Network Deployment (Distributed operating systems), v8.0 > Reference > Developer best practices
Web services messages overview
To work with the data graph form of web services messages, you need to know the structure of the data graph, and how to develop code that can navigate the data graph.
The format of web services messages
WAS (base) supports two formats for web services messages: SOAP and enterprise beans. (These are similar to Java APIs for XML based RPC, or JAX-RPC.)
To work with web services messages, you need the following information:
- The structure of the Service Data Objects (SDO) v1 data graphs for web services messages. See Map of SDO data graphs for web services messages for more information about the data elements and the shape of the data graph.
- Reference information to help you develop code to navigate the data graphs of the messages that your program mediates. See Map XML schema definitions to the SDO type system.
- For XML representations of the shape of each part of web services messages, sample code snippets and further information about the data graph format, see: Web Services code example.
Format types
The web services message type is defined by a message format string within the message. The format string is prefixed with a domain identifier, which is either SOAP or Bean, followed by four comma-separated fields as shown below:
SOAP: <wsdlLocation>, <serviceNameSpace>, <serviceName>, <portName> Bean: <wsdlLocation>, <serviceNameSpace>, <serviceName>, <portName>The fields are described in the following table:
Field name Message format string Field description WSDL location <wsdlLocation> The URI where the WSDL for this message is located. The WSDL is deployed to the SDO repository, by using this location as the key. Service namespace <serviceNamespace> Service namespace and Service name uniquely identify the Service definition within the WSDL. Service name <serviceName> Service name and Service namespace uniquely identify the correct Service definition within the WSDL. Port name <portName> Locates the Port definition within the Service, giving the PortType and Binding information that is required for message processing.