Question

In cases where a given SOAP header element has a given value (for example, if the value of the header tag “response” is “0”), I don’t want Apache CXF to return a response at all.

How can I do this? It appears that CXF makes the assumption that all calls will receive a response.

(I know this seems strange in a web services context, but if your transport is JMS, it seems less strange).

Answer 1

I’ve been able to do this with an interceptor that aborts the interceptor chain.

I’ve tested this with an HTTP config (WebSphere returns an empty 200) and an ActiveMQ config (no response comes back to the response queue).

package my.super.interceptor;

public final class Suppressor extends AbstractSoapInterceptor {

   public Suppressor() { super(Phase.SETUP); }

   @Override
   public void handleMessage(final SoapMessage message) throws Fault        
   {                       

     final boolean suppressResponse = this.suppressResponse(message);

     if(suppressResponse) {
         log.debug("-> Suppressing response");
         message.getInterceptorChain().abort();
     }

   //if you want to suppress both responses and faults, you need
   //to check them separately. 
   //Change this code to check headers for whatever criteria you want
   //(Note you may need to change the super(Phase...) )
   //The code's a bit messy here - just sketching out the idea for the answer
   private boolean suppressResponse(final Message message) {            
     final Fault fault = (Fault)message.getContent(Exception.class);

     if(fault != null) {
        final String faultMessage = fault.getMessage();

         return faultMessage.indexOf("Something-you-want-to-match") > 0;

     } else {
        final MessageInfo messageInfo = (MessageInfo)message.get("org.apache.cxf.service.model.MessageInfo");            
        final String operation = messageInfo.getOperation().getOutputName();            

        return operation.indexOf("Something-you-want-to-match") > 0;
     }
   }

and your applicationContext.xml:

<jaxws:endpoint ...>
  <jaxws:outInterceptors>
     <bean class="my.super.interceptor.Suppressor"/>
   </jaxws:outInterceptors>
   <jaxws:outFaultInterceptors>
     <bean class="my.super.interceptor.Suppressor"/>
   </jaxws:outFaultInterceptors>
</jaxws:endpoint>