Examining SOAP request and response formats

A soap based web service message is a hierarchical XML packet,…consisting of up to four parts, two of which are required.…The root element of the xml packet is called the envelope and is required.…It defines a name space ending with soap dash envelope.…And associates it with a name space prefix.…The prefix can be anything.…In some examples, you'll see it named soap,…in other others soap-env, or as in this example, just env.…What's important, is that it points to the correct name…space, that identifies the version of SOAP that's being used.…

Let's hold on a moment.…If you haven't used XML namespaces and namespace prefixes before,…you might be feeling a little bit lost. Let's step back and define some terms.…In XML in general, and not just in SOAP, a namespace…is a globally unique string that points to a specific XML schema.…To ensure global uniqueness, namespace strings typically…start with the organization's domain on the web.…In this case that's www.w3.org.…

That's followed by a set of virtual folders…indicating the schema's version.…