Java Web Services in a Nutshell

Name

SOAPHeader

Synopsis

public interface SOAPHeader extends SOAPElement {
// Public Instance Methods
    public abstract SOAPHeaderElement addHeaderElement Name name) 
        throws SOAPException; 
    public abstract Iterator examineHeaderElements(String actor); 
    public abstract Iterator extractHeaderElements(String actor); 
}

SOAPHeader is a subinterface of SOAPElement that acts as a container for SOAP message headers. A single SOAPHeader element is always found as the first element of the SOAPEnvelope within a SOAPMessage returned by the default MessageFactory provided by the SAAJ reference implementation. However, since the use of headers is optional, if it is not required, it may be removed by calling its detachNode( ) method:

SOAPMessage msg = factory.createMessage;
SOAPPart part = msg.getSOAPPart;
SOAPHeader header = part.getEnvelope.getHeader;
header.detachNode;

A SOAPHeader may contain any number of SOAP headers, which are represented by SOAPHeaderElements. The most direct way to add a header is to use the addHeaderElement( ) method, which requires a Name object as its argument. Other elements may be nested within the SOAPHeaderElement as required. The following code adds the header code BookHeader to a SOAP message:

SOAPHeader header = part.getEnvelope.getHeader;
SOAPHeaderElement e = header.addHeaderElement(
     factory.createName("BookHeader", "book", "urn:BookService"));

Alternatively, the addChildElement( ) methods that SOAPHeader inherits from SOAPElement can be used to achieve the same result. ...