Using the Service Definition Wizard

The SOAPam Service Definition Wizard is a browser-based tool that creates or updates a Service Definition File (SDF) for you. The Wizard is made up of a series of pages that lead you through the steps of defining a service, a method and its parameters. Access the Wizard through Development Tools section of the SOAPam Server Control Panel.

Service Definition Files contain, among other things, descriptions of the interprocess message (IPM) formats that your server understands. SOAPam Server uses these descriptions when translating a SOAP request into an IPM that it forwards to your server and to translate the reply to SOAP response message.

The Wizard can translate DDL definitions that describe your server's IPM formats into SDF "types". This feature can significantly simplify defining a method for your service, particularly if your IPMs are complex. If you don't have DDL definitions for your server's IPMs but are familiar with DDL, you'll probably find it easier to create the DDL and let the Wizard translate them into SDF types. Otherwise, you can still use the Wizard to create the SDF service and method framework, then modify the resulting SDF to add the type information.

The Service Definition Wizard creates basic methods that require a single input parameter and return a single output parameter which represent your server's entire request and reply interprocess messages, respectively. While SOAPam Server supports methods with more or fewer parameters, sophisticated parameter-to-interprocess message mapping and field initialization, you cannot define such methods with the Wizard. To do so, you must create or modify the SDF file manually. Refer to the Service Definition File Reference for more information.