A

actor - attribute defined by the SOAP 1.1 specification.  It's presence on a child element of the Header element identifies the endpoint for which this element was intended (see also mustUnderstand). 

 SOAP Header Specification - actor attribute

Apache - the open source software foundation, they provide a Java implementation of SOAP (originally developed by IBM).  They also provide many other free tools, such as the Apache Web Server and the Xerces XML parser.

 Apache SOAP

B

Body - element of a SOAP message, it contains the application-specific data.  The Body element is mandatory.  If a message contains a Fault, it will appear in the Body.

 Example of a Body element

 SOAP Body Specification

Box, Don - one of the authors of the SOAP specification.  He is one of the founders of DevelopMentor, a COM guru, and he gives a great presentation on SOAP.

 Don Box's Home Page

C

D

E

Encoding - the rules used for serializing data types inside of a SOAP message.  The SOAP 1.1 specification defines a set of encoding rules, but SOAP messages can be used with any rules, or none at all.  The rules used for a particular message are identified by the encodingStyle attribute of the Envelope element.

 SOAP Encoding Specification

Envelope - element of a SOAP message, it wraps all the other elements of the SOAP message.  The Envelope element is mandatory and must appear first in a SOAP message document.  The Envelope specifies the version of the message, and it identifies the encoding rules that are used, if any.

 Example of an Envelope element

 SOAP Envelope Specification

F

Fault - component of a SOAP message that contains error information.  SOAP endpoints return faults within the Body of a response to provide detailed error information to the client.

 Example of a Fault element

 SOAP Fault Specification

G

H

Header - element of a SOAP message, it contains any extensions to the SOAP message that do not relate to the application payload (ex. transactions, authorization).  The Header element is optional 

 Example of a Header element

 SOAP Header Specification

I

J

K

L

M

mustUnderstand - attribute defined by the SOAP 1.1 specification.  It's presence on a child element of the Header element indicates that any endpoint processing the Header must either recognize the element or return the appropriate SOAP Fault, containing the faultcode MustUnderstand.

 SOAP Header Specification - mustUnderstand attribute

 SOAP Fault Codes

N

Namespace - XML syntax that prevents name collisions in documents by qualifying the name of an element or attribute with a namespace URI and prefix.  The prefix xmlns is associated with XML namespaces.

 Recommendation - Namespaces in XML

O

P

PocketSOAP - a COM-based client SOAP toolkit with versions available for most Windows platforms, including Windows CE.  Simon Fell, the author of PocketSOAP, also provides a server-side toolkit called 4S4C that is also based on COM.

 PocketSOAP

Q

R

RPC - Remote Procedure Calls, the concept of executing a function on another process or machine.  SOAP is one method of implementing RPC, but it can be used for other purposes.

 SOAP RPC Specification

S

SOAP - the Simple Object Access Protocol, a communication protocol based on XML that simplifies the complexities of cross-language and cross-platform communication (specification).

 SOAP 1.1 Specification

SOAPAction - an HTTP header defined in the SOAP 1.1 specification.  The SOAPAction header can be used when SOAP messages are transported over HTTP.  

 SOAP 1.1 Specification - SOAPAction HTTP Header

T

U

V

VersionMismatch - one of the faultcodes defined by the SOAP 1.1 specification.  A Fault containing this faultcode must be returned if the SOAP message being processed does not match the expected version.  Currently, the only version allowed is "http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/", which is specified as the namespace URI of the Envelope element.

 SOAP Fault Codes

W

Winer, Dave - one of the authors of the SOAP specification.  He is the founder of Userland and the inventor of XML-RPC.

X

Xerces - the open source XML parser provided by Apache.  Versions exist for C++, Java, and Perl.

 Xerces C++ XML Parser

 Xerces Java XML Parser

 Xerces Perl XML Parser

XML-RPC - an XML-based protocol for performing remote procedure calls over HTTP.  SOAP 1.1 borrows a lot from XML-RPC.  Think SOAP without the Envelope or Header elements, and restricted to RPC over HTTP, and you've got XML-RPC.

 XML-RPC Site

Y

Z