Difference between SOAP and HTTP protocol?
What is the difference between the SOAP and HTTP protocol. When we say "SOAP over HTTP", what does that mean.?
Answer
You can serve any content over HTTP such as HTML, images, sound, video, etc. SOAP is an XML-based encoding of messages that are typically sent over HTTP, but could be sent over SMTP or even FTP, although I've never seen such a system used in a production environment.
Just like HTTP sits on top of TCP/IP, SOAP sits on top of HTTP. Layers on top of layers...
If you look at a SOAP request, you can see both layers, with the HTTP headers at the top, followed by the SOAP message. From the w3schools SOAP tutorial:
--------- HTTP portion of the message ------
POST /InStock HTTP/1.1
Host: www.example.org
Content-Type: application/soap+xml; charset=utf-8
Content-Length: nnn
--------- SOAP portion of the message ------
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<soap:Envelope
xmlns:soap="http://www.w3.org/2001/12/soap-envelope"
soap:encodingStyle="http://www.w3.org/2001/12/soap-encoding">
<soap:Body xmlns:m="http://www.example.org/stock">
<m:GetStockPrice>
<m:StockName>IBM</m:StockName>
</m:GetStockPrice>
</soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>
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