Java: Is there a way to change the received HTTP response headers?

Question

I am using the JAX-WS-created client (using wsimport, the one associated with Glassfish 2.1.1) to connect to the created ASP.NET WebService running in IIS 6.
When I request compression in the response (by including the Accept-Encoding: gzip HTTP header through the JAX-WS SOAP Handlers), IIS 6 responds with a compressed response, but does not include the Content -Encoding: gzip HTTP response, so I get the following exception:

com.sun.xml.ws.protocol.soap.MessageCreationException: Couldn't create SOAP message due to exception: XML reader error: com.sun.xml.stream.XMLStreamException2: ParseError at [row,col]:[1,1] Message: Content is not allowed in prolog. at com.sun.xml.ws.encoding.SOAPBindingCodec.decode(SOAPBindingCodec.java:361) at com.sun.xml.ws.transport.http.client.HttpTransportPipe.process(HttpTransportPipe.java:173) at com.sun.xml.xwss.XWSSClientPipe.process(XWSSClientPipe.java:160) at com.sun.xml.ws.api.pipe.helper.PipeAdapter.processRequest(PipeAdapter.java:115) at com.sun.xml.ws.api.pipe.Fiber.__doRun(Fiber.java:595) at com.sun.xml.ws.api.pipe.Fiber._doRun(Fiber.java:554) at com.sun.xml.ws.api.pipe.Fiber.doRun(Fiber.java:539) at com.sun.xml.ws.api.pipe.Fiber.runSync(Fiber.java:436) at com.sun.xml.ws.client.Stub.process(Stub.java:248) at com.sun.xml.ws.client.sei.SEIStub.doProcess(SEIStub.java:135) at com.sun.xml.ws.client.sei.SyncMethodHandler.invoke(SyncMethodHandler.java:109) at com.sun.xml.ws.client.sei.SyncMethodHandler.invoke(SyncMethodHandler.java:89) at com.sun.xml.ws.client.sei.SEIStub.invoke(SEIStub.java:118) 

Edited April 17, 2011

I also tried using the same SOAPHandler I use a compressed response to request to change the response Header, but an exception occurs before the handler is called.

End Edit April 17, 2011

In addition, when I make the same request in WebService through soapUI 3.6.1 using the “Accept Compressed Responses from Hosts” option, I can see what I said: IIS 6 server does not include the HTTP response header for compression, and soapUI shows the response as "binary data" and shows these response headers:

 HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2011 08:50:55 GMT Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0 X-Powered-By: ASP.NET X-AspNet-Version: 2.0.50727 Cache-Control: private, max-age=0 Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8 Content-Length: 1104 

If -with soapUI- I do not request a compressed response, I get the following response size:

 Content-Length: 2665 

So the question here, as I said, is that IIS6 does not add the Contend-Encoding header to the response. My question is: is it possible to - program - add a Content-Encoding header? Or it could also be: is it possible to request IIS6 to include the Content-Encoding header?

UPDATE
Using Charles Web Debugging Proxy 3.5.2 I confirmed that the response from IIS6 does not include the Content-Encoding header:

 HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date Wed, 13 Apr 2011 10:51:53 GMT Server Microsoft-IIS/6.0 X-Powered-By ASP.NET X-AspNet-Version 2.0.50727 Cache-Control private, max-age=0 Content-Type text/xml; charset=utf-8 Content-Length 1110 

I assume this may be a problem more related to WebService than to IIS 6

Answer 1

Basically you need two components. First you have to create a filter and add it to web.xml as follows:

 <filter> <filter-name>yourFilter</filter-name> <filter-class>yourFilterClassWhichAddsTheCorrectHeader</filter-class> </filter> <filter-mapping> <filter-name>yourFilter</filter-name> <url-pattern>theServletUrlMappedToJaxWS</url-pattern> </filter-mapping> 

You may then need to create a response wrapper in which you add the missing header.

In fact, you may not need a shell at all, just set the missing header directly to the filter that you configured in web.xml

Hope this helps ...

Answer 2

The JAX-WS workaround is an attempt to put a handler in the client input chain. The handler will access the servlet context, get the request object, look at the payload, and if it starts with a specific GZ sequence, add the HTTP header to the list of existing ones.

Disadvantages: may not work. I expect the list of HTTP headers to be an immutable collection. In addition, content analysis (and failure) may occur before the first handler receives control.

(I had another suggestion here - use an HTTP filter, but then I realized that JAX-WS is a client and does not use web.xml).

Answer 3

Have you tried adding

Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate

to request a header?

Is this related to this error? (while ur doesn't use IE, it may be useful)

Internet Explorer loses the first 2048 bytes of data sent by web servers using HTTP compression

Answer 4

I'm not too sure how you customer process the response. However, if you can intercept the HttpResponse program file, you can try something similar to using a servlet filter to wrap the HttpResponse and increase the headers.

 public class HttpReponseWrapper extends HttpReponse { HttpResponse reponse; public HttpResponseWrapper(HttpResponse response) { this.response = response; } public String getContentEncoding() { return "Content-Encoding=gzip"; } }