Handling Document-Oriented SOAP Requests (Windows Embedded CE 6.0)
1/6/2010
This topic describes how to process XML documents in a SOAP message for document-oriented operation. The RPC-oriented operation is described only to explain the difference between RPC and document-oriented SOAP requests.
As described in A Quick Introduction to WSDL, an operation defined in the WSDL file can be either of the following:
- Document style
- Remote procedure call (RPC) style
Document-Style Operations
When a Web Services Description Language (WSDL) file identifies a SOAP operation as document-oriented, the input (request) and output (response) messages specified for that operation contain XML documents.
For example, a WSDL file defines a SubmitPO operation such that this operation expects a purchase order document (XML document) as the input message part.
When a client sends a SOAP message requesting the SubmitPO operation, it must send a purchase order document as input in the SOAP message.
The server then processes the purchase order document and, at the same time, might save purchase order information in the database.
Next, the server returns another XML document response, which might have information such as the purchase order tracking number.
The client then handles the XML document sent in the SOAP response message.
You can use the XML DOM API to process XML documents sent in SOAP messages, but it can be tedious.
RPC-Style Operations
RPC-oriented operations have input messages that contain the operations' input parameters and output messages that contain the operations' results.
For example, the input message parts for the Add operation defined in the WSDL file in Code Listing for the Calc.wsdl File are parameter values for the Add method on the server, while the output message part returns the result of the addition.