Pass SOAP messages with attachments through the Web services gateway

Note: This page applies to WAS Version 5.0.2 and later only.

The Web services gateway supports Web services that pass attachments in a MIME message. This support is included in the SOAP/HTTP channel.

Attachments are carried through the various gateway components and passed on to the target service. The content MIME type of each attachment is preserved.

When the Target service is deployed to a JAX-RPC compliant server, the attachments can be accessed on the target service using javax.activation.DataHandler.

The WSDL representing a SOAP messages with attachments service must define the attachment parts in the Binding section. The mime:multipartRelated, mime:part and mime:content tags are used to describe the attachment.

For more information, see the following topics:

• SOAP messages with attachments - a definition.
• Write the WSDL extensions for SOAP messages with attachments.

Note: The following scenarios are not supported:

• Use the Apache SOAP channel.
• Use DIME.
• Use the mime:mimeXml WSDL tag.
• Nesting a mime:multipartRelated inside a mime:part.
• Use Arrays or Vectors of DataHandlers, Images.

The MIME headers from the incoming message are not preserved for referenced attachments. The outgoing message contains new MIME headers for Content-Type, Content-Id and Content-Transfer-Encoding that are created by WSIF. For more information, see Enable Web services to use the Web Services Invocation Framework (WSIF).