new issue on Processing SOAP Messages

I was asked in the San Jose face-to-face to raise a new issue against
the final paragraph of Section 2.5 of the SOAP 1.2, Part 1,
specification [1].

The issue is that there are applications such as encryption and
compression in which intermediaries may need to replace header or body
blocks that are not targeted at the intermediary.  The text as stated
indicates, for example, that "relayed SOAP messages MUST contain all
SOAP header blocks and the SOAP body blocks from the original SOAP
message, in the original order."  Some of the potential resolutions
of this include:
1) keep the wording and disallow such applications.  This is problematic
   since such applications may be essential for security and efficiency.
2) keep the spirit of the processing model. but change the change the
   wording to allow such "encoding transformations" as long as the
   abstract infoset remains the same.  This seems tricky since the targeting
   of these blocks may need to be changed back and forth, but may be workable.
3) soften the MUST in the sentence to SHOULD, indicating that the normal
   state of affairs is that intermediaries will not transform the parts of the
   message not targeted at them, but allowing exceptional cases.
4) formally define a standard processing model as given in this paragraph,
   but define a mechanism to allow applications to employ alternative models.

Mark A. Jones
AT&T

[1] http://www.w3.org/2000/xp/Group/1/08/29/soap12-part1.html#procsoapmsgs

Received on Tuesday, 11 September 2001 15:45:03 UTC