Unclear on SOAP namespaces

I've been staring at the SOAP and namespace specs, and I haven't been able
to understand example 1 in the 1.1 spec (at http://www.w3.org/TR/SOAP/):

  POST /StockQuote HTTP/1.1
  Host: www.stockquoteserver.com
  Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"
  Content-Length: nnnn
  SOAPAction: "Some-URI"

  <SOAP-ENV:Envelope
    xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"
    SOAP-ENV:encodingStyle="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/">
     <SOAP-ENV:Body>
*	 <m:GetLastTradePrice xmlns:m="Some-URI">
*	     <symbol>DIS</symbol>
*	 </m:GetLastTradePrice>
     </SOAP-ENV:Body>
  </SOAP-ENV:Envelope>

In the lines prefixed by *, GetLastTradePrice is in the namespace m.
However, the namespace of its content, symbol, is indeterminate. There is no
default namespace declared for the document, and my understanding of the
spec is that symbol would belong to the namespace identified by the URN "".
Perhaps I've misunderstood the namespace spec?

Assuming I haven't... And assuming symbol is something that is of interest
solely to the receiving server... (The additional encoding rules are the
ones that do all the work in specifying the types and structures of the
arguments after all...) Then the question is why the SOAP spec would have
this recipient specific XML tag be in a namespace other than m. m after all
appears to encode the rules for formatting the message for the given
recipient, so why not use m:symbol instead?

Thanks in advance,

Sunil

Received on Tuesday, 27 June 2000 15:39:11 UTC