Question

I am new to Java.I know that there are two types of web service

1. SOAP Webservice.
2. RESTful Webservice.

can any one please tell me what is the basic difference between both of them.And in which situation the SOAP Webservice is created and in which situation RESTful Webservice is created.

Thank You,

Answer 1

As the first answer allready explains, SOAP Webservices and REST Webservices differ in various points.

SOAP:

• you define your interface in a .wsdl file, which describes exactly which input parameters are expected and how the return values will look like
• there are tools to generate the .wsdl files out of java class hirarchies. JAXB for example
• there are also tools to generate java objects/classes as part of eclipse for example (don’t know the name in the moment).
• SOAP is very strict. Every request is validatet against the wsdl before processing.

A good but not so easy to start with framework for SOAP WS is Apache CXF

REST (no hands on experience up to now, feel free to correct and improve 😉 ):

• a way to access a webserver or web application to retrieve data from or send to it.
• it’s only negotiated, how it is accessed.
• common is something like this http://server.domain.com/app/type/id=123 to retrieve object of type type with id=123
• very intuitive, but no automatic validation of requests.
• …

I am sure, there are several other points I missed. But I think it’s a usefull start.