The SOAP Primer (Part 0)

I sent comments maybe six months ago complaining that the primer was propagating the artificial "document vs. RPC" terminology that WSDL imposed on the world. 
 
I was extremely happy to read the new primer that went out with the specs. The characterization of how things works seemed way more reasonable (where reasonable is defined as my way of thinking :-)).
 
In reading section 2.2 (and 2.2.1), the prose is so close to perfect, but there's something about it that I wonder about.
 
The section uses the term "XML document" to refer to the body content of an envelope.
 
The term "XML document" has some pretty deep implications - think document entity, DTD, etc. Just look at the first sentence of the XML 1.0 spec:
 
"Extensible Markup Language, abbreviated XML, describes a class of data objects called XML documents and partially describes the behavior of computer programs which process them. "
 
If someone wanted to include an actual XML document inside a SOAP envelope, the most natural way to do it is to use some PASWA-style technique to put the opaque document entity inside the envelope, either by value or by reference.
 
Perhaps the primer could use the term "XML-based content" instead of XML document?
 
DB

Received on Thursday, 8 May 2003 03:02:13 UTC