A framework for RESTful object exchange through schematized XML (unRESTricted)

Client-server architectures with clients on divergent platforms are in need of services that serve a high level of interoperability and a loose binding. It should be prevented that clients become incompatible with the server after server-side changes in the data model. In practice it appears that existing systems don’t always meet these requirements and that known solutions are lacking supporting frameworks in the development of these services. This paper presents a framework for building RESTful services that publish data matching an internal object model. The internal objects are presented to the client by XML which conforms to an XML schema that is agnostic of the framework. The conversion between the XML documents and the internal objects is backed by the framework and abstracted from the service developer. An implementation of this framework in Java is described, together with client-side software that also relieves the client from marshaling logic and processing the server’s response.