[Fwd: Does the SOAP/HTTP binding require a SOAP env in the response]

Forwarding it to dist-app for discussion.

-Anish
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attached mail follows:

I took an action to send a proposal to the WG to answer the question 
that has been raised in the WS-Addressing [1], WSD [2][3], (as well as 
in the async TF).

The question:
When using the SOAP HTTP binding [4], and the request-response MEP [5], 
is it required that the SOAP response be sent over the HTTP response for 
the success case?

Suggested answer:

Per the SOAP HTTP binding for the request-response MEP, the SOAP 
response has to be sent as the entity-body of the HTTP response, in the 
success case.

Section 7.5.2.2 of SOAP 1.2 part 2. Table 19 makes it clear that the 
HTTP entity body of the HTTP Response must contain the SOAP message and 
the status line is either 200 or as described by table 20.

Sections 7.5.1.2, 7.5.1.3 and 7.5.1.4 also support this. From section
7.5.1.2:
'In cases where "Fail" is one of the choices, the transition is 
dependent on whether a SOAP message is present in the HTTP response. If 
a SOAP message is present, the next state is "Sending+Receiving" or 
Receiving", otherwise the next state is "Fail".'

 From section 7.5.1.3:
'The response message is assumed to contain a SOAP envelope serialized
according to the rules for carrying SOAP messages in the media type
given in the Content-Type header field.'

 From section 7.5.1.4:
'The response message is assumed to contain a SOAP envelope serialized
according to the rules for carrying SOAP messages in the media type
given in the Content-Type header field.'

Although the SOAP HTTP binding does not allow an empty entity-body in 
the HTTP response for the success case, SOAP does allow one to:
1) write a new binding to transport SOAP over HTTP that supports the 
request-response MEP and does allow such a behavior
2) write a SOAP header specification that changes how the SOAP HTTP 
binding works.


Comments?

-Anish
--

[1] 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-ws-addressing/2005Jun/0107.html
[2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/xml-dist-app/2004Nov/0003.html
[3] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/xml-dist-app/2004Jul/0012.html
[4] http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/REC-soap12-part2-20030624/#soapinhttp
[5] http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/REC-soap12-part2-20030624/#singlereqrespmep