SOAP In PHP

If we talk about SOAP then it is a communication protocol. It is used for communication between applications and communication is done via internet.

SOAP is a format which is used for sending messages.

SOAP is platform and language independent, based on XML.It is very simple and extensible too.

Here we will study why SOAP is important?

SOAP is important for application development because it allows Internet communication between programs.

A better way to communicate between applications is over HTTP, because HTTP is supported by all Internet browsers and servers and SOAP was created to accomplish this.

SOAP provides a way to communicate between applications running on different operating systems, with different technologies and programming languages.

Let’s have a brief look on the SOAP Building Blocks

A SOAP message is an ordinary XML document containing the following elements:

• An Envelope element that identifies the XML document as a SOAP message.
• A Header element that contains header information.
• A Body element that contains call and response information.
• A Fault element containing errors and status information.

Here are some of the Syntax Rules of SOAP:

• A SOAP message should be encoded using XML.
• A SOAP message should use the SOAP Envelope namespace.
• A SOAP message should use the SOAP Encoding namespace.
• A SOAP message should not contain a DTD reference.
• A SOAP message should not contain XML Processing Instructions.