XML: Practical data binding: Get your feet wet in the real world
33464XML: Practical data binding: Get your feet wet in the real worldhttp://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-pracdb1.html?ca=dgr-xw766x-pracdb1The fact that you're reading this column tells me that you're at least mildly interested in XML data binding. Just a short year ago, that would have led me to define what data binding is, go into the concepts involved, and generally be boring for several pages worth of article text. However, it isn't a year ago -- it's 2004, and data binding seems to have sunk into the consciousness of almost every XML and Java? developer working in the industry today.XML > Tips and Tutorials > Introduction to XMLOct 17, 2006
In this article, I show you how you can extend a Web service, defined by WSDL, by adding SOAP headers. I show how SOAP handlers create and process SOAP message headers and how to configure handlers appropriately.
Because other articles in this issue of the Web Journal describe the motivations for XML and some of its goals, this article is intended to serve as a slightly more technical introduction to XML and as an overview of the specification. Throughout this document you will find references of the form [Section 1]; these are references to the XML language specification included in this issue. If you are interested in more technical detail about a particular topic, please consult the specification.
XML (eXtensible Markup Language) is not a programming language. Like HTML (and sharing a common parentage - but that's another story), XML is a means of 'marking up' the content of a document using elements (sometimes referred to as tags) to mark the beginning and end of sections of information.
The Java APIs for XML-Based Remote Procedure Call (JAX-RPC) protocol (see Resources) is Java-centric, not WSDL-centric. It contains a fairly elaborate set of rules for mapping WSDL names to Java-friendly names which follow the Java coding conventions. This is good because JAX-RPC users will be Java programmers. In fact, they may not even care that your Web service is a Web service. They probably do not know or care about WSDL and XML, and all the quirks that they bring to the table. All they may care about is that they can write Java code to call your service and expect the JAX-RPC APIs for your service to look familiar; in other words, to follow Java coding conventions.
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