Java Web Services in a Nutshell

Name

MessageContext

Synopsis

public interface MessageContext {
// Public Instance Methods
    public abstract boolean containsProperty( String name); 
    public abstract Object getProperty( String name); 
    public abstract Iterator getPropertyNames(  ); 
    public abstract void removeProperty( String name); 
    public abstract void setProperty(String name,  Object value);
}

A MessageContext object contains the state that accompanies a message as it traverses the pipeline from the sender to the network when being sent from the network to its eventual recipient for an inbound message. The MessageContext object is passed to the handleRequest( ), handleResponse( ), or handleFault( ) method of each handler in the handler chain on the message path (if there is one), depending on the message type and the direction in which it is moving. In addition, a service implementation that implements the javax.xml.rpc.server.ServiceLifecycle interface can access the MessageContext associated with the message that caused a service endpoint interface method to be invoked by calling the getMessageContext( ) method of the javax.xml.rpc.server.ServletEndpointContext object passed to its init( ) method.

The MessageContext interface is concerned only with providing a mechanism for information to be propagated along the message path. Since all message handlers in the chain receive a reference to the same MessageContext object during the processing of a single message, one handler can insert objects that another handler or the web ...