<!--
  ~ Copyright 2005-2007 WSO2, Inc. (http://wso2.com)
  ~
  ~ Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
  ~ you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
  ~ You may obtain a copy of the License at
  ~
  ~ http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
  ~
  ~ Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
  ~ distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
  ~ WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
  ~ See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
  ~ limitations under the License.
  -->

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN"
        "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">

<html>
    <body>
        <p>[
            <a
                    href="http://dist.wso2.org/products/wsas/java/@wso2wsas_version@">Download
            </a>
            ]
            | [
            <a href="../index_docs.html">Documentation Home</a>
            ] | [
            <a
                    href="../release_notes.html">Release Notes
            </a>
            ]
        </p>
        <h1>AAR Validator</h1>


        <p>The aim of this document is to explain briefly how the Service Validator (AAR Validator)
            tool work.
        </p>

        <h2>Content</h2>
        <ul>
            <li>
                <a href="#intro">Introduction</a>
            </li>
            <li>
                <a href="#usage">Usage</a>
            </li>
            <li>
                <a href="#conclusion">Conclusion</a>
            </li>
        </ul>
        <a id="intro"></a>

        <h2>Introduction</h2>

        <p></p>
        MAR Validator is a graphical tool available with WSO2 Web Services Application Server that
        allows the user to validate a Web Service, (also known as a AAR file, due to the .aar extension).

        <a id="usage"></a>
        <h2>Usage</h2>

        <p>Validating a service before is deployed can come in handy,
            because it will provide an assurance of the validity of the service in question.
            Using AAR Validator is quite easy, and as with the other tools
            provided on the WSO2 Web Services Application Server front page,
            you don't even need to sign in.
        </p>

        <p>Click on
            <strong>AAR Validator</strong>
            and you will be taken to the following screen.
        </p>

        <p>
            <img alt="Figure: AAR Validator Screen 1" src="../images/tools/aar_val_1.jpg"/>
        </p>

        <p>
            There are two different ways in which we can provide the tool with the service which needs
            to be validated. We can either provide a service archive (a .aar file) or a service descriptor
            (a services.xml file).
        </p>

        <p>First lets consider the scenario of validating an AAR (A web service archive)</p>
        <p>click on the
        <strong>Browse</strong>
            on the "Select an AAR" box to search your file system for
            the .aar file which represents the service archive you want to validate. Once
            you have selected it, click on the <strong>Validate AAR</strong> button to validate the services.xml inside it.
        </p>
        <strong>Note: In case of a AAR Validation what actually happens is that the services.xml file inside the
            archive is extracted and validated.
        </strong>

        <p>Next, lets consider the other option, namely, directly pointing to a services.xml file to validate.</p>
        <p>Click on the
        <strong>Browse</strong> button in the "Select a services.xml" box to search your file system for
            the services.xml file which you want to validate. Once you have selected it, click on
            "Validate
            services.xml"
            button to validate the service descriptor.
        </p>



        <p>In both of the above methods, when the validation process has completed,
            you will be taken to the results page.
            This page will display the validation results in tabular form.
        </p>
		<p>
            <img alt="Figure:AAR Validator Results Screen" src="../images/tools/aar_val_2.jpg"/>
        </p>

        <p>If we take a closer look at the inner workings of the validation process, in
            services.xml validation,
            the tool parses the input services.xml against a schema and looks for any invalidities.
            If any are found, they are presented in a tabular form.
        </p>


        <a id="conclusion"></a>
        <h2>Conclusion</h2>

        <p>AAR validator provides a handy method of validating an AAR archive or a services.xml file
            and viewing the results in a
            tabular form.
        </p>

        <br/>

    </body>
</html>
