Fix problematic server response in WCF

Question

I am using WCF as a client for a java web service. I have not control over the server side.

In the response I get from the web service there is no xmlns attribute on the first element inside the soap headers. Because of this WCF returns null as the result of web service call.

Apart from the missing xmlns the response is perfect and if I add the xmlns using fiddler then everything works as expected. I don't know enough about SOAP to know if the xmlns attribute is really required.

Is there a way to avoid this problem, either getting WCF to ignore the missing xmlns attribute or even a hook that would allow me to manually munge the response before it gets to WCF?

Answer 1

This appears to be a pretty old question, so I'm not sure if you ever addressed this. If you are working with a WCF client for a Java Axis service, you will find that you will need to get used to using MessageInspectors to override the behavior of the request and response.

Using the AfterReceiveReply method you should be able to copy the original message and alter the headers. Also check out Step 5 from this MSDN article.

You can't alter the response headers directly in this method as far as I can see, because they are read-only, therefore copying and then replacing the reply with a doctored version is the only way I can think of to correct the missing namespace.