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The WS-Policy framework provides infrastructure and APIs that allow CXF users and developers to use WS-Policy.

It is compliant with the November 2006 draft publications of the Web Services Policy 1.5 - Framework and
Web Services Policy 1.5 - Attachment specifications.

The framework consists of a core runtime and APIs that allow developers to plug in support for their own domain assertions:

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Policy operations such as merge and normalisation (but not intersection) , normalisation, and intersection are based on Apache Neethi.

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The AssertionBuilder API is a concept from Neethi, slightly modified to avoid the dependency on the Axis object model, and extended to include support for domain specific behaviour of intersection and comparison.

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public interface AssertionBuilder {
   // build an Assertion object from a given DOM element
   Assertion build(Element element);
  // return the schema type names of assertions understood by this builder
  Collection<QName> getSupportedTypes();
  // return an Assertion object that is compatible with the specified assertions
  Assertion buildCompatible(Assertion a, Assertion b);
}

an interface from Neethi.

AssertionBuilder AssertionBuilder implementations are loaded dynamically and are automatically registered with the AssertionBuilderRegistry, which is available as a Bus extension. Currently, CXF supports AssertionBuilder and Assertion implementations for the following assertion types:

{http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/02/rm/policy}RMAssertion
{http://www.w3.org/2007/01/addressing/metadata}Addressing
{http://www.w3.org/2007/01/addressing/metadata}AnonymousResponses
{http://www.w3.org/2007/01/addressing/metadata}NonAnonymousResponses
{http://cxf.apache.org/transports/http/configuration}client
{http://cxf.apache.org/transports/http/configuration}server

along with the WS-SecurityPolicy defined assertions.

They are all based on generic Assertion implementations (PrimitiveAssertion, NestedPrimitiveAssertion, JaxbAssertion) that developers can parameterize or extend when developing their own assertions, see Developing Assertions.

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{http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/02/rm/policy}RMAssertion
{http://www.w3.org/2007/01/addressing/metadata}Addressing
{http://www.w3.org/2007/01/addressing/metadata}AnonymousResponses
{http://www.w3.org/2007/01/addressing/metadata}NonAnonymousResponses

along with the WS-SecurityPolicy defined assertions.

In addition, the framework offers an API to refine domain expression(s) (xml elements describing policy subjects within a policy scope) in policy attachments. There is currently only one implementation for EndpointReferenceType domain expressions (matching over the address). Another implementation, using XPath expressions, is in work.

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public interface PolicyEngine {
    ...
    EndpointPolicy getClientEndpointPolicy(EndpointInfo ei, 
        Conduit conduit);    
    EndpointPolicy getServerEndpointPolicy(EndpointInfo ei, 
        Destination destination); 
}

public interface EndpointPolicy {
    ...
    Policy getPolicy(); 
    Collection<Assertion> getChosenAlternative();
}

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