weblogic 8.1 web services

WebLogic 8.1

WebLogic 8.1 ships with webservices.jar that conflicts with Axis' saaj.jar and prevents Axis 1.2 from working right out of the box. This conflict exists because WebLogic uses an older definition of javax.xml.soap.* package from Java Web Services Developer Pack Version 1.0, whereas Axis uses a newer revision from J2EE 1.4.

However, there are two alternative configuration changes that enable Axis based web services to run on Weblogic 8.1.

• In a webapp containing Axis, set <prefer-web-inf-classes> element in WEB-INF/weblogic.xml to true. An example of weblogic.xml is shown below:

  <weblogic-web-app>
    <container-descriptor>
      <prefer-web-inf-classes>true</prefer-web-inf-classes>
    </container-descriptor>
  </weblogic-web-app>

  If set to true, the <prefer-web-inf-classes> element will force WebLogic's classloader to load classes located in the WEB-INF directory of a web application in preference to application or system classes. This is a recommended approach since it only impacts a single web module.

• In a script used to start WebLogic server, modify CLASSPATH property by placing Axis's saaj.jar library in front of WebLogic's webservices.jar.

  NOTE: This approach impacts all applications deployed on a particular WebLogic instance and may prevent them from using WebLogic's webservices.

For more information on how WebLogic's class loader works, see WebLogic Server Application Classloading.