Messages with Attachments

A SOAP message may include one or more attachment parts in addition to the SOAP part. The SOAP part must contain only XML content; as a result, if any of the content of a message is not in XML format, it must occur in an attachment part. So if, for example, you want your message to contain a binary file, your message must have an attachment part for it. Note that an attachment part can contain any kind of content, so it can contain data in XML format as well. Figure 19–2 shows the high-level structure of a SOAP message that has two attachments.

Figure 19–2 SOAPMessage Object with Two AttachmentPart Objects

The SAAJ API provides the AttachmentPart class to represent an attachment part of a SOAP message. A SOAPMessage object automatically has a SOAPPart object and its required subelements, but because AttachmentPart objects are optional, you must create and add them yourself. The tutorial section walks you through creating and populating messages with and without attachment parts.

If a SOAPMessage object has one or more attachments, each AttachmentPart object must have a MIME header to indicate the type of data it contains. It may also have additional MIME headers to identify it or to give its location. These headers are optional but can be useful when there are multiple attachments. When a SOAPMessage object has one or more AttachmentPart objects, its SOAPPart object may or may not contain message content.