Artix 5.5 (and CXF) includes the content length of SOAP messages if the client does not request "closure" of the TCP connection upon reply. This helps the client un-marchalling the message from the TCP buffer, when the buffer includes more than one HTTP message.

However, Artix and CXF do not include the "content-length" header in their reply messages if the client sets the HTTP header "connection:close" in its request.

According to the HTTP1.1 specification, an HTTP 1.1 server is not required to include the content length of the message when the client sets the http header "connection" to close.
Section 14.13 about "Content-Length" in http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec14.html states that "...Applications SHOULD use this field to indicate the transfer-length of the message-body, UNLESS this is prohibited by the rules in section 4.4<http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec4.html#sec4.4>. "

And in bullet #5 of 4.4 (http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec4.html#sec4.4), it states "By server closing the connection" on the response is one of such rules that Content-Length is not required.

This statement demonstrates that Content-Length header is not required on server closing a connection connection when the client is known to be HTTP 1.1 compliant.