To understand
SOAP you should have knowledge of XML. This would help you a lot to
interpret the different elements in SOAP. SOAP is a Simple Object Access
Protocol used for communication between applications. XML is used in
SOAP message for communication. The communication happens through internet.
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When we
say internet the communication protocol that is used is naturally HTTP.
The current way of communication between applications is RPC where there
is no compatibility for HTTP. SOAP can be used in HTTP and through firewalls.
HTTP is
supported by all the browsers. These are the advantages of using SOAP.
It is language and platform independent since the message is passed
in the XML format.
A SOAP
message is an XML document that has certain elements in it. Elements
like Envelope and Body are compulsory and optional elements in the SOAP
document are Header and Fault.
The namespace
http://www.w3.org/2001/12/soap-envelope is where all these elements
are declared.
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