You can associate a SOAP message with one or more attachments in
their
native format (for example GIF or JPEG) by using a multipart MIME
structure
for transport. There are two main standards that define how to do
this:
- SOAP Messages with Attachments W3C Note. This
document
defines specific use of the Multipart/Related MIME media type, and
rules for
the use of URI references to refer to entities bundled within the
MIME package.
It outlines a technique for a SOAP 1.1 message to be carried within
a MIME
multipart/related message in such a way that the SOAP processing rules
for
a standard SOAP message are not changed.
- Web Services-Interoperability (WS-I)
Attachments
Profile Version 1.0. This profile compliments the WS-I Basic
Profile
1.1 to add support for conveying interoperable attachments with SOAP
messages.
There are two main parts to this profile:
- An introduction to
the XML Schema type swaref (SOAP with
attachments reference). This is used to define content within the
SOAP body
that refers to attachments within the message.
- A definition
of how a WSDL message part that is bound to a MIME attachment
is encoded into the SOAP message.
The service
integration bus supports both of these standards,
subject to the restrictions detailed in Limitations in the support for SOAP with attachments.