A SOAPPart object is a MIME part and has the MIME headers Content-Id, Content-Location, and Content-Type. Because the value of Content-Type must be "text/xml", a SOAPPart object automatically has a MIME header of Content-Type with its value set to "text/xml". The value must be "text/xml" because content in the SOAP part of a message must be in XML format. Content that is not of type "text/xml" must be in an AttachmentPart object rather than in the SOAPPart object.

When a message is sent, its SOAP part must have the MIME header Content-Type set to "text/xml". Or, from the other perspective, the SOAP part of any message that is received must have the MIME header Content-Type with a value of "text/xml".

A client can access the SOAPPart object of a SOAPMessage object by calling the method SOAPMessage.getSOAPPart. The following line of code, in which message is a SOAPMessage object, retrieves the SOAP part of a message.

   SOAPPart soapPart = message.getSOAPPart();
 

A SOAPPart object contains a SOAPEnvelope object, which in turn contains a SOAPBody object and a SOAPHeader object. The SOAPPart method getEnvelope can be used to retrieve the SOAPEnvelope object.