The SOAP Message

If you are eager to start coding your own SOAP applications, you may want to skip ahead to the Section 3.6 section, later in this chapter. Otherwise, the following section provides additional details regarding the SOAP specification itself.

A one-way message, a request from a client, or a response from a server is officially referred to as a SOAP message. Every SOAP message has a mandatory Envelope element, an optional Header element, and a mandatory Body element. (See Figure 3-2.) Each of these elements has an associated set of rules, and understanding the rules will help you debug your own SOAP applications.

Main elements of the XML SOAP message
Figure 3-2. Main elements of the XML SOAP message

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