Real World XML Web Services: For VB and VB .NET Developers

5.4. Serialization in the High Level API

The high level API abstracts your application from the underlying SOAP messages. It can also abstract your application from dealing with XML by automatically serializing application data to XML and deserializing XML into application data on the other end. The example in Listing 5.5 uses simple types only (for example, strings and doubles), which are easier to serialize than complex types. The SOAP toolkit also supports complex type serialization with built-in type mappers and the ability to create your own custom type mappers.

You can skip complex type serialization altogether by passing/returning XML nodes instead of objects to/from Web service operations. Even with the high level API, the SOAP toolkit ...