For SOAP messages to be extensible, they need to support a variety of data types. Simple data types, such as string, integer, and boolean, can be directly or literally used in a SOAP message. However, simple data types are not always sufficient to represent the entire spectrum of data that is exchanged in a message. Complex data types, such as student details, are frequently used, but they cannot be directly used in a SOAP message. Therefore, the need for an algorithm to determine how these complex data types will be represented or encoded in an XML format in a SOAP message.
SOAP supports Section 5 encoding or SOAP encoding and literal encoding styles. While SOAP encoding follows the rules defined in the SOAP 1.1 specification, literal encoding uses an XML schema to represent data.
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