XML and SQL: Developing Web Applications

Building a Web Service

If you want to make a data source available to a large number of diverse applications across a network, XML can help you abstract that data source (or process) into a Web service. The idea of a Web service is not new. Although the name Web service has come into vogue recently, the idea has been around since the beginning of the Web: Create a program that responds to requests by other programs on a network using HTTP (HyperText Transport Protocol). Web services exclusively use XML to respond to requests, so the client program—the program making the request—just has to be able to decode the XML responses. It doesn't have to know the mechanics behind the service or what the back-end data store is. Hence it can be lighter weight ...