providing a web service

FROM : Mark J. Lilback
DATE : Mon Jan 27 14:01:42 2003

I'm working on a web service for use in a distributed application.
This service will generate a pdf/gif based on user-input and return a
path to view that pdf/gif from a web server running on the service
provider machine. The gif is for preview purposes, the pdf for final
output.

Our current solution is a servlet that uses Java 2D apis to generate
the output. For PDF versions, we use the printing apis to print it,
and then call Runtime.exec to a setuid program that grabs the pdf out
of the print spool directory and then cancels the print job. Very
skanky, but it works. Unfortunately, we have to run tomcat from
Terminal via Timbuktu because of the graphics requirements.

For the new version, I'm torn between keeping the current method
while switching to the headless APIs in JDK 1.4 and rewriting
something in Cocoa. Because of the window server issues with Mac OS
X, I'm doubtful that printing will work when 1.4 is released. Also,
Cocoa offers a lot more control over the output than Java 2D does
(the customer would like support for kearning, leading, etc.).

Assuming this is implemented in Cocoa, I see a number of options for
hooking into the web:

1) run with a built-in minimal web server

2) use a proxy CGI that passes the data to a server app using DO

3) write an apache module that communicates to a server app using DO

Any recommendations? Better ideas I'm not thinking of?

Anyone know of an Objective-C wrapper around SOAP that would work for
a service provider?

TIA

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