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Although I have been building Web Services using Visual Studio for some time, my understanding of the general Web service world is very limited. In case of Microsoft Technologies, we create .asmx file and the communication occurs using SOAP protocol over HTTP (AFAIK)

Now, when I was studying the web services provided by Google, at this link!, Example webservice URL on that page is: http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/service/output?parameters

I see that, the webservice provided by Google is just a HTTP request/response. Is SOAP protocol used here too?

If yes, how would the client know that it should use SOAP protocol? If not, are SOAP based web services only used in Microsoft Technologies? Do other web service providers just provided them as HTTP request/response.

An answer that categories the different webservice methodologies would be greatly appreciated? A URL would suffice too.

Thanks in Advance.

Pertinent Observer
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2 Answers2

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SOAP is one protocol which uses a schema to validate data. The protocols which uses URL parameters use the REST protocol. I would suggest you investigate the REST protocol as it is VERY common. The output "field" is used so that you can choose your preferred format for ease of parsing in your core language.

There's a lengthy post about REST here What is the difference between REST and HTTP protocols?

Oh, I guess REST isn't a protocol by technical definition, lol.

Community
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  • Thanks for your answer. As soon, as I posted this question, I saw the following questions in the Related section that helped me: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10975863/compare-and-contrast-rest-and-soap-web-services?rq=1 http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5449034/what-is-the-different-between-rest-and-http-protocols – Pertinent Observer Nov 13 '13 at 02:16
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SOAP is simple object access protocol. In Java we use wsdl files which are nothing but xml files. We write wsimport and then the url of the wsdl at the command prompt to generate the clients which are used to access the webservices

Shantanu
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