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The framework consists of the following core XML elements: Envelope, Header, Body, and Fault, all of which are from the namespace in SOAP 1.1. The SOAP messaging framework defines a suite of XML elements for "packaging" arbitrary XML messages for transport between systems. The core section of the SOAP specification is the messaging framework. The framework has been designed to be independent of any particular programming model and other implementation specific semantics.
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SOAP uses XML technologies to define an extensible messaging framework, which provides a message construct that can be exchanged over a variety of underlying protocols. SOAP is a lightweight protocol intended for exchanging structured information in a decentralized, distributed environment. This is because the protocol is not simple, and that it can be used for other purposes than accessing objects. Since version 1.2 the protocol is simply called SOAP. Before version 1.2 SOAP stood for Simple Object Access Protocol. There are different versions, 1.0, 1.1, and 1.2. The most common combination is to use SOAP with HTTP and TCP. It uses other application-layer protocols, for transport, and content negotiation, for example HTTP and Remote procedure call. Web services use this protocol to communicate.
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For the substance used for cleaning, see soap This article is about the computing protocol.
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