripting file and create a Web service from that
• Schema generator – Generating schema from the scripting class , for example if we are deploying a JS file , then generate corresponding WSDL
• Message Receiver – when a message receive for that particular service , it will first come to the message receiver and that will invoke the scripting class and send the response if any.

Registering an extension in Axis2 is just a matter of adding your custom deployer in to axis2.xml.

If you're getting a new host, don't forget to check your hosting service if it supports Axis2.