Significance of default Namespace

[Sriram Anbarasu]

Hi,
Can anybody tell me the difference between defaultNamespace and targetNamespace used in WSDL document?
It would be great if i could get a brief description about defaultNamespace and targetNamespace used in WSDL document.

[Peer Reynders]

The default namespace is the namespace the elements without a prefix belong to - provided you assign a namespace.

xmlns:wsdl="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/"
All elements from the {http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/} namespace must be prefixed with "wsdl:".

xmlns="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/"
All elements from the {http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/} namespace do not have a prefix. Even though these elements do not have a prefix they are still namespace qualified.

There is no default namespace if there is no xmlns="..." declaration. In that case elements without a prefix do not belong to any namespace.

The targetNamespace is the namespace to which the WSDL definitions are assigned to.


In this example the default and targetNamespace are not the same:

<definitions [B]xmlns="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/"[/B]
 xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
 xmlns:soapbind="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/soap/"
 xmlns:mh="http://www.Monson-Haefel.com/jwsbook/BookQuote"
 [B]targetNamespace="http://www.Monson-Haefel.com/jwsbook/BookQuote"[/B]>
...
    <message name="getBookPrice">
        <part name="isbn" type="xsd:string" />
    </message>
 
    <message name="getBookPriceResponse">
        <part name="price" type="xsd:float" />
    </message>
 
    <portType name="BookQuote">
        <operation name="getBookPrice">
            <input message="[B]mh:[/B]getBookPrice"/>
            <output message="[B]mh:[/B]getBookPriceResponse"/>
        </operation>
    </portType>
...
 

In this example the default and targetNamespace are the same:

<wsdl:definitions xmlns:wsdl="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/"
 xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
 xmlns:soapbind="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/soap/"
 [B]xmlns="http://www.Monson-Haefel.com/jwsbook/BookQuote"[/B]
 [B]targetNamespace="http://www.Monson-Haefel.com/jwsbook/BookQuote"[/B]>
 
...
    <wsdl:message name="getBookPrice">
        <wsdl:part name="isbn" type="xsd:string" />
    </wsdl:message>
 
    <wsdl:message name="getBookPriceResponse">
        <wsdl:part name="price" type="xsd:float" />
    </wsdl:message>
 
    <wsdl:portType name="BookQuote">
        <wsdl:operation name="getBookPrice">
            <wsdl:input message="getBookPrice"/>
            <wsdl:output message="getBookPriceResponse"/>
        </wsdl:operation>
    </wsdl:portType>
...