Flexible marshalling and unmarshalling using Spring WS

Talking about WebServices from a clients perspective, Spring WS provides some true simplifications when it comes to configuring and calling arbitrary Services. While emphasizing a contract-first view (with a clear focus on the schema of the request resp. response message payload), it supports a couple of ways to map an object graph to the stipulated message structure of the contracted request schema (marshalling) and of course vice versa, mapping the received response payload to an appropriate object structure (unmarshalling).
The following sections will give some demonstration on how to leverage the various options for marshalling and unmarshalling within Spring WS, especially by showing how to apply a strategy for marshalling and a different one for unmarshalling, all within the same WebService call.

Blocks – an alternative for Closures ?

The discussion about Closures for Java is still an ongoing issue and haven’t lost anything of its heat. The more concrete the different proposals get, the more excited get their advocates (resp. the more warningly their detractors). One popular opinion is afraid of the additional complexity that may not be understandable by the most part of developers: It’s like providing a kind of a chain saw to their hands that could become more dangerous than helpfull, while producing a pile of unpredictable, complex code.