XML Interface for Network Services


XML Interface for Network Services is an open-source technology for definition and implementation of internet applications, which enforces a specification-oriented approach.

Specification-oriented approach

The specification-oriented approach is at the heart of XINS:
  • first specifications need to be written;
  • then documentation and code is generated from these specifications;
  • then both testing and implementation can start.
From specifications, XINS is able to generate:
Technically, XINS is composed of the following:
  • An XML-based specification format for projects, APIs, functions, types and error codes
  • A POX-style RPC protocol, compatible with web browsers.
  • A tool for generating human-readable documentation, from the specifications.
  • A tool for generating WSDL, from the specifications.
  • A Log4J-based technology for logging, offering a specification format, internationalization of log messages, generation of HTML documentation and generation of code.
  • A Java library for calling XINS functions, the XINS/Java Client Framework; in xins-client.jar.
  • A server-side container for Java-based XINS API implementations, the XINS/Java Server Framework; in xins-server.jar. This is like a servlet container for XINS APIs.
  • A Java library with some common functionality, used by both the XINS/Java Client Framework and the XINS/Java Server Framework: the XINS/Java Common Library, in xins-common.jar.
An introductory tutorial called the takes the reader by the hand with easy-to-follow steps to perform, with screenshots.
Since version 1.3.0, the XINS/Java Server Framework supports not only POX-style calls, but also SOAP and XML-RPC. And it supports conversion using XSLT. As of version 2.0, it also supports JSON and JSON-RPC.
XINS is open-source and is distributed under the liberal BSD license.

Specifications

All XINS specification files are Plain Old XML. Compared to SOAP/WSDL/UDDI/etc. the format is extremely simple. There are specifications for projects, environment lists, APIs, functions, types and error codes.
Below is an example of a XINS project definition.








Here is an example of a specification of an environment list:





An example of an API specification file:


My first XINS API



An example of a function definition:


Greets the indicated person.


The name of the person to be greeted.




The constructed greeting.



RPC protocol

The XINS Standard Calling Convention is a simple HTTP-based RPC protocol. Input consists of HTTP parameters, while output is an XML document. This approach makes it compatible with plain Web browsers.
Example of a request:
http://somehost/someapi/?_convention=_xins-std&_function=SayHello&firstName=John&lastName=Doe
Example of a successful response:


Hello John Doe!

Competition

There are no known products that provide an integrated approach to specification-oriented development, similar to XINS. However, there are several frameworks and libraries that provide functionality similar to individual parts of XINS, including: