Module jakarta.xml.soap
Package jakarta.xml.soap

Class SOAPMessage

java.lang.Object
jakarta.xml.soap.SOAPMessage
public abstract class SOAPMessage extends Object
The root class for all SOAP messages. As transmitted on the "wire", a SOAP message is an XML document or a MIME message whose first body part is an XML/SOAP document.

A SOAPMessage object consists of a SOAP part and optionally one or more attachment parts. The SOAP part for a SOAPMessage object is a SOAPPart object, which contains information used for message routing and identification, and which can contain application-specific content. All data in the SOAP Part of a message must be in XML format.

A new SOAPMessage object contains the following by default:

  • A SOAPPart object
  • A SOAPEnvelope object
  • A SOAPBody object
  • A SOAPHeader object
The SOAP part of a message can be retrieved by calling the method SOAPMessage.getSOAPPart(). The SOAPEnvelope object is retrieved from the SOAPPart object, and the SOAPEnvelope object is used to retrieve the SOAPBody and SOAPHeader objects. 

     SOAPPart sp = message.getSOAPPart();
     SOAPEnvelope se = sp.getEnvelope();
     SOAPBody sb = se.getBody();
     SOAPHeader sh = se.getHeader();

In addition to the mandatory SOAPPart object, a SOAPMessage object may contain zero or more AttachmentPart objects, each of which contains application-specific data. The SOAPMessage interface provides methods for creating AttachmentPart objects and also for adding them to a SOAPMessage object. A party that has received a SOAPMessage object can examine its contents by retrieving individual attachment parts.

Unlike the rest of a SOAP message, an attachment is not required to be in XML format and can therefore be anything from simple text to an image file. Consequently, any message content that is not in XML format must be in an AttachmentPart object.

A MessageFactory object may create SOAPMessage objects with behavior that is specialized to a particular implementation or application of SAAJ. For instance, a MessageFactory object may produce SOAPMessage objects that conform to a particular Profile such as ebXML. In this case a MessageFactory object might produce SOAPMessage objects that are initialized with ebXML headers.

In order to ensure backward source compatibility, methods that are added to this class after version 1.1 of the SAAJ specification are all concrete instead of abstract and they all have default implementations. Unless otherwise noted in the JavaDocs for those methods the default implementations simply throw an UnsupportedOperationException and the SAAJ implementation code must override them with methods that provide the specified behavior. Legacy client code does not have this restriction, however, so long as there is no claim made that it conforms to some later version of the specification than it was originally written for. A legacy class that extends the SOAPMessage class can be compiled and/or run against succeeding versions of the SAAJ API without modification. If such a class was correctly implemented then it will continue to behave correctly relative to the version of the specification against which it was written.

Since:
1.6
See Also:

  • Field Details

    • CHARACTER_SET_ENCODING

      public static final String CHARACTER_SET_ENCODING
      Specifies the character type encoding for the SOAP Message. Valid values include "utf-8" and "utf-16". See vendor documentation for additional supported values. The default is "utf-8".
      Since:
      1.6, SAAJ 1.2
      See Also:

    • WRITE_XML_DECLARATION

      public static final String WRITE_XML_DECLARATION
      Specifies whether the SOAP Message will contain an XML declaration when it is sent. The only valid values are "true" and "false". The default is "false".
      Since:
      1.6, SAAJ 1.2
      See Also:

  • Constructor Details

    • SOAPMessage

      protected SOAPMessage()
      Default constructor.

  • Method Details

    • setContentDescription

      public abstract void setContentDescription(String description)
      Sets the description of this SOAPMessage object's content with the given description.
      Parameters:
      description - a String describing the content of this message
      See Also:

    • getContentDescription

      public abstract String getContentDescription()
      Retrieves a description of this SOAPMessage object's content.
      Returns:
      a String describing the content of this message or null if no description has been set
      See Also:

    • getSOAPPart

      public abstract SOAPPart getSOAPPart()
      Gets the SOAP part of this SOAPMessage object.

      SOAPMessage object contains one or more attachments, the SOAP Part must be the first MIME body part in the message.

      Returns:
      the SOAPPart object for this SOAPMessage object

    • getSOAPBody

      public SOAPBody getSOAPBody() throws SOAPException
      Gets the SOAP Body contained in this SOAPMessage object.
      Returns:
      the SOAPBody object contained by this SOAPMessage object
      Throws:
      SOAPException - if the SOAP Body does not exist or cannot be retrieved
      Since:
      1.6, SAAJ 1.2

    • getSOAPHeader

      public SOAPHeader getSOAPHeader() throws SOAPException
      Gets the SOAP Header contained in this SOAPMessage object.
      Returns:
      the SOAPHeader object contained by this SOAPMessage object
      Throws:
      SOAPException - if the SOAP Header does not exist or cannot be retrieved
      Since:
      1.6, SAAJ 1.2

    • removeAllAttachments

      public abstract void removeAllAttachments()
      Removes all AttachmentPart objects that have been added to this SOAPMessage object.

      This method does not touch the SOAP part.

    • countAttachments

      public abstract int countAttachments()
      Gets a count of the number of attachments in this message. This count does not include the SOAP part.
      Returns:
      the number of AttachmentPart objects that are part of this SOAPMessage object

    • getAttachments

      public abstract Iterator<AttachmentPart> getAttachments()
      Retrieves all the AttachmentPart objects that are part of this SOAPMessage object.
      Returns:
      an iterator over all the attachments in this message

    • getAttachments

      public abstract Iterator<AttachmentPart> getAttachments(MimeHeaders headers)
      Retrieves all the AttachmentPart objects that have header entries that match the specified headers. Note that a returned attachment could have headers in addition to those specified.
      Parameters:
      headers - a MimeHeaders object containing the MIME headers for which to search
      Returns:
      an iterator over all attachments that have a header that matches one of the given headers

    • removeAttachments

      public abstract void removeAttachments(MimeHeaders headers)
      Removes all the AttachmentPart objects that have header entries that match the specified headers. Note that the removed attachment could have headers in addition to those specified.
      Parameters:
      headers - a MimeHeaders object containing the MIME headers for which to search
      Since:
      1.6, SAAJ 1.3

    • getAttachment

      public abstract AttachmentPart getAttachment(SOAPElement element) throws SOAPException
      Returns an AttachmentPart object that is associated with an attachment that is referenced by this SOAPElement or null if no such attachment exists. References can be made via an href attribute as described in SOAP Messages with Attachments, or via a single Text child node containing a URI as described in the WS-I Attachments Profile 1.0 for elements of schema type ref:swaRef. These two mechanisms must be supported. The support for references via href attribute also implies that this method should also be supported on an element that is an xop:Include element ( XOP). other reference mechanisms may be supported by individual implementations of this standard. Contact your vendor for details.
      Parameters:
      element - The SOAPElement containing the reference to an Attachment
      Returns:
      the referenced AttachmentPart or null if no such AttachmentPart exists or no reference can be found in this SOAPElement.
      Throws:
      SOAPException - if there is an error in the attempt to access the attachment
      Since:
      1.6, SAAJ 1.3

    • addAttachmentPart

      public abstract void addAttachmentPart(AttachmentPart attachmentPart)
      Adds the given AttachmentPart object to this SOAPMessage object. An AttachmentPart object must be created before it can be added to a message.
      Parameters:
      attachmentPart - an attachmentPart object that is to become part of this SOAPMessage object
      Throws:
      IllegalArgumentException - if there was a problem with the specified attachmentPart object

    • createAttachmentPart

      public abstract AttachmentPart createAttachmentPart()
      Creates a new empty AttachmentPart object. Note that the method addAttachmentPart must be called with this new AttachmentPart object as the parameter in order for it to become an attachment to this SOAPMessage object.
      Returns:
      a new AttachmentPart object that can be populated and added to this SOAPMessage object

    • createAttachmentPart

      public AttachmentPart createAttachmentPart(jakarta.activation.DataHandler dataHandler)
      Creates an AttachmentPart object and populates it using the given DataHandler object.
      Parameters:
      dataHandler - the jakarta.activation.DataHandler object that will generate the content for this SOAPMessage object
      Returns:
      a new AttachmentPart object that contains data generated by the given DataHandler object
      Throws:
      IllegalArgumentException - if there was a problem with the specified DataHandler object
      See Also:
      • DataHandler
      • DataContentHandler

    • getMimeHeaders

      public abstract MimeHeaders getMimeHeaders()
      Returns all the transport-specific MIME headers for this SOAPMessage object in a transport-independent fashion.
      Returns:
      a MimeHeaders object containing the MimeHeader objects

    • createAttachmentPart

      public AttachmentPart createAttachmentPart(Object content, String contentType)
      Creates an AttachmentPart object and populates it with the specified data of the specified content type. The type of the Object should correspond to the value given for the Content-Type.
      Parameters:
      content - an Object containing the content for the AttachmentPart object to be created
      contentType - a String object giving the type of content; examples are "text/xml", "text/plain", and "image/jpeg"
      Returns:
      a new AttachmentPart object that contains the given data
      Throws:
      IllegalArgumentException - may be thrown if the contentType does not match the type of the content object, or if there was no DataContentHandler object for the given content object
      See Also:
      • DataHandler
      • DataContentHandler

    • saveChanges

      public abstract void saveChanges() throws SOAPException
      Updates this SOAPMessage object with all the changes that have been made to it. This method is called automatically when writeTo(OutputStream) is called. However, if changes are made to a message that was received or to one that has already been sent, the method saveChanges needs to be called explicitly in order to save the changes. The method saveChanges also generates any changes that can be read back (for example, a MessageId in profiles that support a message id). All MIME headers in a message that is created for sending purposes are guaranteed to have valid values only after saveChanges has been called.

      In addition, this method marks the point at which the data from all constituent AttachmentPart objects are pulled into the message.

      Throws:
      SOAPException - if there was a problem saving changes to this message.

    • saveRequired

      public abstract boolean saveRequired()
      Indicates whether this SOAPMessage object needs to have the method saveChanges called on it.
      Returns:
      true if saveChanges needs to be called; false otherwise.

    • writeTo

      public abstract void writeTo(OutputStream out) throws SOAPException, IOException
      Writes this SOAPMessage object to the given output stream. The externalization format is as defined by the SOAP 1.1 with Attachments specification.

      If there are no attachments, just an XML stream is written out. For those messages that have attachments, writeTo writes a MIME-encoded byte stream.

      Note that this method does not write the transport-specific MIME Headers of the Message

      Parameters:
      out - the OutputStream object to which this SOAPMessage object will be written
      Throws:
      IOException - if an I/O error occurs
      SOAPException - if there was a problem in externalizing this SOAP message

    • setProperty

      public void setProperty(String property, Object value) throws SOAPException
      Associates the specified value with the specified property. If there was already a value associated with this property, the old value is replaced.

      The valid property names include WRITE_XML_DECLARATION and CHARACTER_SET_ENCODING. All of these standard SAAJ properties are prefixed by "jakarta.xml.soap". Vendors may also add implementation specific properties. These properties must be prefixed with package names that are unique to the vendor.

      Setting the property WRITE_XML_DECLARATION to "true" will cause an XML Declaration to be written out at the start of the SOAP message. The default value of "false" suppresses this declaration.

      The property CHARACTER_SET_ENCODING defaults to the value "utf-8" which causes the SOAP message to be encoded using UTF-8. Setting CHARACTER_SET_ENCODING to "utf-16" causes the SOAP message to be encoded using UTF-16.

      Some implementations may allow encodings in addition to UTF-8 and UTF-16. Refer to your vendor's documentation for details.

      Parameters:
      property - the property with which the specified value is to be associated.
      value - the value to be associated with the specified property
      Throws:
      SOAPException - if the property name is not recognized.
      Since:
      1.6, SAAJ 1.2

    • getProperty

      public Object getProperty(String property) throws SOAPException
      Retrieves value of the specified property.
      Parameters:
      property - the name of the property to retrieve
      Returns:
      the value associated with the named property or null if no such property exists.
      Throws:
      SOAPException - if the property name is not recognized.
      Since:
      1.6, SAAJ 1.2