The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has published a first working draft specification for SOAP Version 1.2. The working draft has been produced by the XML Protocol Working Group (WG), part of the W3C XML Protocol Activity. "Version 1.2 implements XML schemas and namespaces, clarifies ambiguities, and provides a refined processing model. SOAP version 1.2 is a lightweight protocol for exchange of information in a decentralized, distributed environment. It is an XML based protocol that consists of four parts: an envelope that defines a framework for describing what is in a message and how to process it, a set of encoding rules for expressing instances of application-defined data types, a convention for representing remote procedure calls and responses and a binding convention for exchanging messages using an underlying protocol. SOAP can potentially be used in combination with a variety of other protocols; however, the only bindings defined in this document describe how to use SOAP in combination with HTTP and the experimental HTTP Extension Framework." The Working Group has also "produced an abstract model and a glossary of terms and concepts used by the Working Group, together with a new issues list that describes issues and concerns raised by mapping its requirements and the XMLP abstract model against the SOAP/1.1." Section D.1 supplies 'SOAP Specification Changes' in tabular format; Section D.2 XML with 'Schema Changes' documents the envelope and encoding schemas which have been updated to be compliant with the XML Schema Recomendation.

Bibliographic information: SOAP Version 1.2. Reference: W3C Working Draft 9-July-2001 Version URl: http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/WD-soap12-20010709/. Latest version URL: http://www.w3.org/TR/soap12/. Edited by Martin Gudgin (DevelopMentor), Marc Hadley (Sun Microsystems), Jean-Jacques Moreau (Canon), and Henrik Frystyk Nielsen (Microsoft Corp.).