Java Reference
In-Depth Information
Table12-1.Message information headers
Header
Description
wsa:MessageID
Uniquely identifies a message in an exchange. It is optional unless
wsa:ReplyTo
or
wsa:FaultTo
is used.
wsa:RelatesTo
Indicates a relationship type using the message ID. If the message is a response, this prop-
erty indicates the ID of the request message that this response relates to. Optional unless
this message is a response.
The endpoint that a reply should be sent to. Must use message ID. If not specified, imple-
mentations generally reply to the originating endpoint.
wsa:ReplyTo
The source endpoint reference where this message came from.
wsa:From
The endpoint reference to which fault responses should be sent. If not specified, imple-
mentations will generally send the fault response to the originating endpoint.
wsa:FaultTo
The destination for this message.
wsa:To
A URI that uniquely identifies the semantics for this message, indicating, for example,
what operation should be invoked on each request. In addition to the SOAP header, this
will commonly add an HTTP header indicating the
SOAP Action
value.
wsa:Action
Anonymous addressing
While most of the elements in Addressing are devoted to finding the proper endpoint and de-
fining it carefully and uniquely, the spec also defines something called an anonymous end-
point. Within a SOAP interaction, this basically is used to indicate that no specific endpoint
with a stable, resolvable URI, has been set. The Addressing runtime will then take over and
insert this anonymous address, which is stable and well known, into the headers.
It looks like this:
<To xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/08/addressing">
http://www.w3.org/2005/08/addressing/anonymous
</To>
This is not something that you write yourself, but rather something you are likely to see in
your messages as the result of using a regular Java client to access your service, and the client
does not define an endpoint address of its own. In more complex exchanges, the anonymous
address is useful given the range of network appliances that may receive your message as in-
termediary nodes and need to forward it on. Items such as firewalls or DHCP have no mech-
anism by which to process a meaningful endpoint address. The anonymous address satisfies
both of these cases.
