This document lists some frequently asked questions about the SOAP Version 1.2 specifications and provides answers to those questions. For more information about SOAP Version 1.2, see the Working Group Home Page.
SOAP Version 1.2 is a messaging framework with a set of extensions. The specification is in three distinct documents:
The SOAP Version 1.2 Implementation Report has a list of implementors known to the XML Protocol Working Group, as well as a status of their implementation. The list is not exhaustive.
The SOAP Version 1.2 Primer gives a good introduction to SOAP 1.2, and is recommended reading.
SOAP Version 1.2 is based on a layered and extensible model.
For more technical details, the SOAP Version 1.2 Part 0 (Primer) has a complete list of changes from SOAP/1.1 to SOAP Version 1.2
SOAP Version 1.2 provides more - and proven - interoperability, support for Web standards, and an easier way to extend and update your applications. It also allows you to define applications that can scale better through a more effective use of Web infrastructure - namely with the option of using the HTTP binding. For a more complete reply, see From SOAP/1.1 to SOAP Version 1.2 in 9 points.
You should see the SOAP Version 1.2 Specification Assertions and Test Collection, and contact the implementers listed in the implementation report to set up tests.
An application is as secure as its design is. SOAP Version 1.2 may use some security features, but in the end, like in all current distributed applications, it is up to the application itself to take care of security (buffer overflow, denial of services...)
Yes, SOAP 1.2 is not dependent on WSDL (Web Services Description Language). There are many interesting situations in which SOAP can be used without WSDL. Indeed, early adopters of SOAP used it for many months before languages similar to WSDL became available.
WSDL is used primarily as a means of documenting, in machine readable form, the details of particular SOAP-based protocols. Many WSDL-enabled tools can use these descriptions to help you build SOAP applications. Without WSDL, you may have to tailor more of your code by hand.
Several options are available:
SOAP Version 1.2 has provisions for internationalization, including the ability to provide multiple error messages in different languages, encodings, character sets. Applications themselves still have to be internationalized, but that is a separate matter. SOAP Version 1.2 itself puts no restriction to a particular language.
One of the goals of SOAP Version 1.2 was to develop a clean way to change the underlying transport. Part 2 Adjuncts defines a rather complete mapping to HTTP, but you can define your own mapping to whatever protocol, using the SOAP Protocol Binding Framework defined in Part 1, Section 4.
Yes, but not directly. The client application will be notified that the current version being used is SOAP Version 1.2. The client application may switch to SOAP Version 1.2 for subsequent requests. See Part 1, Section 5.4.7