Why would an wsdl document have a targetnamespace attribute set?

[Julien Martin]

Hello,

I have an xml document, namely a WSDL file and I am trying to understand why the "definitions" element have "targetNamespace" attribute set???

I thought this attribute was only for schemas. Is this not confusing? Is this legal? Why wsdl files don't have a schema to validate themselves from?

Here is my document:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<definitions name="EJBWebServiceOne" targetNamespace="urn:EJBWebServiceOne/wsdl" xmlns="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/" xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/soap/" xmlns:tns="urn:EJBWebServiceOne/wsdl" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
  <types>
  </types>
  <message name="EJBWebServiceOneSEI_myOperationResponse">
    <part name="result" type="xsd:string"/>
  </message>
  <message name="EJBWebServiceOneSEI_myOperation">
    <part name="String_1" type="xsd:string"/>
  </message>
  <portType name="EJBWebServiceOneSEI">
    <operation name="myOperation" parameterOrder="String_1">
      <input message="tns:EJBWebServiceOneSEI_myOperation"/>
      <output message="tns:EJBWebServiceOneSEI_myOperationResponse"/>
    </operation>
  </portType>
  <binding name="EJBWebServiceOneSEIBinding" type="tns:EJBWebServiceOneSEI">
    <soap:binding style="rpc" transport="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/http"/>
    <operation name="myOperation">
      <soap  :-o	  peration soapAction=""/>
      <input>
        <soap:body namespace="urn:EJBWebServiceOne/wsdl" use="literal"/>
      </input>
      <output>
        <soap:body namespace="urn:EJBWebServiceOne/wsdl" use="literal"/>
      </output>
    </operation>
  </binding>
  <service name="EJBWebServiceOne">
    <port binding="tns:EJBWebServiceOneSEIBinding" name="EJBWebServiceOneSEIPort">
      <soap:address location="http://ordinateur:8080/EJBModuleWS/EJBWebServiceOne"/>
    </port>
  </service>
</definitions>

[ May 16, 2006: Message edited by: Julien Martin ]

[Peer Reynders]

XML namespaces are not a feature XML Schema. They are simply a feature of XML and their use is governed by the Namespaces in XML document (see also Ronald Bourret's XML Namespaces FAQ). Their function is similar to that of packages in Java � insofar as both help avoid naming collisions.

XML Schema is simply an XML application used to define, constrain and validate other XML Applications (XML Markup Languages). There are Schema alternatives like Schematron or RELAX NG. Namespaces can be used in DTDs. In WSDL you can only reference XML Schema though.

WSDL is an XML application that is used to describe web services. XML Schema was designed to define XML elements and attributes and constrain them for other markup langauges. WSDL requires definition of higher level concepts such as method parameters (part), method signatures (message, input, output), methods (operation), port interfaces (portType), and bindings (binding, service, port) for them which are outside of the scope of XML Schema � so it needs to put these definitions somewhere and it puts them into the targetNamespace.