Hello Folks,
As part of our API Testing series, we will see “Introduction of SOAP” in this post.
SOAP stands for “Simple Object Access Protocol“.
Protocol is a set of rules which are followed to achieve something or need to follow if performing specific things. For example: There are a set of rules defined for Applying for a passport. Everyone needs to follow that to get a passport. It provides a standard. In the same way, we have protocol defined for specific actions in Software industry. For example:
HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) – Protocol to transfer raw data across internet
FTP (FIle Transfer Protocol) – Protocol to transfer files over internet.
So, SOAP is a communication or messaging protocol as it allows you to exchange information in form of XML between two independent systems or applications over a network i.e. Web Services. It is a XML based protocol as it uses JAX-WS, which is a Java API for XML web services. SOAP defines a set of rules for structuring messages that can be used for simple one-way messaging or request-response dialogues.
SOAP is a platform and language independent i.e. we can use any programming language and platform to develop web services using SOAP. It also uses other protocols like HTTP, SMTP protocols for receiving and transmitting XML-format messages.
A web service developed using SOAP, sends a request to an end point. This request is constructed using SOAP components such as Envelope, Header, Body and Fault. This request hits an end point and response is sent back to client in xml.
SOAP uses WSDL (Web Services Description Language) to describe a web services or says what this web service does in XML which includes Endpoints, Input/Output message format etc.
So summary of this post is that “SOAP is a protocol which is used to develop web services which allows communication between systems in form of XML over any transport protocol such as HTTP“.
If you have any doubt, feel free to comment below. If you like my posts, please like, comment, share and subscribe. #ThanksForReading
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