Using WSDL in SOAP applications

An introduction to WSDL for SOAP programmers

Uche Ogbuji (uche@ogbuji.net), Consultant, Fourthought, Inc.

Uche Ogbuji is a consultant and co-founder of Fourthought Inc., a consulting firm specializing in XML solutions for enterprise knowledge management applications. Fourthought develops 4Suite, the open source platform for XML middleware. Mr. Ogbuji is a Computer Engineer and writer born in Nigeria, living and working in Boulder, Colorado, USA. You can reach him at uche@ogbuji.net.

Summary:  Web Services Description Language (WSDL) is a new specification to describe networked XML-based services. It provides a simple way for service providers to describe the basic format of requests to their systems regardless of the underlying protocol (such as Simple Object Access Protocol or XML) or encoding (such as Multipurpose Internet Messaging Extensions). WSDL is a key part of the effort of the Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) initiative to provide directories and descriptions of such on-line services for electronic business. This article provides a brief background and technical introduction to WSDL. Knowledge of XML and XML Namespaces is required and some familiarity with XML Schemas and SOAP is useful.