In order for a SOAP client to communicate effectively with a SOAP server, the client and server must agree on a data type system. By default, XML 1.0 does not provide a data type system. In contrast, every programming language provides some basic facility for declaring data types, such as integers, floats, doubles, and strings. One of the greatest challenges in building web services is therefore creating a common data type system that can be used by a diverse set of programming languages running on a diverse set of operating systems.
WSDL does not aim to create a standard for XML data typing. In fact, WSDL is specifically designed for maximum flexibility and is therefore not tied exclusively to any one data type system. Nonetheless, WSDL does default to the W3C XML Schema specification. The XML Schema specification is also currently the most widely used specification for data typing.
First, the XML Schema specification includes a basic type system for encoding most data types. This type system includes a long list of built-in simple types.These are:
string,Boolean,float,double,decimal,binary,integer,
nonPositiveInteger,negativeInteger,long,int,short,byte,
nonNegativeInteger,unsignedLong,unsignedInt,unsignedShort,
unsignedByte,positiveInteger,date,time
Second, the XML Schema specification provides a facility for creating new data types. This is important if you want to create data types that go beyond what is already defined within the Schema. For example, a service might return an array of floats or a more complex stock quote object containing the high, low, and volume figures for a specific stock. Whenever your service goes beyond the simple XML Schema data types, you must declare these new data types within the WSDL types element.
In the next two sections of this weblog, I present two specific examples of using XML Schemas to create new data types. The first focuses on arrays; the second focuses on a more complex data type for encapsulating product information.
Arrays
Complex Types
