SOAP Web Services

Web services are one of the easiest ways ways to communicate between multiple languages or multiple servers by passing HTTP requests, or XML/JSON.  With the recent surge in HTML5, more web sites than ever can use web service requests to deliver updated content without requiring the user to refresh their browser.  One of the most widely used web service protocols is SOAP.

SOAP is the protocol that Used Boats Ahoy! uses to populate it’s inventory of boats.  The web service client connects to a web service server that has direct access to a database.  Interoperability is key with web services since the code base of any given web site is unknown.  In this case the client code is written in PHP and the server in ColdFusion, but they both communicate using a common XML format.

One service can have multiple methods of use that work together.  In the case of Used Boats Ahoy! there is a method for searching the boat database, and retrieving the details for an individual record.  Each method will take specified parameters to be passed to the server.  Once the server receives the request, it will take those parameters and run through it’s process to generate the response.

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