How To Dynamically Change a Web Service Endpoint URL with Metro

A really cool feature of GlassFish Metro (and maybe other webservice stacks) is the ability to change the webservice endpoint URL at runtime.

In general, you typically generate the code via JAX-WS maven plugin (or ant task), specifying the endpoint URL in the generation properties. This is a fast and reliable way to generate webservices. The downside is, that it seems you can't change the endpoint URL at runtime ...
Well, you can. And it is pretty simple.

The example in this posting is taken from the Metro FAQ.

You can use BindingProvider.ENDPOINT_ADDRESS_PROPERTY to set the endpoint address in your client application code.

Sample:

 //Create service and proxy from the generated Service class.   
  HelloService service = new HelloService();   
  HelloPort proxy = service.getHelloPort();   
  ((BindingProvider)proxy).getRequestContext().  
       put(BindingProvider.ENDPOINT_ADDRESS_PROPERTY, "http://new/endpointaddress");   
     
  proxy.sayHello("Hello World!");  

With the property key

BindingProvider.ENDPOINT_ADDRESS_PROPERTY

you can also get the currently used endpoint url at runtime. This may be helpful for debugging purposes.

Sample:

 LOG.info("Using endpoint URL: "  
        + ((BindingProvider)proxy).getRequestContext().get(  
            BindingProvider.ENDPOINT_ADDRESS_PROPERTY));