Parse/deserialize MTOM/XOP Data .NET

Question

How can I parse/deserialize a MTOM/XOP response that I get from a web service using WCF? I have the response on disk. I have copied the response below:

Date: Wed, 02 May 2012 09:38:57 GMT
Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
P3P:CP="BUS CUR CONo FIN IVDo ONL OUR PHY SAMo TELo"
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
X-AspNet-Version: 4.0.30319
X-WindowsLive-Hydra: H: BLU165-ds6 V: 16.3.133.328 D: 2012-03-29T02:31:31
X-Response-Time: 78.1245
X-TransactionID: d491414e-46fd-47b2-82ce-e9cea9f564aa;BLU165-ds6;16.3.133.328;2012-05-02 09:38:57 UTC;78.1245 ms
Set-Cookie: HMDST=dGVhcG90ZG9tZYtZm3GzLm1r3f+/q8+gdzrAPYmy9kJ+SmDZuFmVgk3E983xNyeoTZkkdIr6t8y3P4V+vPzmytdaqqFwtI8vBuc=; domain=.mail.services.live.com; path=/
Cache-Control: no-cache
Pragma: no-cache
Expires: -1
Content-Type: application/xop+xml
Content-Length: 6386

MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: Multipart/Related;boundary=DeltaSync91ABCB4AF5D24B8F988B77ED7A19733D?MTOM;
    type="application/xop+xml";
    start="<[email protected]>";

--DeltaSync91ABCB4AF5D24B8F988B77ED7A19733D?MTOM
content-transfer-encoding: binary
content-type: application/xop+xml; charset=utf-8; type="application/xop+xml"
content-id: <[email protected]>

<ItemOperations xmlns:xop="http://www.w3.org/2004/08/xop/include" xmlns:B="HMMAIL:" xmlns:D="HMSYNC:" xmlns="ItemOperations:"><Status>1</Status><Responses><Fetch><ServerId>E631966A-9439-11E1-8E7B-00215AD9A7B8</ServerId><Status>1</Status><Message><xop:Include href="cid:[email protected]" /></Message></Fetch></Responses></ItemOperations>
--DeltaSync91ABCB4AF5D24B8F988B77ED7A19733D?MTOM
content-transfer-encoding: binary
content-type: application/octet-stream
content-id: <[email protected]>

....Binary Content
--DeltaSync91ABCB4AF5D24B8F988B77ED7A19733D?MTOM--

Any help is much appreciated.

Immunogenetics

re: There must be a class/method that does what I am trying? Wouldn't that be nice. Sadly, MS says they don't do attachments in their MTOM implementation. There is no defined method to accessing the the cid or its contents. I am working on an extension class that can handle this (by subverting the channel and parsing the returning MTOM by hand). I'll let you know if I come up with anything functional. but don't hold your breath on elegant. – Washington

Never will hold the breath so long! – Immunogenetics

@Immunogenetics - You might have to hold it a bit longer. :( Turns out what I implemented is company property (according to the lawyers). I'll have to re-invent it on my own time and computers, sufficiently differently from my original to be able to post it here. – Washington

Answer 1

You can deserialize the response using the WCF classes, as I'll show below. But before we proceed, this MTOM is invalid - the parameter boundary of the Content-Type header is malformed. Since it contains the '?' character, it needs to be quoted (look at the MIME RFC, section 5.1, definition of token).

Now, to deserialize it, you need to open the document with a MTOM reader - and XmlDictionaryReader.CreateMtomReader will give you exactly that. With that reader created, you can pass it to the DataContractSerializer to deserialize the object. The code below shows how this can be done.

    public class StackOverflow_10531128
    {
        const string MTOM = @"MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: Multipart/Related;boundary=DeltaSync91ABCB4AF5D24B8F988B77ED7A19733D?MTOM;
    type=""application/xop+xml"";
    start=""<[email protected]>"";

--DeltaSync91ABCB4AF5D24B8F988B77ED7A19733D?MTOM
content-transfer-encoding: binary
Content-Type: application/xop+xml; charset=utf-8; type=""application/xop+xml""
content-id: <[email protected]>

<ItemOperations xmlns:xop=""http://www.w3.org/2004/08/xop/include"" xmlns:B=""HMMAIL:"" xmlns:D=""HMSYNC:"" xmlns=""ItemOperations:"">
    <Status>1</Status>
    <Responses>
        <Fetch>
            <ServerId>E631966A-9439-11E1-8E7B-00215AD9A7B8</ServerId>
            <Status>1</Status>
            <Message><xop:Include href=""cid:[email protected]"" /></Message>
        </Fetch>
    </Responses>
</ItemOperations>
--DeltaSync91ABCB4AF5D24B8F988B77ED7A19733D?MTOM
content-transfer-encoding: binary
Content-Type: application/octet-stream
content-id: <[email protected]>

this is a binary content; it could be anything but for simplicity I'm using text
--DeltaSync91ABCB4AF5D24B8F988B77ED7A19733D?MTOM--";

        [DataContract(Name = "ItemOperations", Namespace = "ItemOperations:")]
        public class ItemOperations
        {
            [DataMember(Order = 1)]
            public int Status { get; set; }
            [DataMember(Order = 2)]
            public Responses Responses { get; set; }
        }

        [CollectionDataContract(Name = "Responses", Namespace = "ItemOperations:", ItemName = "Fetch")]
        public class Responses : List<Fetch>
        {
        }

        [DataContract(Name = "Fetch", Namespace = "ItemOperations:")]
        public class Fetch
        {
            [DataMember(Order = 1)]
            public Guid ServerId { get; set; }
            [DataMember(Order = 2)]
            public int Status { get; set; }
            [DataMember(Order = 3)]
            public byte[] Message { get; set; }
        }

        public static void Test()
        {
            MemoryStream ms;
            ItemOperations obj;
            DataContractSerializer dcs = new DataContractSerializer(typeof(ItemOperations));

            string fixedMtom = MTOM.Replace(
                "Multipart/Related;boundary=DeltaSync91ABCB4AF5D24B8F988B77ED7A19733D?MTOM;",
                "Multipart/Related;boundary=\"DeltaSync91ABCB4AF5D24B8F988B77ED7A19733D?MTOM\";");
            ms = new MemoryStream(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(fixedMtom));
            XmlDictionaryReader reader = XmlDictionaryReader.CreateMtomReader(ms, Encoding.UTF8, XmlDictionaryReaderQuotas.Max);
            obj = (ItemOperations)dcs.ReadObject(reader);
            Console.WriteLine(obj.Status);
            Console.WriteLine(obj.Responses.Count);
            foreach (var resp in obj.Responses)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("  {0}", resp.ServerId);
                Console.WriteLine("  {0}", resp.Status);
                Console.WriteLine("  {0}", string.Join(" ", resp.Message.Select(b => string.Format("{0:X2}", (int)b))));
            }
        }
    }

Firework

if the MTOM has a binary stream of an image, and it's converted to a string as in your example, would that corrupt the stream or not? – Osterhus

This is a simple example showing how to read the MTOM document using the WCF classes, and to make it complete and self-contained I hard-coded the MTOM "document" as a string in the file. What would normally happen is the document would be read from some external source (file, network, etc.), and the bytes would be properly encoded (and would be read correctly by the MTOM reader). – Firework

How can I do the same in C# core? – Pudding