Listeners

The SimpleJavaListener listener is provided for Axis web services and the amqwSOAPNETlistener listener for Microsoft .NET services. The term listener is used here in its standard WebServices sense: these listeners listen on request queues for WebSphere MQ messages and are completely distinct from the standard WebSphere MQ listener invoked by the runmqlsr command.

The SOAP/WebSphere MQ listeners pass SOAP messages as WebSphere MQ messages with a body consisting of a stream of bytes with no assumed structure. If the format is incorrect, the listener generates a report message.

The incoming messages must be encoded in UTF-8. Any response will also be written in UTF-8.

The listener performs a basic integrity check of the incoming request message. The following checks are made:

1. That the basic structure of the MQRFH2 is intact.

2. That all required MQRFH2 fields are present (for example soapAction).

3. That the format of the main body of the incoming message is MQFMT_NONE.

Both the Java and .NET SOAP/WebSphere MQ listeners generate a report message if a request message is badly formed or has an illegal format. This report message is processed according to the report options specified in the sender (see Report messages) and has the feedback code set as described in .

A SOAP/WebSphere MQ listener passes the endpointURL and soapAction fields in the MQRFH2 component of the message to the SOAP infrastructure to enable that infrastructure to correctly identify and call the target service. The listener does not validate these fields. They are automatically set in the supplied SOAP/WebSphere MQ senders.

The listener invokes the service through the Web Services infrastructure and waits for the response. The listener processes the response message as follows:

1. The SOAP/WebSphere MQ listener sets the correlation ID in the response message according to the report option in the request message. See WebSphere MQ Application Programming Reference for details of report options.

2. The listener passes back the same Expiry, Persistence, and Priority settings in the response message as were specified in the request message.

3. The listener also sends report messages back to clients in some circumstances. See Report messages for more information about report messages.

We can configure the SOAP/WebSphere MQ listeners to be started as WebSphere MQ services in the supplied deployment utility by using the -s option. See The deployment utility for details.

We can vary the behavior of a SOAP/WebSphere MQ listener by setting various parameters, which are described in Listeners.