How to publish web service produced data file accessible via browser

Question

I need to make available to browsers data file produced by my web service method. Indeed the web service method should return url to produced file. I'm working with axis2 on tomcat.

Answer 1

The MTOM standard enables you to attach files to your SOAP message response

Answer 2

You want to leverage the standard http header "Content-Disposition".

For example, to stream bits to the browser and force a 'save-as' dialog, add the following headers to the response.

Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=checkimage.jpg
Content-Length: 76127
Content-Type: image/JPEG

More information: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/TheContentDispositionSagaControllingTheSuggestedFileNameInTheBrowsersSaveAsDialog.aspx