SoapRPC.com: SOAP FAQ (section 1)

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Section 1 [ Introduction to SOAP ]

Section 1 [ Introduction to SOAP ]

1.0 What is SOAP?
1.1 Where do I read up more about the protocol?
1.2 Ok, I love reading protocol specs.. where can I get some more?
1.3 How do I make sense out of all these terms?
1.4 How do I learn more? Are there any faqs/tutorials/books/etc. on SOAP?
1.5 Where can I get a SOAP implementation for Java/C++/Perl/ADA/Python?
1.6 Is there any sample code that I can try out?
1.7 Are there any mailing lists that I can join? Newsgroups?

1.0 What is SOAP

SOAP, or the Simple Object Access Protocol, is an XML based protocol for accessessing remote objects over the network. It was proposed initially by a bunch of companies including Microsoft, IBM and Develop Mentor and since then most of the other major software players have agreed to support it. It has since been submitted to W3C as a part of the standardization process.

The precise summary of the protocol in words of the authors is :

"SOAP is a lightweight protocol for exchange of information in a decentralized, distributed environment. It is an XML based protocol that consists of three parts: an envelope that defines a framework for describing what is in a message and how to process it, a set of encoding rules for expressing instances of application-defined datatypes, and a convention for representing remote procedure calls and responses. SOAP can potentially be used in combination with a variety of other protocols; however, the only bindings defined in this document describe how to use SOAP in combination with HTTP and HTTP Extension Framework."
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1.1 Where do I read up more about the protocol?

The protocol specifications, as submitted to W3C is at http://www.w3.org/TR/SOAP.

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1.2 Ok, I love reading protocol specs.. where can I get some more?

There a lot of other proposals - some related to SOAP and others to XML based protocols for building web services. http://www.soaprpc.com/specifications/ lists most of the major ones. Some of these are comparable to each other in terms of what they intend to accomplish, the major difference being the supporting vendor groups.
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1.3 How do I make sense out of all these terms?

Check out the glossary of terms.
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1.4 How do I learn more? Are there any faqs/tutorials/books/etc. on SOAP?

FAQs: You are reading one :-). The other SOAP faqs are listed at http://www.soaprpc.com/faqs/
Tutorials: http://www.soaprpc.com/tutorials/ has a list of most SOAP tutorials.
Whitepapers: http://www.soaprpc.com/whitepapers/
Books: http://www.soaprpc.com/books/
Articles: http://www.soaprpc.com/articles/ has a lot of articles on SOAP and related technologies.

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1.5 Where can I get a SOAP implementation for Java/C++/Perl/ADA/Python ?

Java: Apache SOAP , DevelopMentor's implementation, IdooXoap from ZVON
Python: PythonWare (client side only)
C++: IdooXoap from ZVON
Perl: SOAP::Lite
ADA: An ADA implementation
Microsoft Visual Studio: The Microsoft SOAP toolkit.

Also see http://www.soaprpc.com/software/ for these and a lot more software.
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1.6 Is there any sample code that I can try out ?

The Apache SOAP download comes with some sample programs. In addition, http://www.soaprpc.com/examples/ has a lot more.

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1.7 Are there any mailing lists that I can join? Newsgroups ?

The Apache Users and Developer Mailing lists are some good mailing lists for SOAP. These lists are archived at http://archive.covalent.net/. In addition the list at Develop Mentor are quite useful too.

news://news.software.ibm.com/ibm.software.developerworks.xml.soapbox is a SOAP newsgroup hosted at IBM. Another good newsgroup to follow is comp.text.xml

http://www.soaprpc.com/mailinglists/ lists these and other lists that you can join.

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Date: Dec 25, 2000
Version: 1.2
Author: Vivek Chopra
URL: http://www.SoapRPC.com/faqs/SoapFAQ.html