XDB Native Web Services - Collection of object types

Question

Hello,
my DB 11g (11.1.0.6.0) is enabled to use XDB Native Web Services, everything works as it should. I already use it successfully to publish a web service with object types as OUT parameter. They are created as complex types in the XML response as described here: [http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B28359_01/appdev.111/b28369/xdb_web_services.htm#CHDGBFID]
But what I need is a collection of these object types, e.g.
I have a type FLIGHT with some information elements (departure, arrival, date, time, price) and I have a web service function GET_AVAILABILITY with parameters departure, arrival and date. What I want is to return a collection of FLIGHT objects, it could be none, one or many flights for a request.
For the moment I create another object type which contains a fix number of FLIGHT objects to work around the collection issue:
create flight_tab_typ as object (
fl1 flight_typ
,fl2 flight_typ
,fl3 flight_typ
I tried to build a PL/SQL table of object type and also a VARRAY of object type but for both the WSDL of the web service cannot be build up correctly in the web browser. For me it seems that this is not supported by the Native Web Services.
I know I can build up my own XMLTYPE with XML structure as OUT parameter but to use object types is much easier and it builds up the XML structure automatically.
Does anybody know how to use collections (VARRAY or PL/SQL Tables) with the Native XML DB Web Services?
Thanks,
Andreas

Answer 1

Hi flea,
I use complex types with XDB native webservices. Here is an example. Using people/groups objects. I haven't compiled this so there may be some typos etc, but it should give you the idea.
Beware!I have had problems with the created WSDL file in that it doesn't always include the namespace from all types. In many client packages ( JDevloper , SOAPUI etc) this causes a wsdl import failure.
You can add the missing namespace by hand a load the WSDL file locally and then it should work. I haven't raised an SR with Oracle about this yet.
Assume you create the following under SCoTT schema on machine host.com on port 8080.
The webservice[WSDL] will be available from
http://host.com:8080/orawsv/SCOTT/WEBSERVCIES/GET_GROUP[?wsdl]
For other peoples sanity it took me a little while to realise the WSDL url is case specific. E.g. the schema, package and functions have to be UPPER case.
create table people_groups_tab (group_name varchar2(40 char),first_name varchar2(40 char),last_name varchar2(40 char))
insert into people_groups_tab values ('FINANCE','Joe','Bloggs')
insert into people_groups_tab values ('FINANCE','Bob','Jones')
insert into people_groups_tab values ('IT','Alan','Andrews')
create or replace type person_obj
as object
     first_name people_groups_tab.first_name%type
     ,last_name people_groups_tab.last_name%type
create or replace type people_obj
as table of person_obj
create or replace type people_groups_obj
as object
group_name varchar2(40 char)
people people_obj
create or replace package webservices
as
          function get_group
     p_group_name varchar2
          ) return people_groups_obj;
end;
create or replace package body webservices
as
          function get_group
     p_group_name varchar2
          ) return people_groups_obj
as
l_group people_groups_obj;
          l_people people_obj;
begin
          select person_obj
                    first_name
                    ,last_name
          bulk collect into l_people
          from people_groups_tab
          where group_name p_group_name;
          l_group := people_groups_obj(p_group_name,l_people);
          return l_group;
end;
end;
/