Exact purpose of MimeHeaders param to MessageFactory.createMessage()

Question

I'm building a web service intermediary, and I'm trying to make sure I can handle
SOAP messages with attachments.
When I first saw the "MimeHeaders" parameter in "MessageFactory.createMessage(MimeHeaders,
InputStream)", I was a little befuddled. I figured this was related to handling
attachments, but I find almost zero documentation on what I'm supposed to be doing
here.
In my experiments, I tried sending a message with a simple "text/xml" attachment.
I set the content type of the attachment when creating the attachment. If my
"createMessage()" call passed "null" for the MimeHeaders parameter, then the resulting
SOAPMessage ignored the MIME-ness of the message and just stored the SOAP envelope.
If I instead create a MimeHeaders object and add a "Content-Type" header of "text/xml",
and pass that object instead of "null" for the MimeHeaders parameter, then it
appears to record the SOAP envelope along with the attachment. I'm guessing the
"Content-Type" header that I added in the MimeHeaders object applies to the main
body of the message, and not the attachment.
My main problem is that I tried that change with the MimeHeaders object through
pure guesswork. I can't find anything in the BEA docs that gives me a clue what
really should be done here.

Answer 1

Yes, you will want to create MIME headers from the HTTP headers.
Q1. Are you saying that if the content-type of the HTTP header is "text/xml",
it wouldn't find the attachments?
A1. Dunno. I wouldn't though, because that's not how the SwA (or SAAJ) says to
do it. See the following link: http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/NOTE-SOAP-attachments-20001211#SOAPMultipart
Q2. If the content-type of the HTTP request is "multipart/related", is there any
assumption about whether the main SOAPMessage is 1.0/1.1 or 1.2?
A2. I hope not, because that (determining the SOAP version based on the MIME type)
is dictated in the SOAP specs themselves. See the following link: http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/NOTE-SOAP-20000508/#_Toc478383526.
Regards,
Mike Wooten
"David Karr" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
Ok, that's helpful. However, your description seems to imply that the
only way
for the incoming message to be considered to have attachments is to use
"multipart/related".
Are you saying that if the top-level content-type is "text/xml", it
wouldn't
find the attachments? Also, if the top-level content-type is "multipart/related",
is there any assumption about whether the main SOAPMessage is 1.0/1.1
or 1.2?
So if the intermediary is a servlet, I should just pass the HTTP headers
into
the MimeHeaders?
"Michael Wooten" <[email protected]> wrote:
Hi David,
These classes are part of the JAX-RPC API, so you would want to search
for this
information on Sun's (or Javasoft's) website. If you can't find it there,
it may
be because they (Sun) wants to be able to change the implementationwithout
breaking
your code :-) That's actually what makes seperating the interface from
the implementation,
powerful.
That said, the Content-type header, in this MimeHeader object, is used
to determine
the MIME type of the InputStream. If it's multipart/related, an attempt
will be
made to create a SOAPMessage with attachment parts, from the InputStream.
The
format of this multipart/related message is covered in RFC 2387 (http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2387.html).
This document says that the Content-type of each part, is in the Header
fields
of the part itself. These parts are the AttachmentPart objects thatare
returned
(in a java.util.Iterator), when you call the SOAPMessage.getAttachments()
method.
If the Content-type header in this MimeHeader is application/soap+xml,
the InputStream
is assumed to be a SOAP 1.2 message (http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/CR-soap12-part2-20021219/).
If it's text/xml, the InputStream is assumed to be a SOAP 1.0/1.1 message.
Typically, a Web Service intermediary is realized as a Servlet Filter
or JAX-RPC
Handler. In the case of the former, you would use the createMessage(MIMEHeaders,InputStream)
method. The HttpServletRequest contains the headers you use, as well
as the ServletInputStream.
In the case of the later, the SOAPMessage has already been created by
the JAX-RPC
implementation in WLS :-)
HTH,
Mike Wooten
"David Karr" <[email protected]> wrote:
I'm building a web service intermediary, and I'm trying to make sure
I can handle
SOAP messages with attachments.
When I first saw the "MimeHeaders" parameter in "MessageFactory.createMessage(MimeHeaders,
InputStream)", I was a little befuddled. I figured this was related
to handling
attachments, but I find almost zero documentation on what I'm supposed
to be doing
here.
In my experiments, I tried sending a message with a simple "text/xml"
attachment.
I set the content type of the attachment when creating the attachment.
If my
"createMessage()" call passed "null" for the MimeHeaders parameter,then
the resulting
SOAPMessage ignored the MIME-ness of the message and just stored the
SOAP envelope.
If I instead create a MimeHeaders object and add a "Content-Type" header
of "text/xml",
and pass that object instead of "null" for the MimeHeaders parameter,
then it
appears to record the SOAP envelope along with the attachment. I'mguessing
the
"Content-Type" header that I added in the MimeHeaders object applies
to the main
body of the message, and not the attachment.
My main problem is that I tried that change with the MimeHeaders object
through
pure guesswork. I can't find anything in the BEA docs that gives me
a clue what
really should be done here.