how to consume a web service in mule flow?

What is it like to consume RESTful web services without proper IDLs (WSDLs or WADLs)?

• At a minimum, shouldn't there be a standard way to document a web service's API, just like we use Javadoc for Java APIs? WSDLs allow tools like XMLSpy to create a service request template that QA and web service clients can use to easily consume the service and learn more about its behavior and properties. Is that not a gap in the case of RESTful web services, most of which don't use WADL?

• Answer:

  I highly recommend reading the following for a pretty decent discussion on WADL: http://bitworking.org/news/193/Do-we-need-WADL Personally, I'm not a fan of WADL. There's significant engineering overhead involved in maintaining machine readable (or generated) documentation, which makes it much more fragile (or tightly coupled) than other methods of publishing documentation. Outside of the technical realm, I've never had a customer, client, engineer, employee, investor, or prospect request a WADL document. I would much rather have my engineers focused on features that solve real problems. Update -- Puneet asked for an example of how to learn about an API that isn't programatic, but is still consistent and reliable. I think a great example is Twitter's API documentation: https://dev.twitter.com/docs/api This provides substantially more than the parameters, responses, and faults: it also provides context, philosophy, examples, and tutorials -- things you need to reference for any API. Don't get me wrong: I love standardized formats as a way to communicate information ... but SOAP and the WS-* protocols were better served by programatic descriptions, because the interactions were so complex. The modern REST approach to building APIs is a change in direction: that sophisticated systems can be built more easily without the additional complexity of SOAP and other "middle tier" protocols.