Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | X | XML Journal

Introduction to SOAP serialization rules: from essential XML Quick Reference. (Book Excerpt).

Article Excerpt
Essential XML Quick Reference

A Programmer's Reference to XML, Xpath, XSLT, XML Schema, SOAP and More By Aaron Skonnard and Martin Gudgin Published by: Addison-Wesley Pub Co. Pages: 402 ISBN: 0201740958 List Price: $24.99

SOAP defines a set of serialization rules for encoding datatypes in XML. All data is serialized as elements rather than attributes. Attributes are only used for structural metadata; for example, when references are needed.

For simple types such as strings, numbers, dates, and so forth, the datatypes defined in "XML Schema Part II--Datatypes" are used. For types such as classes or structures, each field in the type is serialized using an element with the same name as the field. For array types, each array element is typically serialized using an element with the same name as the type, although other element names may be used. In both cases, if the field being serialized is itself a structure or an array, then nested elements are used. The top-level element in both the structure case and the array case is namespace qualified. Descendant elements should be unqualified.

The serialization rules apply to children of the Header element as well as children of the Body element. Such children are serialized types just like any other type. A request and any associated response are also treated as types, and are serialized according to the same rules.

Examples

For an example of serialization of a structured Java or VB type, see Listing 1.

LISTING 1 * SERIALIZATION OF A STRUCTURED JAVA OR VB TYPE package example.org.People; //Java class definition class Person { String name; float age; short height; } //VB Type definition Public Type Person name As String age As Single height As Integer End Type Martin 33 64

For an example of serialization...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!