Use of SOAP in a Java Web Service

[Romario Dominic]

Folks,
I have a pretty basic question.Is SOAP the default messaging protocol when one writes a Web Service in Java?Or is SOAP not really required when one writes a Java Seb Service?

Thanks

[Peer Reynders]

Originally posted by Romario Dominic:
Is SOAP the default messaging protocol when one writes a Web Service in Java?

Default no, most common, probably.
SOAP is currently the most common wire protocol used with web services (Java or not) - especially those supported by development tools. A web service does not have to be based on SOAP, but currently most of them are, however that does not make it the default.
Furthermore if you use a SOAP stack (like Axis) that supports JAX-RPC/JAX-WS you may not have to deal with SOAP at all unless you need to write a SOAP handler to deal with SOAP header blocks. Nonetheless it does help to know SOAP when you are working with SOAP-based Web services.

I already outlined some of the non-SOAP Web service alternatives in your previous thread.
[ March 12, 2006: Message edited by: Peer Reynders ]