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Handling Attachments in Apache Axis 1.1 in MIME encoded format
Introduction
This document is the detailed design specification for support of attachments in Web services. Here
the Client will send N number of files as attachments to the Server, by just calling the Web service,
which is already deployed.
Scope
The scope of this document include:
1) Changes needed at the client and server side to handle attachments.
2) Adding attachments to the SOAPMessage in MIME encoded format at the client end.
3) Setting the Filenames in the Header of the SOAPMessage at the client end.
4) Retrieving the attachments at the Server side and saving it onto the file system.
It does NOT include the handling of attachments in INLINE form where the attachments are send
as a part of the SOAPBody. Here we deal with sending attachments as multiparts which follow the
SOAPBody in a MIME encoded SOAPMessage.
Assumptions

The Web service is already deployed and client is also ready.
Note: Please add activation.jar and mail.jar to the classpath
Design
1) Client Side
A DataHandler (javax.activation.DataHandler) object is instantiated to add the File that is to be
send as attachment.
DataHandler dHandler = new DataHandler (new FileDataSource ("abc.txt"));
Now we have a datahandler that contains the attachment file. Create an object of Client stub
and set its property as shown below.
TestService service = new TestServiceLocator ();
TestSoapBindingStub stub = new TestSoapBindingStub (url, service);
This method call will the set the property ATTACHMENT_ENCAPSULATION_FORMAT with
ATTACHMENT_ENCAPSULATION_FORMAT_MIME. It means that the call to the webservice
method is accompanied by an attachment in MIME encoded format.
stub._setProperty(Call.ATTACHMENT_ENCAPSULATION_FORMAT,Call.ATTACHMENT_
ENCAPSULATION_FORMAT_MIME);
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Now add the attachment to the stub object. This line of code adds the DataHandler object to
the stub now the SOAPMessage generated will have a part, which contain the attachment file.
stub.addAttachment(dHandler);
Note: One can set the filenames of the attached files in the Header of the
SOAPMessage by the below mentioned code. This is useful when you need to save
the file at the server side in the same name, as it is send.
stub.setHeader("Header","fileName1",dHandler.getDataSource().getName());
Call the web service method by using the Stub.
stub.webserviceMethod(Param1,param2,..paramN);
2) Server Side
At the server side the method should extract the attachments and store it to the file system.
The attachment that is send is in MIME encoded format and the each of them have different
Content Types like “text/plain”, “text/xml”,”image/gif”,”image/jpeg”,”application/octet-stream”
etc.
To retrieve the attachment from the SOAPMessage we need to have the SOAPMessage and
here the type of SOAPMessage is Request Message. A Request Message can be obtained at the
server side by instantiating the current MessageContext and getting the Request message
from the MessageContext.
MessageContext msgContext = MessageContext.getCurrentContext();
Message reqMsg = msgContext.getRequestMessage();
Then you can get the attachments from the request message on to an Iterator.
Attachments messageAttachments = reqMsg.getAttachmentsImpl();
Iterator itrAttachs = messageAttachments.getAttachments().iterator();
Now retrieve each attachment part from the set of attachments in the iterator by iterating
through.
AttachmentPart attachment = (AttachmentPart) itrAttachs.next();
This attachment object will contain the content of each file attached. We need to know the
content type of the attachment since the content of attachment will be of different types and
the method getContent() of Class AttachmentPart returns different objects according to the
ContentType.
Eg: - It returns InputStream when ContentType is “application/octet-stream” and String
when it is “text/plain”.
So find the ContentType and get the content accordingly and write to the file system
accordingly.
String type = attachment.getContentType();
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Object obj= attachment.getContent();
Sample SOAPMessage
This message contains the original SOAPBody along with two attachment files in Parts.
------=_Part_0_5683514.1085485078845
Content-Type: text/xml; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary
Content-Id: <4CF680E9FCA3B7E4444DAC3A6AEE5159>
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"
xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<soapenv:Header>
<ns1:fileName1 soapenv:mustUnderstand="0" xsi:type="xsd:string"
xmlns:ns1="Header">space.txt</ns1:fileName1>
<ns2:fileName2 soapenv:mustUnderstand="0" xsi:type="xsd:string"
xmlns:ns2="Header">dhanush.txt</ns2:fileName2>
</soapenv:Header>
<soapenv:Body>
<ns3:putMessage soapenv:encodingStyle="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/"
xmlns:ns3="urn:webservices.oexgateway.bt.com">
<in0 href="#id0"/>
</ns3:putMessage>
<multiRef id="id0" soapenc:root="0"
soapenv:encodingStyle="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/" xsi:type="ns4:OAGMessage"
xmlns:soapenc="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/"
xmlns:ns4="urn:webservices.oexgateway.bt.com">
<aqMessageID xsi:type="xsd:string" xsi:nil="true"/>
<docRefNum xsi:type="xsd:string" xsi:nil="true"/>
<documentID xsi:type="xsd:string" xsi:nil="true"/>
<messagePayload xsi:type="xsd:string" xsi:nil="true"/>
<messageStatus xsi:type="xsd:int">0</messageStatus>
<oagDocType xsi:type="ns4:OAGDocType" xsi:nil="true"/>
<partySiteID xsi:type="xsd:string" xsi:nil="true"/>
<recipientID xsi:type="xsd:string" xsi:nil="true"/>
<senderID xsi:type="xsd:string" xsi:nil="true"/>
</multiRef>
</soapenv:Body>
</soapenv:Envelope>
------=_Part_0_5683514.1085485078845
Content-Type: text/plain
Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary
Content-Id: <EBC9779B02118302509F3FCE8A18849B>
dsgfdsfdgfdgfds
fdgdfgfdgsdf
dfgdfgsdfgfds
fhgsdfgfdgf
Hello all how r u guys ??
This is a text file send from AXIS thru attchs
------=_Part_0_5683514.1085485078845
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Content-Type: text/plain
Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary
Content-Id: <6315E58F0CE8C80D03CD8D2968F00BF4>
package org.bt.oexgateway.webservices;
import
import
import
import
import
import
import
org.apache.axis.AxisFault;
org.apache.axis.Message;
org.apache.axis.MessageContext;
org.apache.axis.encoding.Base64;
org.apache.axis.handlers.BasicHandler;
org.apache.axis.message.MessageElement;
org.apache.axis.utils.JavaUtils;
import
import
import
import
org.apache.axis.message.SOAPEnvelope;
org.apache.axis.utils.XMLUtils;
java.io.*;
javax.naming.InitialContext;
public class AttachmentHandler extends BasicHandler
{
public void invoke(MessageContext msgContext) throws AxisFault
{
Message reqMsg = msgContext.getRequestMessage();
Message respMsg = msgContext.getResponseMessage();
Attachments messageAttachments = reqMsg.getAttachmentsImpl();
int attachmentCount= messageAttachments.getAttachmentCount();
AttachmentPart attachments[] = new AttachmentPart[attachmentCount];
Iterator it = messageAttachments.getAttachments().iterator();
int count = 0;
while (it.hasNext())
{
AttachmentPart part = (AttachmentPart) it.next();
attachments[count++] = part;
}
try
{
respMsg.writeTo(new
FileOutputStream("D:\\mime_ws\\attachs\\soaprespMesg.txt"));
reqMsg.writeTo(new
FileOutputStream("D:\\mime_ws\\attachs\\soapreqMesg.txt"));
}
catch(Exception e)
{
System.out.println("Exception in Writing Soap Message "+ e);
}
}
}
------=_Part_0_5683514.1085485078845—
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Reference:
Attached document in http://www.mail-archive.com/axis-user@xml.apache.org/msg08732.html
Document Name: Fear of Attachments.pdf
By: Steve Loughran
Quote
“There is no WSDL. Or to be precise, attachments aren’t in the signature that WSDL knows about”
- Steve Loughran
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