Wayne,
On Tue, Jul 10, 2001 at 10:13:21AM -0700, Carr, Wayne wrote:
SOAP intermediaries don't have to be explicitly targetted.
Anything along the way could read and act on a soap message. If
you do use the soap actor attribute, how you use it is very
flexible. You can ask the next node to act on it. You can use a
uri that indicates a specific node or you can use a URI that
indicates some action you want and you don't care who does it.
What you describe isn't a SOAP intermediary by the WG's definition -
see [1]. Of course the actor which nominiates the intermediary
doesn't have to be tied to the network identity of that node; my
point was that there must be an explicit targetting of the block for
a SOAP intermediary to be able to process it.
As I noted, other devices may choose to fiddle with SOAP messages (as
with any other payload); however, they're not interposed by SOAP.
This 'failing' is perhaps why one of the first SOAP Modules submitted
was for XML digital signatures [2], and it's more than likely that it
will be joined by XML Encryption ASAP.
Cheers,
[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/WD-soap12-20010709/#_Toc478382082
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/SOAP-dsig/
--
Mark Nottingham, Research Scientist
Akamai Technologies (San Mateo, CA USA)