A posting of Farrukh Najmi to the OASIS ebXML Registry TC announces the "publication of the Proposed Final Draft of a specification for Java API for XML Registries (JAXR). The JAXR specification provides a simple Java API for accessing OASIS ebXML and other registries, and will help to promote the use of OASIS ebXML registries within the Java developer community. This version of the specification provides a near final and stable version of the JAXR API with comprehensive support for the version 2 of the OASIS ebXML Registry specifications." JAXR supports "a uniform and standard Java API for accessing different kinds of XML Registries. An 'XML registry' [in this context] is an enabling infrastructure for building, deploying, and discovering web services. Currently there are a variety of specifications for XML registries including, pre-eminently, the ebXML Registry and Repository standard, which is being developed by OASIS and U.N./CEFACT and the UDDI specification, which is being developed by a vendor consortium. JAXR enables Java software programmers to use a single, easy-to-use abstraction API to access a variety of XML registries."

Description from the overview:

JAXR enables Java software programmers to use a single, easy-to-use abstraction API to access a variety of XML registries. Simplicity and ease of use are facilitated within JAXR by a unified JAXR information model, which describes content and metadata within XML registries.

JAXR provides rich metadata capabilities for classification and association, as well as rich query capabilities. As an abstraction-based API, JAXR gives developers the ability to write registry client programs that are portable across different target registries. This is consistent with the Java philosophy of Write Once, Run AnywhereTM. Similarly, JAXR also enables value-added capabilities beyond those of the underlying registries.

This version of the JAXR specification includes detailed bindings between the JAXR information model and both the ebXML Registry and the UDDI Registry v2.0 specifications.

JAXR works in synergy with related Java APIs for XML, such as Java API for XML Processing (JAXP), Java Architecture for XML Binding (JAXB), Java API for XML-based RPC (JAX-RPC), and Java API for XML Messaging (JAXM), to enable web services within the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE).