How webDynpro handles exception thrown by adaptive web service

Question

Hi people,
in design time, webdynpro can handle web service's exception by defining return structure based on the <b>Fault </b>which is the exception defined in the web service. But in the runtime, when web service throws exception, webDynpro can not handle it, WD framework will throw nullPointerException.
The reason behind it might be: let me assume a WS <b>getEmployeeNumber</b>, the WS returns employee number as a element <b><EmployeeNumber></b>12345<b></EmployeeNumber></b> in the return SOAP document. I think WD always expects the element <b><EmployeeNumber></b> in the SOAP document, but in case of exception, web service throws exception and will not provide employee number in the return SOAP which is logical, thus the element <EmployeeNumber> will not be available in the SOAP document, therefore causes WD framework to raise <b>nullPointerException</b>.
So any of you have any suggestion to make webDynpro working in case an exception is thorwn in the web service?
Thanks for your infor
Jayson

Answer 1

To encourage people, I include the text of the xml response from the test of Web Service Navigator window :
HTTP/1.1 500 Internal Server Error
Connection: close
Server: SAP J2EE Engine/6.40
Content-Type: text/xml; charset=UTF-8
Set-Cookie: <value is hidden>
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:30:50 GMT
<SOAP-ENV:Envelope xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" >
<SOAP-ENV:Body>
<SOAP-ENV:Fault>
<faultcode>SOAP-ENV:Client</faultcode>
<faultstring>Hi, I'm the new exception</faultstring>
<detail>
<ns1:throwException_com.sap.demo.testexception.TestException xmlns:ns1='urn:TestExceptionServiceWsd/TestExceptionServiceVi' xmlns:pns='urn:com.sap.demo.testexception'>
<pns:message>Hi, I'm the new exception</pns:message>
</ns1:throwException_com.sap.demo.testexception.TestException>
</detail>
</SOAP-ENV:Fault>
</SOAP-ENV:Body>
</SOAP-ENV:Envelope>
I've found too a strange workaround :
The fact seems that you have to design your session bean without throwing custom exceptions, then generates the VI and after that, adding the custom exceptions throws.
Or if you don't want to modify the bussiness methods.
The point is to eliminate the exceptions (faults) sections from the VI and WS deployment descriptor.
You have to access from Package Explorer, and edit with a Text Editor the following files :
*.videf from the package, and remove <Function.Faults> sections
ws-deployments-descriptor.xml in META-INF, and remove <fault> sections
After that, the WS Configurations will give an error, so delete the configuration and remake it. Now, the VI stills looks bad, so close the project, close NetViewer and reopen it to flush whatever cache it seems to keep.
Now, your VI will looks better without exceptions, and you'll get their messages when you catch them in the WebDynpro applicattion.
So, now the question is: Could anybody explain me why ?