NonStop SOAP for Java User's Manual

Using the SOAP Client APIs

NonStop SOAP for Java User’s Manual—523860-001

6-3

Using Attachments

This section describes SOAP messages with attachments. The SOAP messages with

attachments proposal has been published as a W3C Note at

http://www.w3.org.TR/SOAP-attachments. In this scheme, the MIME

(Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) multipart message format is used to bundle a

complete standard SOAP message with additional data in a “SOAP message

package.” The SOAP message, occupying the first position in the package, can

incorporate references to the other parts of the message using a naming convention

described in the note. SOAP message packages can be transmitted by HTTP, SMTP

(Simple Mail Transport Protocol), or any other message protocol.

Background

Even though SOAP is an XML-based protocol, it is not always convenient to force all

data, which is passed as part of a SOAP message to be encoded in a way, which can

be embedded inside of an XML document. Sometimes it would be cleaner to allow

data, such as JPEG images, WAV files, and so on, to be passed along with the SOAP

message, instead of inside of it. To address this issue, the SOAP Messages with

Attachments specification was created. The SOAP Messages with Attachments

specification allows for the embedding of a SOAP message inside of a MIME

document, in a manner in which does not alter the processing rules of the message.

The SOAP Messages with Attachments specification also describes how you refer to

the attachments from inside the body of the SOAP message. Apache SOAP contains

an implementation of this specification.

Using Attachments on the Client

If you are interacting with an RPC-based service, you may not need to do anything

special to transmit an attachment. Pre-defined serializers/deserializers exist for

interacting with javax.activation.DataSource objects and

javax.activation.DataHandler objects. If your objects can be passed through

one of these mechanisms then the RPC-code will handle creating and or removing the

attachment for you.

If you are using a message-oriented service, you can use methods in one of the

following classes:

•

org.apache.soap.messaging.Message

•

org.apache.soap.rpc.Call

•

org.apache.soap.rpc.Response classes

The addBodyPart(...) methods allow you to add a

javax.mail.internet.MimeBodyPart object to your messages, while the

findBodyPart(...) and getBodyPart(...) methods allow you to retrieve

them through the Content-URI and location within the message, respectively.