Is it possible to change restrictions on an XSD file without web-service consumers having to adjust anything on their end?

Question

I'm trying to change existing XSD element restrictions without forcing web-service consumers to have to adjust.

I have a web service using apache-cxf and xsd files for input validation. My client wants to loosen one of the restrictions we have in place for an element, but does not want the web-service consumers to have to modify any of their code. Is this feasible? Or would a new WSDL be required?

Answer 1

Usually loosening a restriction in a schema is a non breaking change, so even when you update the WSDL, which you will want to do (otherwise no consumer can update to use that looser restriction) the existing consumers do not have to regenerate code from the WSDL unless they want to use that loosened restriction.