—The Web Service Description Language defines a service as a procedure whose inputs and outputs are structured XML data values, sometimes called documents. In this paper we argue that document-oriented interfaces can be viewed as batches of calls to finer-grained procedural interfaces. Turning this correspondence around, we show that flexible documents can be specified by converting a block of fine-grained invocations into a batch document. Batch blocks can also include conditionals and loops. Our system, Remote Batch Invocation for Web Services, translates object-oriented interfaces into a WSDL describing batches of calls. The WSDL can be used by standard web service clients, but by providing a language extension to support remote batches, our approach features a fully integrated client environment. The result is a powerful infrastructure for web services that directly connects to standard objectoriented interfaces, with tool support to automatically create and decode documents...
Ali Ibrahim, Marc Fisher II, William R. Cook, Eli