How to convert SOAPBody to String

Question

I want to convert SOAPBody to String. What is the best way to do it? Should i first convert it to xml and then convert it into String or we can jsut convert it into String.<

Answer 1

Figured this might help -

private String convertToString (SOAPBody message) throws Exception{
   Document doc = message.extractContentAsDocument();
   StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();
   TransformerFactory tf = TransformerFactory.newInstance();
   Transformer transformer = tf.newTransformer();
   transformer.setOutputProperty(OutputKeys.OMIT_XML_DECLARATION, "no");
   transformer.setOutputProperty(OutputKeys.METHOD, "xml");
   transformer.setOutputProperty(OutputKeys.INDENT, "yes");
   transformer.setOutputProperty(OutputKeys.ENCODING, "UTF-8");
   transformer.transform(new DOMSource(doc), new StreamResult(sw));
   return sw.toString();
  }

Thanks to the following post - XML Document to String?

Answer 2

You do not need to convert SOAPBody to XML, because it implements org.w3c.dom.Element interface, thus this is already a valid XML object. You can use org.w3c.dom.ls package to achieve your goal:

   String xmlAsString = null;
   Element element = what-ever-element;

   DOMImplementationLS domImplementationLS = (DOMImplementationLS)element.getOwnerDocument().getImplementation().getFeature("LS", "3.0");
   LSSerializer serializer = domImplementationLS.createLSSerializer();
   xmlAsString = serializer.writeToString(element);

You can play with serializer.getDomConfig().setParameter(....) to configure the serializer.

Answer 3

When starting from a SOAPMessage, the easiest way is to use the writeTo method :

ByteArrayOutputStream stream = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
soapMessage.writeTo(stream);
String message = new String(stream.toByteArray(), "utf-8") 

(Above, I assume your SAAJ implementation will use UTF-8, you'd probably want to check).

If starting from a SOAPBody, then you probably should use XML APIs, seeing SOAPBody is a org.w3.dom.Element, the easiest way would probably be using TrAX :

SOAPBody element = ... // Whatever
DOMSource source = new DOMSource(element);
StringWriter stringResult = new StringWriter();
TransformerFactory.newInstance().newTransformer().transform(source, new StreamResult(stringResult));
String message = stringResult.toString();

(Sorry I do not have my IDE right here, can not check if this compiles, but that should be pretty close).

Please note : A serialized SOAPMessage may not be raw XML : it might be a MIME structure : if the SOAPMessage actually uses SwA (SOAP With Attachment) or MTOM. However, SOAPBody is definitely pure XML.