Re: need of encoding style?

Encoding style is used not to specify not whether the
server will convert the encoded request to Java, C# or
whatever, but HOW the request is encoded. There can
be any number of encoding "bindings" to various
languages. 

What is importqant is that both the client and server
be capable of handling the encoding style. Not that they
agree on the runtime environment (java, c++, etc.) that
each uses to implement their respective systems.

You are correct in that the client need not concern 
itself with what language the server will use when deserializing
the request, but there is still a need to identify to the
server the encoding style that has been used so that
it can select the appropriate deserialization mechanism
or reject the message if it doesn't recognize the encoding
style used.

Cheers,

Chris

"Gopinath M.R." wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
>         I am a SOAP user and I had posted the question in apache soap user's
> list.  I have been redirected to this list for the clarity/suggestion.
> My question is related to 'why should encoding style information be part
> of SOAP request?'.  If encoding style feature is there in XP also, then
> I have this question still.
>         My description is below:
> 
>   The encoding style is used on the server side to serialize and
> deserialize XML to corresponding programming language (java,c++, etc)
> class instances. But the main question is why should client be aware of
> this?  If server is using an encoding style "my_cpp_encoding" and java
> client knows how to serialize and deserialize its data to XML (probably
> using encoding style "my_java_encoding"), then specifying
> "my_cpp_encoding" in the SOAP request looks stupid from client's point
> of view, isn't it?  IMHO encoding style is *to do with implementation on
> server side* (and should not be part of request/response data) and
> client should not be asked to send that info.
>        Let's say I have a java application which provides SOAP interface
> and has mapping of xml elements to java classes (either implicitly like
> XML Java databinding or stored somewhere on server side in some
> .properties file), then a VB client need not send any encoding stuff
> right?
>         Any comments??
> 
> regards,
> Gopinath.M.R.

Received on Friday, 8 June 2001 12:11:03 UTC