SOAP is a messaging protocol that is used to exchange data in a distributed environment in XML format. SOAP is a standard XML where data is transported in an envelope format called a SOAP Envelope, as shown in the following diagram:
SOAP Envelope for web service data exchange
As shown in the preceding diagram, a SOAP Envelope contains two parts:
- SOAP Header: The SOAP header provides information on how a recipient of a SOAP message should process it. It contains authorization information to deliver the message to the right recipient and for data encoding.
- Message Body: The message body contains the actual message in the Web Services Description Language (WSDL) specification. WSDL is an XML format file that describes the Application Programming Interface (API) contract with the message structure, API operations, and the server's Unique Resource Locator (URL) address. Using a WSDL service, a client application can determine where a service is being hosted...
