Trying to work with Apache Soap and java server but not understand
what it means to Compile the Java class and put it somewhere in your
web server's classpath for tomcat server.  Here are the directions
that I am following but keep getting a 404 error when trying to
contact the service through a perl client.

Installing Apache SOAP

Apache SOAP can be used as both a client and provider of SOAP web
services. A server-side installation of Apache SOAP involves placing
some .jar files in your classpath. You will need a separate web server
that supports Servlets and Java Server Pages, such as Apache's Tomcat
(http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat/).

The Apache SOAP homepage, http://xml.apache.org/soap/index.html, has
links to both source-only and precompiled distributions of the
toolkit. Installing the precompiled binary distribution is as simple
as downloading a Zip archive and extracting it into a directory.

On the client, three .jar files from the distribution (soap.jar,
mail.jar, and activation.jar) must be present in your classpath. Also
present must be any Java API for XML Parsing (JAXP) aware XML parser,
such as Xerces Version 1.4 (http://xml.apache.org/xerces-j/).

Assuming that you installed Apache SOAP .jar files in the C:\book\soap
directory, set your SOAP_LIB environment variable to C:\book\soap\lib.
Adding the .jar files to your classpath then entails:

set CLASSPATH = %CLASSPATH%;%SOAP_LIB%\soap.jar
set CLASSPATH = %CLASSPATH%;%SOAP_LIB%\mail.jar
set CLASSPATH = %CLASSPATH%;%SOAP_LIB%\activation.jar

Or, in the Unix Bourne shell (/bin/sh):

CLASSPATH = $CLASSPATH;$SOAP_LIB/soap.jar
CLASSPATH = $CLASSPATH;$SOAP_LIB/mail.jar
CLASSPATH = $CLASSPATH;$SOAP_LIB/activation.jar

The exact steps for a server installation will depend on which web
application server you are using, but the process is essentially the
same. The first step is to ensure the same three .jar files are
located in your application server's classpath.

If your application server supports the use of web application
archives (WAR files), simply use the soap.war file that ships with
Apache SOAP. Apache Tomcat supports this. The Apache SOAP
documentation includes detailed installation instructions for Tomcat
and a number of other environments.

If you intend to use the Bean Scripting Framework (BSF) to make
script-based web services, you need to ensure that bsf.jar and js.jar
(a BSF JavaScript implementation) are also in the web application
server's classpath.

The vast majority of problems encountered by new Apache SOAP users are
related to incorrect classpaths. If you encounter problems writing web
services with Apache SOAP, be sure to start your debugging by checking
your classpath!
The Hello Server

We're going to do the same things we did in Perl: create the code,
deploy the service, and use the service. Example 3-12 shows the Java
code for the Hello class.

Example 3-12: Hello.java

package samples;
public class Hello {
  public String sayHello(String name) {
      return "Hello " + name;
  }
}

Compile the Java class and put it somewhere in your web server's
classpath.

Deployment descriptor for samples.Hello

<dd:service xmlns:dd="http://xml.apache.org/xml-soap/deployment"
id="urn:Example1">
<dd:provider type="java"    
             scope="Application"              
             methods="sayHello">
   <dd:java class="samples.Hello"
            static="false" />
</dd:provider>  
<dd:faultListener>
 org.apache.soap.server.DOMFaultListener
</dd:faultListener>
<dd:mappings />
</dd:service>

Example 3-16. hw_jclient.pl, the Perl client for the Java Hello World
server

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
# hw_jclient.pl - java Hello client
use SOAP::Lite;
my $name = shift;
print "\n\nCalling the SOAP Server to say hello\n\n";
print "The SOAP Server says: ";
print SOAP::Lite
 -> uri('urn:Example1')
 -> proxy('http://localhost:8080/soap/servlet/rpcrouter James')
 -> sayHello($name)
 -> result . "\n\n";

output I get from running the perl client

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop>test.pl James

Calling the SOAP Server to say hello

The SOAP Server says: 404 /soap/servlet/rpcrouter%20James at
C:\Documents and Se
ttings\Administrator\Desktop\test.pl line 7