Adding an attachment to SOAP request

Question

I am at a loose end as to how to add an attachment in my SOAP request. We have to consume a thrid party web service, built in java, which is the most convoluted thing I have

Answer 1

I think that you may have a couple of options:

1) Use MTOM. This appears to automatically wrap the outgoing message in MIME blocks.

2) Microsoft actually provides support for generating and reading XOP with mime through the XopDocument class, which is what SoapEnvelope inherits from.

The save method is SaveToXopPackage and the read method is LoadFromXopPackage.

However, I think that this approach may require you to perform the sending of the message yourself through an HttpWebRequest. This blog has an example of how to implement this. The downside is that this requires a lot of extra code and configuration in order to work correctly.

The ideal solution would be to intercept the code that performs the envelope transmission, but I have been unable to locate the correct location for this in the pipeline.

Answer 2

I am involved in exactly the same project and I have the same issues as discussed in this thread! I am using vb 2005 and WSE 3.0 enhancements and I got it working even it is a pain for now. When writing the content of the file directly in the File Property, the attachment will be accepted by the partner. In my case, this works for almost all transactions except PRA's. Here, the response is positive and an AttachmentID will be delivered but the attachment does not appear in the transaction.

Here is an example of the Attachment section:

                <gwm:Attachment>
                  <gwm:File>/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQEAYABgAAD/2wBDAAEBAQEBAQEBAQEBAQEBAQEBAQEBAQEBAQEBAQEBAQEBAQEBAQEBAQEBAQEBAQ...</gwm:File>
                  <gwm:Filename>intro2.jpg</gwm:Filename>
                </gwm:Attachment>

If I set RequireMtom for the Service to True, I'll get the following error:

Das Präfix '' kann nicht von '' in 'http://www.starstandards.org/webservices/2005/10/transport' innerhalb desselben Startelementtags neu definiert werden.

One the one hand, it works, on the other hand, I am not sure if it will be sent with XOP elements.

Answer 3

I'm 90% confident I'm working on the exact same project as you guys. That soap request is a little too familiar :-)

We've gotten most of the way there by switching over to WCF and basically hand-coding the request object (creating classes that match the soap format and then using xmlelement attributes to decorate it so that it looks like their soap request. The file itself is declared as a Byte() on the Attachment class and also decorated with the xmlelement).

Here's what the WCF contract and part of the data model look like. The actual data model has a bunch of extra classes (Application Area, Data Area, Job, etc) but this gives you enough of a sense of how it's structured. The important piece is the File as Byte(). Here it is in Vb.net...

Public Class WarrantyClaim
    <XmlElement(Order:=0)> Public OEMClaimNumber As String = ""
    <XmlElement(Order:=1, namespace:="http://www.gm.com/2006/GWM")> Public Attachment As New Attachment
End Class

Public Class Attachment
    <XmlElement(Order:=0)> Public File As Byte()
    <XmlElement(Order:=1)> Public Filename As String
End Class

<ServiceContract(XmlSerializerFormat()> _
Public Interface IService
    <OperationContract(action:="http://www.starstandards.org/webservices/2005/10/transport/operations/ProcessMessage/v1_01/ProcessAttachment")> _
    Sub ProcessMessage(ByVal payload As WarrantyClaim)
End Interface

Next you've got your WCF client, this is pretty much the same as all WCF clients.

Public Class GmgwClient
    Inherits System.ServiceModel.ClientBase(Of IService)
    Implements IService

    Public Sub New()
        MyBase.New()
    End Sub
    Public Sub New(ByVal configName As String)
        MyBase.New(configName)
    End Sub
    Public Sub New(ByVal binding As System.ServiceModel.Channels.Binding, ByVal remoteAddress As System.ServiceModel.EndpointAddress)
        MyBase.New(binding, remoteAddress)
    End Sub

    Public Sub ProcessMessage(ByVal payload As Payload) Implements IService.ProcessMessage
        MyBase.Channel.ProcessMessage(payload)
    End Sub
End Class

Finally you've got the app.config. Here's the magic because we're telling WCF to use Mtom to send the message. This will take the Byte() and strip it out into a seperate MIME section replacing it with an XOP:Include. Note that for now I'm just sending it through localhost so I can see the request using tcpTrace. You can google that app but it'll basically capture the request so we can see how it looks. I setup tcpTrace to listen on port 84.

<system.serviceModel>
  <bindings>
    <wsHttpBinding>
      <binding name="WsHttpMtomBinding" messageEncoding="Mtom">
        <security mode="None">
          <transport clientCredentialType="Basic" proxyCredentialType="None" realm="" />
        </security>
        <reliableSession enabled="false" />
      </binding>
    </wsHttpBinding>
  </bindings>
  <client>
    <endpoint address="http://localhost:84/ProcessMessage" binding="wsHttpBinding" bindingConfiguration="WsHttpMtomBinding" contract="MyAppNameSpace.IService" name="preprod"/>
  </client>
</system.serviceModel>

Finally, here's the actual call to the WCF client to make the request.

Dim x As New WarrantyClaim
x.OEmClaimNumber = "12345"
x.Attachment = New Attachment
x.Attachment.Filename = "sample.gif"
x.Attachment.File = IO.File.ReadAllBytes("C:\sample.gif")

Dim y As New GmgwClient("preprod")
y.ProcessMessage(x)

And here's the trace we got through tcpTrace. It's got the basic structure right and it's managed to pull the binary data out of the xml and place it in a seperate MIME section.

POST /ProcessMessage HTTP/1.1
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/related; type="application/xop+xml";start="<http://tempuri.org/0>";boundary="uuid:501aa27d-9dd1-4f8a-b56d-3fbf327e7be6+id=1";start-info="application/soap+xml"
VsDebuggerCausalityData: uIDPoysDMCv023ZIjK0Cpp504ooAAAAA//jfaCaohkab2Zx/EU7gpLZDcUldWtlGr1j4ZnrfKl4ACQAA
Host: localhost:84
Content-Length: 55125
Expect: 100-continue
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Connection: Keep-Alive


--uuid:501aa27d-9dd1-4f8a-b56d-3fbf327e7be6+id=1
Content-ID: <http://tempuri.org/0>
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Content-Type: application/xop+xml;charset=utf-8;type="application/soap+xml"

<s:Envelope xmlns:s="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope" xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/2005/08/addressing">
  <s:Header>
    <a:Action s:mustUnderstand="1">http://www.starstandards.org/webservices/2005/10/transport/operations/ProcessMessage/v1_01/ProcessAttachment</a:Action>
    <a:MessageID>urn:uuid:a85374e6-c8ca-4328-ad32-6e8b88a5ca59</a:MessageID>
    <a:ReplyTo>
      <a:Address>http://www.w3.org/2005/08/addressing/anonymous</a:Address>
    </a:ReplyTo>
    <a:To s:mustUnderstand="1">http://localhost:84/ProcessMessage</a:To>
  </s:Header>
  <s:Body xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
    <ProcessMessage xmlns="http://www.starstandards.org/webservices/2005/10/transport">
      <payload xsi:type="gwm:WarrantyClaimExtended">
        <OEMClaimNumber>12345</OEMClaimNumber>
        <Attachment xmlns="http://www.gm.com/2006/GWM">
          <File>
            <xop:Include href="cid:http%3A%2F%2Ftempuri.org%2F1%2F634618782531246992" xmlns:xop="http://www.w3.org/2004/08/xop/include"/>
          </File>
          <Filename>sample.gif</Filename>
        </Attachment>
      </payload>
    </ProcessMessage>
  </s:Body>
</s:Envelope>
--uuid:501aa27d-9dd1-4f8a-b56d-3fbf327e7be6+id=1
Content-ID: <http://tempuri.org/1/634618782531246992>
Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary
Content-Type: application/octet-stream

GIF89a<BinaryStuff>

Like I mentioned earlier - we've still got some issues. There are some tags missing from the Soap Header... but I think we'll be able to figure those out. The real problem is that the Content-ID is NOT in a format our partner can accept - they expect something like <1.a33c2d7e84634122705ebc71e53d95d4c2683d726ba54e14@apache.org> and .net is formatting them as http://tempuri.org/1/634618782531246992. This is causing their Web Service handler to crash because it doesn't know how to read escaped content-id's inside the soap message.

Answer 4

Ok so I got it to accept the data from the file in the <gwm:File> element. This is without using XOP, so the request now looks like:

<soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:wsa="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2004/08/addressing">  <soap:Header>  <payloadManifest xmlns="http://<examplePayload>">  <manifest contentID="Content0" namespaceURI="http://<exampleManifest>" element="ProcessRepairOrder" version="2.01" />  </payloadManifest>  <wsse:Security xmlns:wsse="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-secext-1.0.xsd"> <wsu:Timestamp xmlns:wsu="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-utility-1.0.xsd"> <wsu:Created>2011-12-19T15:25:13Z</wsu:Created>  <wsu:Expires>2011-12-19T15:30:00Z</wsu:Expires>  </wsu:Timestamp>  <wsse:UsernameToken><wsse:Username>username</wsse:Username><wsse:Password>password</wsse:Password></wsse:UsernameToken></wsse:Security></soap:Header><soap:Body><ProcessMessage xmlns="<examplePayload"><payload><content id="Content0">    <s:ProcessRepairOrder xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://example.xsd" xmlns:s="http://<exampleManifest>" xmlns:gwm="http://example"> 
    <s:ApplicationArea> 
        <s:Sender> 
            <s:Component>Test</s:Component> 
            <s:Task>ProcessAttachment</s:Task> 
            <s:CreatorNameCode>Test</s:CreatorNameCode> 
            <s:SenderNameCode>XX</s:SenderNameCode> 
            <s:DealerNumber>111111</s:DealerNumber> 
            <s:DealerCountry>GB</s:DealerCountry> 
        </s:Sender> 
        <s:CreationDateTime>2010-03-26T13:37:05Z</s:CreationDateTime> 
        <s:Destination> 
            <s:DestinationNameCode>GM</s:DestinationNameCode> 
            <s:DestinationURI/> 
            <s:DestinationSoftwareCode>GWM</s:DestinationSoftwareCode> 
        </s:Destination> 
    </s:ApplicationArea> 
    <s:DataArea xsi:type="gwm:DataAreaExtended"> 
        <s:Process/> 
        <s:RepairOrder> 
            <s:Header xsi:type="gwm:RepairOrderHeaderExtended"> 
                <s:DocumentId/> 
            </s:Header> 
            <s:Job xsi:type="gwm:JobExtended"> 
                <s:JobNumber/> 
                <s:OperationId>Test</s:OperationId> 
                <s:OperationName/> 
                <s:CodesAndComments/> 
                <s:Diagnostics/> 
                <s:WarrantyClaim xsi:type="gwm:WarrantyClaimExtended"> 
                    <s:OEMClaimNumber>00112233445566778899</s:OEMClaimNumber> 
                    <gwm:Attachment> 
                        <gwm:File>GIF89a@�</gwm:File> 
                        <gwm:Filename>test.gif</gwm:Filename> 
                    </gwm:Attachment> 
                </s:WarrantyClaim> 
                <s:LaborActualHours>0.0</s:LaborActualHours> 
                <s:Technician/> 
            </s:Job> 
        </s:RepairOrder> 
    </s:DataArea>  </s:ProcessRepairOrder>  </content></payload></ProcessMessage></soap:Body></soap:Envelope>

When passed into SoapUI this works perfectly, however in code it does give a response, but it throws an error saying Response is not well-formed XML. with an inner exception of WSE1608: No XOP parts were located in the stream for the specified content-id: <rootpart*36875c60-630c-4e23-9e74-f9a9c7547fc7@example.jaxws.sun.com>

I will be opening a new question regarding this as it is technically a different issue.

The other question can be found at Soap response, not well formed XML, no XOP parts located, using WSE

Answer 5

I was facing the same problem and the final solution I found was through HttpWebRequest. A sample code:

    public string ProcessAttachment(string fileInput)
    {
        HttpWebRequest req = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(Settings.Default.GWM_WS_WebReference_GWM);
        req.Headers.Add("SOAPAction", "\"http://www.starstandards.org/webservices/2005/10/transport/operations/ProcessMessage/v1_01/ProcessAttachment\"");
        req.Headers.Add("Accept-Encoding", "gzip,deflate");
        req.ContentType = "multipart/related; type=\"application/xop+xml\"; start=\"<rootpart@soapui.org>\"; start-info=\"text/xml\"; boundary=\"----=_Part_14_1350106.1324254402199\"";
        req.Method = "POST";
        req.UserAgent = "Jakarta Commons-HttpClient/3.1";
        req.Headers.Add("MIME-Version", "1.0");
        System.Net.ServicePointManager.Expect100Continue = false;
        Stream memStream = new System.IO.MemoryStream();
        FileStream fileStream = new FileStream(fileInput, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read);
        byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];
        int bytesRead = 0;
        while ((bytesRead = fileStream.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length)) != 0)
        {
            memStream.Write(buffer, 0, bytesRead);
        }
        fileStream.Close();
        Stream stm = req.GetRequestStream();
        memStream.Position = 0;
        byte[] tempBuffer = new byte[memStream.Length];
        memStream.Read(tempBuffer, 0, tempBuffer.Length);
        memStream.Close();
        stm.Write(tempBuffer, 0, tempBuffer.Length);
        stm.Close();
        HttpWebResponse resp = null;
        resp = (HttpWebResponse)req.GetResponse();
        stm = resp.GetResponseStream();
        StreamReader r = new StreamReader(stm);
        return r.ReadToEnd();            
    }

The parameter fileInput is the absolute path of the file that contains the SOAP Request containing also the raw binary data of the file to be attached at the end separated with MIME Boundary

Answer 6

As you say you got it working through SoapUI, I would think you can just ask SoapUI for the generated XML it sent so you know how it should look, then modify your code to mimic that.

UPDATE: after your comment and reading the other answers in more detail: the solution looks to me just sending bytes directly, using HttpWebRequest like in ktsiolis's answer. In detail:

• Create your SOAP XML (the example you gave), encode this to bytes in UTF8 (1)
• Create a string with the initial mimeboundary (the part in your "Before XML"), encode to bytes in UTF8 (2)
• Create the bytes for the second mimeboundary (the part in "after XML"). So create the string containing "--MIMEBOUNDARY" etc., encode to UTF8 bytes, and append all bytes of your test.gif file (3)
• Append all bytes in the order (2), (1) and (3) and send that across the wire.

Shouldn't this do the trick?