Returning Complex Data from a Web Service
Simple data can be returned by using the HTTP protocol. Complex data (instances of structures or classes) uses the SOAP protocol. It is worth knowing when various protocols come into play. SOAP used to mean Simple Object Access Protocol; but now SOAP is just SOAP. However, the old expansion of the acronym describes nicely what SOAP does for us. SOAP makes it possible to transport an object across a network by using the self-describing nature of XML to include the description of the data along with the data.
Writing Web Services that return complex data types requires no special effort; however, you need to be aware of some additional things that happen with the related technologies. Thus I will show you ...
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