Java Web Services in a Nutshell

Name

SOAPConnection

Synopsis

public abstract class SOAPConnection {
// Public Constructors
    public SOAPConnection(  ); 
// Public Instance Methods
    public abstract SOAPMessage call(SOAPMessage request, Object to)
    throws SOAPException; 
    public abstract void close(  ) throws SOAPException; 
}

SOAPConnection is an object that can be used to send SOAP messages. Despite its name, it does not represent a connection in the traditional sense, since it does not have a fixed association with a peer object. Instead, it is better thought of as an access point that can be used to send any number of individually addressed SOAP messages to arbitrary receivers.

To obtain a SOAPConnection, you need to use a SOAPConnectionFactory:

SOAPConnectionFactory factory = SOAPConnectionFactory.newInstance;
SOAPConnection conn = factory.createConnection;

Both SOAPConnectionFactory and SOAPConnection are abstract classes, concrete instances of which are provided by your SAAJ implementation. The fact that the SOAPConnectionFactory newInstance( ) method searches for a suitable implementation class (as described in its reference section in this chapter) means that you can plug in different SAAJ implementations without changing your application code. When a SOAPConnection is no longer required, it should be released by calling its close( ) method.

The call( ) method takes a SOAPMessage object, serializes it into XML, and sends it to the destination given by its to argument. This argument is declared to be of type Object, which ...