XML Hacks

Create a SOAP 1.2 Document

W3C’s SOAP provides a way to package messages or requests in XML envelopes.

SOAP is a W3C framework or protocol for the exchange of information between “peers in a decentralized, distributed environment” (http://www.w3.org/TR/soap12-part0/#L1153). SOAP is managed by the W3C’s XML Protocol Working Group (http://www.w3.org/2000/xp/Group/). Originally, SOAP was an acronym for Simple Object Access Protocol, but that interpretation has been dropped.

The original SOAP attracted a lot of interest early on, but as applications of SOAP rolled out (such as the API for Google, http://www.google.com/apis/), many people complained that non-SOAP interfaces were easier to use (http://www.prescod.net/rest/googleapi/). Amazon’s Web Services developer kit offers SOAP and REST (or Representational State Transfer, which is basically XML plus HTTP) interfaces, but the uptake for the REST interface seems to have been greater than for SOAP. Some prefer to avoid SOAP and commercial web services solutions altogether. Nevertheless, SOAP remains an approach at least worth examining.

Doing Business with XML

SOAP is only one attempt at packaging messages or documents for web consumption. There exists an almost overwhelming number of initiatives attempting to specify vocabularies and other technologies for doing business on the Web. This sidebar is a brief roundup of some of the efforts I hear about regularly.

Web services have taken on the task of reshaping the world, and there are ...