Don't Use xml* as namespace Prefix

SOAP Web Service Tutorials - Herong's Tutorial Examples

∟SAAJ - SOAP with Attachments API for Java

∟Don't Use xml* as namespace Prefix

This section provides a tutorial example on how to create the body element and sub elements with your own namespaces and namespace prefixes. SAAJ does not support xml* as namespace prefix for your body element.

While trying to populate the SOAP body with the "GetSpeech" request elements, I noticed the following very interesting issue with SAAJ 1.3.4.

If you use "xml" as initial characters for the namespace prefix for your SOAPBodyElement object, the namespace declaration will not be included in the final SOAP XML message.

To demonstrate this issue, I wrote this testing program:

/**
 * SOAPBodyElementNamespace.java
 * Copyright (c) 2009 by Dr. Herong Yang, herongyang.com
 * All rights reserved
 */
import java.io.*;
import javax.xml.soap.*;
public class SOAPBodyElementNamespace {
   public static void main(String[] args) {
      PrintStream out = System.out;
      try {
         String prefix = "xmlme";
         String uri = "http://xmlme.com/WebServices";
         SOAPMessage reqMsg = generateMsg(prefix, uri);
         out.println("\n\n");
         out.println("Test 1: "+prefix+"="+uri);
         reqMsg.writeTo(out);

         prefix = "tns";
         uri = "http://xmlme.com/WebServices";
         reqMsg = generateMsg(prefix, uri);
         out.println("\n\n");
         out.println("Test 2: "+prefix+"="+uri);
         reqMsg.writeTo(out);

         prefix = "xmlAnything";
         uri = "http://xmlme.com/WebServices";
         reqMsg = generateMsg(prefix, uri);
         out.println("\n\n");
         out.println("Test 3: "+prefix+"="+uri);
         reqMsg.writeTo(out);
      } catch (Exception e) {
         e.printStackTrace();
      }
   }
   public static SOAPMessage generateMsg(String prefix, String uri)
      throws Exception {
      SOAPMessage reqMsg
         = MessageFactory.newInstance().createMessage();
      SOAPEnvelope envelope = reqMsg.getSOAPPart().getEnvelope();
      SOAPBody body = envelope.getBody();
      SOAPBodyElement service = body.addBodyElement(
         envelope.createName("GetSpeech", prefix, uri));
      SOAPElement param = service.addChildElement(
         envelope.createName("Request", prefix, uri));
      param.addTextNode("To be, or not to be");
      return reqMsg;
   }
}

Here is the execution result:

Test 1: xmlme=http://xmlme.com/WebServices
<SOAP-ENV:Envelope
  xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
  <SOAP-ENV:Header/>
  <SOAP-ENV:Body>
    <xmlme:GetSpeech>
      <xmlme:Request>To be, or not tobe</xmlme:Request>
    </xmlme:GetSpeech>
  </SOAP-ENV:Body>
</SOAP-ENV:Envelope>

Test 2: tns=http://xmlme.com/WebServices
<SOAP-ENV:Envelope
  xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
  <SOAP-ENV:Header/>
  <SOAP-ENV:Body>
    <tns:GetSpeech xmlns:tns="http://xmlme.com/WebServices">
      <tns:Request>To be, or not to be</tns:Request>
    </tns:GetSpeech>
  </SOAP-ENV:Body>
</SOAP-ENV:Envelope>

Test 3: xmlAnything=http://xmlme.com/WebServices
<SOAP-ENV:Envelope
  xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
  <SOAP-ENV:Header/>
  <SOAP-ENV:Body>
    <xmlAnything:GetSpeech>
      <xmlAnything:Request>To be, or not to be</xmlAnything:Request>
    </xmlAnything:GetSpeech>
  </SOAP-ENV:Body>
</SOAP-ENV:Envelope>

My conclusions are:

Never use "xml*" as namespace prefixes for your own elements. SAAJ will not generate the namespace declaration for you. This sounds like a bug to me.
If you want your sub elements to use the same namespace, you need to use envelope.createName() repeatedly for all your elements. This sounds unnecessary. But I can not find an easier way to do this.
If the sub elements share the same namespace as the parent element, SAAJ does only generate the namespace declaration in the parent element.

Last update: 2009.

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