How to extract empty sequence from parent in generated XSD (CXF) - cxf

Question

I have simple test WS
#WebService
public interface TestWs {
#WebMethod
String foo(Child child);
}
with a very basic implementation
#Component("testWsEndpoint")
public class TestWsImpl implements TestWs {
#Override
public String foo(final Child child) {
return "Ok";
}
}
in generated WSDL I have
<xs:complexType name="child">
<xs:complexContent>
<xs:extension base="tns:parent">
<xs:sequence/>
</xs:extension>
</xs:complexContent>
</xs:complexType>
which is perfectly correct, but customer asked to remove that empty <xs:sequence/>, probably because it causes problems in some tool they are using. Is this possible in CXF?
Additional quetion is - is it possible to force CXF to generate XSD separated from WSDL? I know that for command line JavaToWs I can simply add -createxsdimports parameter, but what about CXFServlet?

Answer 1

Getting rid of empty <xsd:sequence/> is IMHO impossible currently. It's because JAXB currently works this way. There is even a comment in JAXB implementation:
we neither have epsilon or emptySet, so can't handle children.length==0 nicely
If you prefer you can raise a bug for JAXB team. Someone even raised this issue but there was no answer.
Regarding the second problem - forcing CXF to generate XSD separated from WSDL. It is possible using org.apache.cxf.wsdl.create.imports property. You can set it using annotation:
#EndpointProperty(key="org.apache.cxf.wsdl.create.imports", value="true")
on your interface or implementation class.
After that you will get something like:
<wsdl:definitions name="TestWsImplService" targetNamespace="http://server.hw.demo/">
<wsdl:types>
<schema>
<import namespace="http://server.hw.demo/" schemaLocation="http://localhost:9000/test?xsd=TestWsImplService_schema1.xsd"/>
</schema>
</wsdl:types>
...
Back to my original comment I would recommend WSDL-first approach. I developed this way multiple services. Having strict interface with constraints (patterns, multiplicity) was very beneficial when two different systems were communicating. Lots of input validation was done for me without writing additional code. True - writing WSDL is not pleasant task, but once you have service definition you can easily change inputs and outputs in your XSD files.