SoapRPC.com: SOAP FAQ (section 2)

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Section 2 [ Installation and Setup ]

2.0 Where do I get Apache's SOAP from?
2.1 What other tools/software would I need?
2.2 Ok, I have CVS- now how do I get the code?
2.3 Is there any documentation on CVS?
2.4 How do I build Apache SOAP?
2.5 Any important caveat?
2.6 How do I setup Apache SOAP with Tomcat/Weblogic/etc.??

2.0 Where do I get Apache's SOAP from?

You could download the source or binaries from the download site http://xml.apache.org/dist/soap/ or access the CVS repository.
You can, if you are interested, even browse the SOAP sources online at http://xml.apache.org/websrc/cvsweb.cgi/xml-soap/.
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2.1 What other tools/software would I need?

In case you are getting either the source or binary distributions from http://xml.apache.org/dist/soap/, you need not get CVS and Ant. In either case you would need to get Xerces, JavaMail, JavaBeans Activation Framework
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a. CVS
You need a CVS client. There are a number of CVS clients like WinCVS for Windows and Mac platforms (http://www.WinCVS.org), GNU CVS
(source available from any of the GNU FTP sites listed at http://www.gnu.org/prep/ftp.html) and jCVS - a java based CVS client (http://www.jCVS.org)

b. Ant
Jakarta Ant is the build tool for Soap sources. You could get it from http://jakarta.apache.org/builds/jakarta-ant/release/v1.3/bin/

c. Xerces
You need to get ver 1.1.2 or later of the Xerces parser. I tried the build with xerces 1.3.0, and this works just fine. This is available at http://xml.apache.org/dist/xerces-j/

d. JavaBeans Activation Framework
You need to get activation.jar (part of Java Activation Framework). This is available at http://java.sun.com/products/beans/glasgow/jaf.html

e. Java Mail
You need to get mail.jar (Part of JavaMail). This is available at http://java.sun.com/products/javamail/

f. Optional packages

Bean Scripting Framework (BSF) from http://oss.software.ibm.com/developerworks/projects/bsf. You need bsf.jar from here.
Rhino (javascript) http://www.mozilla.org/rhino/. You need js.jar from here.
JavaTM Secure Socket Extension (JSSE) from http://java.sun.com/products/jsse/

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2.2 Ok, I have CVS- now how do I get the code?

If you are using a command line interface to CVS, you need to do

$ cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs@xml.apache.org:/home/cvspublic co xml-soap

Enter "anoncvs" if asked for a password
You should see the code extracted out into the "xml-soap" directory.

In case you are using a GUI based CVS client (like WinCVS), you'd need to do some setup like changing the CVSROOT to :pserver:anoncvs@xml.apache.org:/home/cvspublic
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2.3 Is there any documentation on CVS?

GNU's CVS has a online manual at http://www.gnu.org/manual/cvs/index.html
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2.4 How do I build Apache SOAP?

You'd need to put ant.jar, activation.jar, mail.jar and offcourse xerces.jar in your classpath. In addition, you would need the jsdk.jar/j2ee.jar for the servlet API. Now you are ready to start building SOAP
$ cd xml-soap
$ cd java
$ java org.apache.tools.ant.Main compile

Alteratively, you could run ant using ant.sh or ant.bat (depending on your OS). However, you would need to ensure that ant uses xerces.jar and not its own xml parser (parser.jar)- see the caveat below.
You should see a "build/lib" created containing a "soap.jar".
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2.5 Any important caveat?

You need to put xerces.jar before anything else in your path.. many servers like Tomcat, Weblogic etc., come with their own xml parsers and you need to make sure that doesn't interfere with SOAP. In case of Tomcat, you would need to edit tomcat.bat/tomcat.sh and make sure that you make this change. In case of weblogic you may need to modify startWeblogic.cmd..

In case you are using ant.bat (or ant.sh) to run ant, you would need to edit these scripts to ensure that xerces gets into the classpath *before* anything else, especially before parser.jar.

You'd offcourse need to add soap.jar and any other jar files that your application depends on (e.g. xmisoap.jar) in your classpath too.
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2.6 How do I setup Apache SOAP with Tomcat/Weblogic/etc.?

Apache SOAP comes with installation instructions for various Webservers like Tomcat, Weblogic etc. In addtion, the following websites have useful information.

Websphere: http://www.workspot.net/~zombie/soap/
JRun: http://archive.covalent.net/xml/soap-user/2000/09/0083.xml
Tomcat, Jrun, Weblogic: http://parikhfamily.virtualave.net/soap.htm
IIS: http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat/jakarta-tomcat/src/doc/tomcat-iis-howto.html

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Date: April 23, 2001
Version: 1.2
Author: Vivek Chopra
URL: http://www.SoapRPC.com/faqs/SoapFAQ.html