Comparison between two different descriptions of a web service

摘要

A process, system and computer program for comparing two different descriptions of a web service is described, where each description comprises a set of methods (m1-4 and m1-4), each method comprising one or more parameters. Using the process of the invention, it is possible to identify which methods in a later version of the description of the web service most likely correspond to which methods in the earlier version of the description of the web service. The process comprises the steps of computing a distance between each type used as a parameter in the first description and each type used as a parameter in the second description, calculating a distance between each method in the first description and each method in the second description by comparing the parameters of the compared methods using the computed distances between types, adding to each calculated distance a measure of the distance between the names of the compared methods, adding to each calculated distance a measure of the distance between the returned types of the compared methods, and outputting, for each method in the first description, at least the method in the second description with the lowest calculated distance.