SOAP Elements

The <Envelope> element is the root element of a SOAP message.

<Header>, <Body>, and <Fault> are child elements.

SOAP Template

This is a template for a SOAP message:

<soap:Envelope
xmlns:soap="http://www.w3.org/2001/12/soap-envelope"
soap:encodingStyle="http://www.w3.org/2001/12/soap-encoding">

<soap:Header>
  ...
  ...
</soap:Header>

<soap:Body>
  ...
  ...
  <soap:Fault>
    ...
    ...
  </soap:Fault>
</soap:Body>

</soap:Envelope>

The Envelope Element

The <Envelope> element is the root element of a SOAP message. It defines the XML document as a SOAP message.

Note the use of the xmlns:soap namespace. This identifies the Envelope as a SOAP Envelope:

<soap:Envelope
xmlns:soap="http://www.w3.org/2001/12/soap-envelope"
soap:encodingStyle="http://www.w3.org/2001/12/soap-encoding">
...
Message information goes here
...
</soap:Envelope>

The Header Element

The optional <Header> element contains additional, application specific information about the SOAP message:

<soap:Header>
  <m:country xmlns:m="http://www.w3schools.com/country/">
    <m:language>N</m:language>
    <m:currency>NKR</m:currency>
  </m:country>
</soap:Header>

The Header element in example above contains information about the language and currency value used in the SOAP message.

Note that the <language> and <currency> elements above are user-defined elements. They are not a part of the SOAP standard.

The Body Element

The mandatory <Body> element contains the actual SOAP message:

<soap:Body>
   <m:GetPrice xmlns:m="http://www.w3schools.com/prices/">
      <m:Item>Apples</m:Item>
   </m:GetPrice>
</soap:Body>

Note that the <GetPrice> and <Item> elements above are application specific elements. They are not a part of the SOAP standard.

The Fault Element

The <Body> element may contain a <Fault> element. The <Fault> element is used to provide information about errors that occurred while processing the message. By nature this element can only appear in answers (response messages):

<soap:Body>
  <soap:Fault>
    <faultcode>soap:Server</faultcode>
    <faultstring>Server Error</faultstring>
  </soap:Fault>
</soap:Body>

You can read more about the fault element later in this tutorial.

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