Just before distributing the response messages to the Web Service client, the JAX-WS engine invokes the close method of the handlers that are already invoked.

The close method is invoked in the reverse order of the invocation of the handlers. Therefore, if the processing of the handler is reversed while the request message is being processed, the close method of the un-invoked handlers is not invoked. However, if all the handlers are executed for processing the request message, even if the invocation of handlers is omitted during the processing of the response message, the close method of all the handlers is invoked in the reverse order of the order when the request message was processed.

Also, in a one-way operation, the calling order for Web Services and the Web Client differs as follows:

Web Services

After calling Web Services Implementation Class or Provider Implementation Class, the close method of the already called handler is called in the reverse order of the order in which the one-way messages were processed.

Web Client

After receiving an HTTP response, the close method of the already called handler is called in the reverse order of the order in which the one-way messages were processed.