How to consume ad hoc web services (non-SOAP, schemaless XML)?

I need to write integrations to multiple external web services. Some of them are SOAP (have WSDL), some of them pretty much ad hoc - HTTP(s), authentication either by basic auth or parameters in URL (!), natural-language like XML which does not really map nicely to domain classes..

For now, I've done the spike integrations using Spring Web 3.0 RestTemplate and binding using JAXB2 (Jaxb2Marshaller). Some kind of binding is needed because dom开发者_如何学Pythonain classes need to be cleaner than the XML.

It works, but it kind of feels bad. Obviously this partially just because how the services are built. And one minor issue I have is naming of RestTemplate as services have nothing to do with REST. This I can live with. JAXB2 feels a bit heavy though.

So, I'm looking for some other alternatives. Ideas? I'd like to have a simple solution (so RestTemplate is fine), not too enterprisey..

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While some of your services may be schemaless XML, they will still probably have a well-documented API. One of the techniques that the Spring folks seem to be pushing, at least from the web-service server side, is to use XPath/XQuery for retrieving only the information you really need from a request. I know that this may only end up being part of your solution, but I'm not sure that this is a situation where one particular binding framework is going to meet all your needs.

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If I understand correctly you have 1 application that has to make calls to various external (web) services by use of different technologies. The first thing that comes to mind is to have some intermediate level. While this could be something as elaborate as en ESB-solution, my guess is that is not what you're looking for.

You could for example achieve this intermediate level by having a class hierarchy with at its top an interface 'Consumer'. Method to be implemented: doConsume() and so on.

If you look into it you'll probably have the opportunity to make use of several design patterns like Strategy or Template. Remember to be pro-active and try to ask a few times 'What if ..' (As in: what if they need me to consume yet another service? etc.)

If JAXB feels too heavy there are other API's to be found:

• Axis
• JAX-WS
• CXF
• other

It'll depend on the situation which one would be better. If you run into troubles with any of them I'm sure you'll be able to find help here on SO (and from people who have more hands-on experience with them than me ;-)