SOAP and language independence

[kj]

I'm just learning about SOAP, and one of the claims about SOAP that
I'm having the hardest time understanding/believing is this business
about language independence. Please tell me if I got this right:
suppose that I have a SOAP server written Perl that returns Perl
objects in response to some method calls. Would a SOAP client
written in Python or Java or C++ be able to make any sense out of
these Perl objects?

Thanks!

kj

 

[Alex Shirshov]

Hello, kj!
You wrote on Tue, 13 Apr 2004 14:17:38 +0000 (UTC):

Since all types been used in the webservice are defined in wsdl in types
section, you can freely load and work with them in any language that
supports wsdl and xml serialization.

With best regards, Alex Shirshov.

 

[kj]

Hello, kj!
You wrote on Tue, 13 Apr 2004 14:17:38 +0000 (UTC):

Since all types been used in the webservice are defined in wsdl in types
section, you can freely load and work with them in any language that
supports wsdl and xml serialization.

Ah! I guess WSDL is the next acronym I have to learn about! Thanks!

kj

 

[Arto Viitanen]

kj> I'm just learning about SOAP, and one of the claims about SOAP that I'm
kj> having the hardest time understanding/believing is this business about
kj> language independence. Please tell me if I got this right: suppose that
kj> I have a SOAP server written Perl that returns Perl objects in response
kj> to some method calls. Would a SOAP client written in Python or Java or
kj> C++ be able to make any sense out of these Perl objects?

I have done this with Java server and clients coded both with Java and Python,
so: yes.

 

[GIMME]

Some times SOAP servers to provide class representations
of objects assuming that both the server and client side
use the same language. (But as pointed out that does not
have to be the case.)

To see the big picture download the code at http://ws.apache.org/axis

Lets you set up a SOAP server and then use a tool to create
your WSDLs from Java class files.

For Java applications it allows you to reuse classes on the
client and server sides. Beats writing all the stuff by hand.