Understanding WSDL

This is an attempt to explain WSDL in the simplest manner

About WSDL

•WSDL stands for Web Service Definition Language.
•It is a contract to the web service that is expressed in XML. To understand better this can be compared to an Interface in Java or a Package in Oracle which acts as a contract between the client and the system.
Structure of WSDL (parallels are drawn to Java wherever possible)

1.What are the capabilities of the Service?
◦What are the operations(methods) provided by the Service and what are the messages(parameters) that each operation requires?
◦The messages can be input(parameters), output(return value) or faults(exception)
2.How can the Service be accessed?
◦What is the protocol(SOAP) and what is the encoding(document)?
3.Where can the Service be accessed?
◦What is the endpoint(address) of the Service?