SOAP, XML, and JAVA

[Brian Snyder]

How does SOAP relate to XM? ANy good web sites for this...or books?
How about the difference between XSL and XSLT? Do you need an XSL to create an XSLT?
Thanks, green and interested,
Brian

[Mapraputa Is]

Regarding the difference between XSL and XSLT.
XSL stands for the Extensible Stylesheet Language, the language that describes two processes: transformation and formating and, naturally, consists of two parts: XSLT (XSL Transformations) and XSL-FO (XSL Formatting Objects). As far as I understand, there is no such thing as �pure XSL�, it is an abstraction that can be incarnated as either XSLT or XSL-FO. You do not need XSL-FO features to create XSLT stylesheet.

[Ajith Kallambella]

SOAP stands for Simple Object Access Protocol. It is a specification derived from XML RPC to invoke methods on remote ( distributed ) objects using XML-based messages. The idea is to wrap a message with any arguments/parameters required in a standard XML format and send it across the network. This XML envelope will also contain some way of identifying the remote object. After locating, the method gets executed on the object and the results are optionally transferred back to the caller in an XML format. SOAP is a specification being campaigned by Microsoft. Here are some resources -

• SOAP Spec at Microsoft
  
• SOAP FAQ
  
• Davenet - Me and Microsoft
  
• SOAP - UML Diagram of webs service invocation
  

Hope that helps!
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Ajith Kallambella M.
Sun Certified Programmer for the Java�2 Platform.
IBM Certified Developer - XML and Related Technologies, V1.
[This message has been edited by Ajith Kallambella (edited June 20, 2001).]

[William Brogden]

The book I am currently working on is "Java Developer's Guide to SOAP and XML Messaging" (tentative title) so I would be interested in hearing about people's experience with SOAP.
Bill

[David Roberts]

I used SOAP with MS. When I tried to use SOAP between MS and Java it failed. I think the problem was the different versions of SDL. SOAP is about interoperability so I would recommend some examples, issues and anything relating to connecting MS to Java or other systems. Learning how to program SOAP from a Java to Java system is a good intro, but not as practical.
I'm glad you're writing it, I'm sure I'll pick up a copy.
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David Roberts - SCJP2,MCP
[This message has been edited by David Roberts (edited June 23, 2001).]