Possible new issue: BPEL cannot handle some SOAP header bindings

["Ugo Corda" <UCorda@SeeBeyond.com>]

Title: Possible new issue: BPEL cannot handle some SOAP header bindings

Let's suppose we have the following WSDL file:

<message name="In">
    <part name="InPart" element="InElement"/>
</message>

<message name="Header">
    <part name="HeaderPart" element="HeaderElement"/>
</message>

<portType name="myPortType">
    <operation name="op1">
        <input message="In"/>
    </operation>
</portType>

<binding type="myPortType" ... >
    <soap:binding ..../>
    <operation name="op1">
        <input>
            <soap:body parts="InPart" ...>
            <soap:header message="Header" part="HeaderPart" .../>
        </input>
    </operation>
</binding>

In this example, the abstract operation "op1" refers to message "In", but the binding brings in an additional second message, "Header", for the concrete operation.

It seems that BPEL would not be able to process the "Header" information in any way. For instance, a "receive" operation would only be able to specify one inputVariable, which would be associated with the "In" message and not the "Header" message. In other words, the "Header" message would carry information to the "receive" operation that BPEL would have no access to.

If this is the case, new Web services defined with BPEL in mind could easily modify this scenario by defining both body and header as being part of a single message, but legacy Web services might be out of reach for BPEL.

Please confirm that the current status is as I described. If it is, I will formally raise a new issue.

Thank you,
Ugo