As part of its endeavor to foster the adoption of Web services technology for business, Commerce One has announced the release of an Open Source, royalty free Web services and SOAP XML Development Kit. The DocSOAP XML Development Kit (DocSOAP XDK) "is designed to provide developers and businesses with advanced XML and SOAP tools to take advantage of Web services technology, particularly when used to handle the large business documents associated with e-commerce integration and the development of composite applications. The main components of the Conductor DocSOAP XDK are the DocSOAP Framework, the Document Framework, XGen and the UNIParser. Together they deliver a comprehensive set of APIs that can be used to build Web Services and XML applications. Developers may download the complete XDK including Source Code view the online JavaDoc documentation for the APIs. The XML tools and libraries, including XGen, UNIParser and the Document Framework, may be used independently of SOAP to create and manipulate XML documents on their own. One of the expected uses for SOAP is the integration of businesses, systems and partners, which requires efficient handling of potentially large XML and non-XML documents. The DocSOAP XDK is designed specifically to address this type of problem. In initial tests conducted by Commerce One, the DocSOAP XDK processed large-sized XML documents up to twice as fast and using less memory than other available SOAP toolkits."

DocSOAP XDK Components

The DocSOAP Framework is the API and implementation for document-centric SOAP processing that offers unsurpassed high performance and a powerful programming abstraction for reading, writing, creating and manipulating SOAP messages. Using the DocSOAP Framework, you can build high performance Web Services in hours.

The Document Framework is a unified, extensible API for handling documents in binary, text and XML formats. The Document Framework offers high-performance XML processing in all major representations (XML Schema Bean, DOM and SAX).

XGen is a tool that generates Java APIs from XML Schemas, with a run-time component that converts between Java objects and XML instances at runtime. The generated API is specific to each schema and captures user defined business data structure, providing an easy-to-use, customized Java application for creating, accessing and modifying XML instances of the schema. XGen is engineered to provide the most comprehensive support for XML Schema in the industry as well as reliable and consistent mapping and accurate type checking at both compile time and run time. It is the new "gold standard" in XML-to-Java processing.

UNIParser is the XML parser that provides customized processing and validation of XML Documents used by the Conductor DocSOAP XDK. It can also be used on its own. Click here to get an overview of the UNIParser. [adapted from the Overview]

DocSOAP XDK Key Features

"DocSOAP XDK is unique in being expressly designed to meet the challenging requirements of document-centric Web Services -- not RPC but exchange of larger XML documents described by complex schemas. We offer a new model for SOAP manipulation, manifest-oriented programming, as well as a single-rooted document hierarchy encompassing all XML programming models including our own XML Schema-generated Java classes. DocSOAP XDK achieves two times the performance of AXIS and .NET on SOAP messages containing larger XML documents and 94% coverage of XML Schema features versus 50-60% for other tools benchmarked. DocSOAP XDK is designed to eliminate programming errors, safeguard message integrity, and to be packaging independent. Best of all, DocSOAP XDK is offered under an OSI-style license and will continue to evolve as an open-source project to address the needs of document-centric Web Services development."

"DocSOAP XDK source and binaries are available for both commercial and non-commercial uses under an OSI type of license. In addition, Commerce One is hosting developers' forums and otherwise promoting a common project around document-centric Web Services and the DocSOAP XDK. The DocSOAP XDK will be presented next week (May 7 and 8) at XML Europe in London by lead Michael Leventhal and XGen creator Mette Hedin and at JavaOne in San Francisco by Leventhal and DocSOAP architect Sen Zhang." [communiqué from Michael Leventhal]

DocSOAP XDK Benefits

• High Performance: The DocSOAP Framework is uniquely designed for handling SOAP messages that carry large and complex business documents in a very efficient way.
• Message Integrity: The Conductor DocSOAP XDK API's are carefully designed to be simple, clear, and to promote "correct-by-construction" processing of SOAP messages. The end results are highly reliable Web Services applications that correctly form and marshal SOAP messages.
• Strong XML Support: The Conductor DocSOAP XDK provides thorough and correct XML support at all levels. With XGen, you can turn your schemas into Java APIs that bring your enterprise data into Web Services without the need for XML expertise.
• Transport Neutral: You will find it is easy to use the Conductor DocSOAP XDK to send and receive SOAP messages over any of your favorite transports, be that HTTP, SMTP or JMS.
• High Interoperability: The DocSOAP Framework supports all SOAP versions (1.1 and 1.2) and wire-level bindings, SOAP with Attachments (MIME) and DIME, which enable you to interoperate with all major Web Services platforms including .NET.
• Standards Compliance: As standards mature such as SOAP 1.2 and DIME, new versions of the Conductor DocSOAP XDK will be released that conform to the standard.
• High Extensibility: The Conductor DocSOAP XDK adopts an open framework design. You can bring in other Web Services features, document formats or XML handling according to your needs with great ease.