SOAP Syntax

SOAP Building Blocks

A SOAP message is an ordinary XML document containing the following elements:

• An Envelope element that identifies the XML document as a SOAP message
• A Header element that contains header information
• A Body element that contains call and response information
• A Fault element containing errors and status information

All the elements above are declared in the default namespace for the SOAP envelope:

http://www.w3.org/2001/12/soap-envelope

and the default namespace for SOAP encoding and data types is:

http://www.w3.org/2001/12/soap-encoding

Syntax Rules

Here are some important syntax rules:

• A SOAP message MUST be encoded using XML
• A SOAP message MUST use the SOAP Envelope namespace
• A SOAP message MUST use the SOAP Encoding namespace
• A SOAP message must NOT contain a DTD reference
• A SOAP message must NOT contain XML Processing Instructions

Skeleton SOAP Message

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