At times, you might have a requirement where you only need to read the file headers[file name and directory] and ignore the payload while using an inbound file/ftp adapter.
For this purpose, you need to add UseHeaders="true" on the <jca:operation> in the adapter wsdl.
This ensures that the payload is skipped while reading the file.
Then you can follow the usual steps to read the headers [through the inputHeaderVariable on the receive activity to retrieve the headers.
I just tried out this blog .. I took a file adapter that reads a file and I have added the attribute useheaders to true in the jca operation tag.
and then connected the receive to the partnerlink..
The thing is like I am receiving an opaque element not the headers..
Can you throw some light???