November 7, 2001 - The WSDL's Root Element | WebReference

November 7, 2001 - The WSDL's Root Element

Yehuda Shiran November 7, 2001
The WSDL's Root Element
Tips: November 2001

Yehuda Shiran, Ph.D.
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The root of any Web service description file is the <definitions> element. The <definitions> elements includes the namespace definitions. In the Weather - Temperature Web service, it looks like this:

<definitions name="TemperatureService" 
 targetNamespace="https://www.xmethods.net/sd/TemperatureService.wsdl"
 xmlns:tns="https://www.xmethods.net/sd/TemperatureService.wsdl" 
 xmlns:xsd="https://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" 
 xmlns:soap="https://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/soap/"
 xmlns="https://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/">
The WSDL document can be divided into two groups: the Abstract Definitions Group and the Concrete Descriptions Group. The abstract sections define SOAP messages in a platform- and language-independent manner; they don't contain any machine- or language-specific elements. The concrete sections are site-specific, machine-specific, or language-specific. The abstract elements are types, message, and portType. The concrete elements are binding and service.

You can call Web services from JavaScript. In upcoming tips and columns we'll cover the motivation and the implementation of Web services, and how to use them from JavaScript.