Chapter 12. Sending Attachments with Web Services

Sending Attachments with Web Services

One of the earliest criticisms of XML and therefore Web services is in the area of transmitting noncharacter data. The idea of converting everything into characters is not considered practical for certain types of data such as photographs and executable code.

Because an XML document is transmitted as a set of characters, other types of binary data—such as images, audio files, or compiled programs (like Java class files)—are problematic.

The solution to this problem is to send these files as attachments to a SOAP message. This hour explains the different ways in which this can be done.

In this ...

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