Complex type with single array element throws marshalling exception

Question

We have JAX-RPC style web service, with a complex type defined as follows:

<xs:complexType name = "SomeFault">
<xs:sequence>
<xs:element name = "errorMessages" type="some:ErrorMessageWSType" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded" />
</xs:sequence>
</xs:complexType>

<xs:simpleType name = "ErrorMessageWSType">
<xs:restriction base = "xs:NMTOKEN">
<xs:enumeration value = "INVALID_1"/>
<xs:enumeration value = "INVALID_2"/>
<xs:enumeration value = "INVALID_3"/>
</xs:restriction>
</xs:simpleType>

We are running into Marshaling exception on the server side when the response/fault complex type has a single array type field.

weblogic.wsee.codec.CodecException: Failed to encode com.bea.xml.XmlException: failed to find a suitable binding type for use in marshalling object "[Lnamespace.type.ErrorMessageWSType;@693767e9". using schema type: t=SomeFault@http://namespace/SOME/v1 java type:namespace.type.ErrorMessageWSType[]

If we change SomeFault, by adding another element to the complex type the error goes away.

<xs:complexType name = "SomeFault">
<xs:sequence>
<xs:element name = "errorMessages" type="some:ErrorMessageWSType" maxOccurs="unbounded" />
<xs:element name = "dummyString" type="xsd:string" minOccurs="0" />
</xs:sequence>
</xs:complexType>

Are we doing something wrong during the wsdlc code generation or is this a known issue?

A similar question is already posted at https://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?messageID=4462906, but without any response, any pointers would be great.

Thanks.

Answer 1

Don't know if this solves the "why" part of the question, but you could try rewriting the sequence part like:

<xs:sequence minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded">
<xs:element name="errorMessages" type="some:ErrorMessageWSType"/>
</xs:sequence>

OTOH, what might be the mechanism that lets the second case work, but not the first? Might it be that the marshaller then has to figure out what xsd:string means before checking what some:ErrorMessageWSType means, and then has to wake up a resolver or something? This line of thought leads to the second approach I would try, which would be to declare ErrorMessageWSType before SomeFault (and perhaps in another namespace, just to see if that fixes anything).

Just my (tired) two cents, and I guess that both of these approaches presume a bug of some sort in the marshaller, because I can't really see that anything in your example code isn't according to the XML schema definition.