[AXIS2-5836] AxisFault class (used by MessageContextBuilder to create SOAPFault) not SOAP version-independent?

• Type: Bug
• Status: Open
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Unresolved
• Affects Version/s: 1.7.4
• Component/s: kernel
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Jeff Thomas
• Created: 06/Feb/17 15:14
• Updated: 23/Apr/17 14:03

Description

Not sure if this is a "bug" or if our implementation approach was incorrect.

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The AxisFault class (I assume) was originally constructed as a SOAP version-independent container for fault-information.

The MessageContextBuilder, based upon the MessageContext should use the correct SOAPFactory implementation (1.1 or 1.2) to assemble the SOAPFault body from the generic fault-information.

The SOAP 1.1 Standard says that SOAPFaults may have a user-defined primary fault-code and contains no sub-codes.

The SOAP 1.2 Standard says that SOAPFaults may only have one of 5 pre-defined primary fault-codes and that the application-specific fault-codes are to be assigned as sub-codes.

The problem is, for this code to work correctly today I must know which SOAP Version I am targeting when I set the fault-code (and optionally sub-codes) on the new AxisFault object. As such the AxisFault class is no longer truly SOAP version-independent.

// SOAP 1.1
AxisFault axisFault = new AxisFault(APPL_QNAME, "reason", ex);

// SOAP 1.2
AxisFault axisFault = new AxisFault(SOAP12Constants.QNAME_RECEIVER_FAULTCODE, "reason", ex);
axisFault.setFaultSubCodes(Arrays.asList(APPL_QNAME);

If all of our exception-classes extend AxisFault and we don't have the MessageContext available at the point at which we throw the exception, then we are not in a position to decide whether or not the current operation is SOAP 1.1 or 1.2.

We currently have a "workaround" (hack?") which always sets the fault-code of our exceptions to QNAME_RECEIVER_FAULTCODE and in the MessageContextBuilder a custom patch that assumes that if the operation context is SOAP 1.1 and subcodes are set on the AxisFault, that the first subcode is the real application fault-code and all others subcodes are discarded. However, I am pretty sure this is not the correct approach.

My feeling is that the AxisFault class is no longer as version-independent as it needs to be with the introduction of SOAP 1.2 special-handling. However, looking at the code, I am not sure if it even possible to generically achieve this.

Alternatively I am not sure if the decision to extend AxisFault for our custom exceptions was the correct choice or if we should have rather caught our custom exceptions in the service-call (where we have the MessageContext) and then build the appropriate generic AxisFault based on whether or not the call is for SOAP 1.1 or 1.2.