Web Services
The most common way we access information on the internet is through the use of
a browser such as Internet Explorer to send and receive messages. The messages
contain HTML which is a mark up language that can be parsed by your browser in
order to render the user interface. New internet applications such as PDAs,
WAP phones and other client devices are seen as the next generation of the internet
and this is where web services will become of use.
A Web Service can be thought of as an application that can be invoked programatically over the internet.
Such a service maybe be extremely basic by providing a stock quotation or weather report
based upon supplied parameters or the service maybe be complex and used
in business to business scenarios.
Web Services achieve interoperability between applications by utilising numerous technologies.
XML is used to represent the data in a web service because it is platform independent and
is very easy to use as a means of describing data in a format that can be understood by
humans and computers. Sitting on top of XML are XML schemas. An XML schema can be used
by a web service so that the structure and data types of the web service can be interpreted
by client applications. XSD is the schema technology which achieves this purpose.
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web services.