Re: Multiple APIs for SOAP Clients in Mozilla?

Siegfried Heintze wrote:

> Are there multiple APIs for writing javascript browser resident SOAP clients
> in Mozilla/Netscape?

Yes, there is a low-level SOAP API and a higher level one, the low-level 
one documented here
<http://web.archive.org/web/20031203040121/http://devedge.netscape.com/viewsource/2003/soap/01/>
is around since Mozilla 1.0, the higher level one documented here
<http://web.archive.org/web/20031202203447/http://devedge.netscape.com/viewsource/2003/wsdl/01/>
since Mozilla 1.4.


> http://lxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/source/extensions/xmlextras/tests/xpost.html
> exemplifying a newer and somewhat Microsoft compatible API that does the
> same thing?

That URL uses XMLHttpRequest which is not in any way a SOAP specific API 
but simply an API to make HTTP request and receiving the response, 
exchanging XML data over HTTP.
And as for Mozilla XMLHttpRequest is older than the two SOAP/web service 
specific APIs I have linked to above.

> How do I decide which one to use?

If you really want to do SOAP exclusively you shouldn't bother with 
XMLHttpRequest but use the SOAP/web service specific APIs. Which one you 
want to use depends partly on which Mozilla versions you need to support 
as I have pointed out the differences (1.0 vs 1.4) above.

The only reason you would want to use XMLHttpRequest to manually 
construct SOAP messages could be that you want your code to work with 
Safari and upcoming Opera 8 releases as those have support for 
XMLHttpRequest but not the SOAP/web service specific APIs Mozilla 
provides additionally. But so far while there is XMLHttpRequest in the 
latest Safari and Opera releases the implementations are limited, Opera 
doesn't implement setRequestHeader for instance which you would need for 
SOAP.

-- 

	Martin Honnen
	http://JavaScript.FAQTs.com/