SOAP and xml-stylesheet PIs (was Re: SOAP services as database query interfaces / SOAP design patterns?)

* Max Froumentin <mf@w3.org> [2002-12-01 16:07+0100]
[..]
> However it seems that the WG has changed its mind again and the editor's
> version of the spec now says:
> 
> "SOAP messages sent by initial SOAP senders MUST NOT contain
> processing instruction information items. SOAP intermediaries MUST NOT
> insert processing instruction information items in SOAP messages they
> relay."
> 
> which seems to definitely rule out stylesheet PIs
> 
> > The last call period for SOAP 1.2 is over, but if a good case is made
> > that there may be interoperability issues due to the interpretation of
> > a part of the spec, it is worth raising the issue IMO.
> 
> I'm sure the WG has good reasons to forbids PIs, but I haven't
> followed the discussions so I'm not aware of them. Nevertheless I
> don't think that the stylesheet PI use case is enough to allow them
> back. I don't think that the philosophy of SOAP is that a message be
> displayed to the user in some form (except for debugging purposes,
> perhaps).

I haven't followed the second round of discussions, but if I remember
correctly the first one in June 2001, it was to make sure that nothing
was going to happen outside of the SOAP processing model.

This is certainly true that SOAP messages are expected to be processed
by a SOAP processor, not to be rendered by a user agent, and style
sheets can still be applied to an XML 1.0 serialization of a SOAP
message for debugging purposes, without having the message itself
indicating it using xml-stylesheet PIs.

However, I can't help but wonder if we are not about to prevent an
interesting way to use SOAP.

Note that one way to see the problem is that a SOAP processor could do
an HTTP request indicating that it wants an application/soap+xml
reply, whereas a browser could make a similar request indicating that
it wants an application/xhtml+xml reply, using content negotiation, in
which case the problem vanishes.

-- 
Hugo Haas - W3C
mailto:hugo@w3.org - http://www.w3.org/People/Hugo/

Received on Monday, 2 December 2002 11:41:22 UTC