Method and apparatus of automatic method signature adaptation for dynamic web service invocation

Abstract

A method (and apparatus) for adapting an input parameter,for dynamically invoke the target Web services, and for adapting output results, the method including: receiving an invocation request including an input parameter in a first format; retrieving MetaWSDL (Meta Web Service Description Language), wherein said MetaWSDL includes a universal XML (eXtended Markup Language) representation which includes semantic information of a Web service method signature; invoking a MetaWSDL processor to adapt the input parameter to a second format using the retrieved MetaWSDL; dynamically invoking the target Web services using the adapted parameter in the second format; and adapting the output result in a first format to a second format using the MetaWSDL.

Description

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention[0002] The present invention generally relates to a dynamic e-business applications. More particularly, this invention relates to a method and apparatus of automatic method signature adaptation for dynamic Web service invocation.[0003] 2. Description of the Related Art[0004] Dynamic e-business is the dynamic adaptation of e-business processes and associated systems to support changing business strategies and tactics. It enables enterprise software to be modeled to fit the required business processes, rather than the other way around. When companies in an industry use the same enterprise software and adapt their business processes to fit it, they inevitably conduct their business in the same way as their competitors. Flexibility in infrastructure design allows new processes to be tried and deployed to develop a competitive advantage by doing it differently than the competition. Dynamic e-business offers the same flexibility in business partner integrat...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0017] Yet another object of the invention is to automatically adapt input and output parameters to eliminate the need for manual adaptation.

[0042] An exemplary embodiment of this invention is a framework and mechanism to automate the process for dynamic Web Services invocation; it eliminates the need for manual mapping of input parameters with WSDL method signatures and addresses the issues of automatic adaptation for input parameters and output results of target Web Services, which enables dynamic Web Services invocation and obtains the intended results in desired units, such as money (dollars vs. yens) or measurement (feet vs. meters; oz vs. liter). This automatic adaptation is not possible with the current WSDL definitions. The inventive MetaWSDL, a universal XML representation, includes additional semantic information of Web Services method signatures, which are not part of the current WSDL standards. Using both WSDL and MetaWSDL, business application software can not only get the basic service interface definitions from WSDL but also the semantic information about input and output from MetaWSDL, which enables the Web Service to be dynamically invoked. In other words, using the unit or format information about the parameters in the MetaWSDL, the parameters of the method can be correctly constructed.

Problems solved by technology

In the dynamic e-business area, it is very hard to match the input parameters and output result format in advance for the Web services Invoke in the e-business application.

Therefore, heterogeneous Web Services are going to be a fact of life for a while, which poses problems for dynamic e-business integration.

Such manual processes take time and cause errors.

The need for a manual process to construct and match input parameters for Web Services is a result of the limited information defined in current WSDL for Web Services interfaces, i.e. only the method name and type of parameters, which is too generic, as well as, limited to be adequate for a program to automatically invoke the target Web Service.

Unless the desired semantic definitions are clearly specified, it would not be possible for programs to correctly construct the input parameters for automatic invocation.

Similarly, problems exist for the need to adapt output results to the correct format and units.

Without manual adaptation of the input, the Web Service cannot be correctly invoked nor can the desired results be obtained.

The automatic adaptation of input / output parameters issue is by far the most difficult and the least developed area in term of utilizing Web Services where there are toolkits and framework that facilitate both issues 1) and 3).

However, there has been no toolkit or framework for automatically adapting input / output parameters, but it is the most crucial.

r). This automatic adaptation is not possible with the current WSDL definiti

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