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Table Of Contents
SOAP API Developer Reference February 01, 2013 15
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PayPal SOAP API Basics
The PayPal SOAP API is based on open standards known collectively as web services, which
include the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), Web Services Definition Language
(WSDL), and the XML Schema Definition language (XSD). A wide range of development
tools on a variety of platforms support web services.
Like many web services, PayPal SOAP is a combination of client-side and server-side
schemas, hardware and software servers, and core services.
PayPal SOAP High-level Diagram
In an object-oriented processing model, the interface to SOAP requests/responses is an object
in your application’s native programming language. Your third-party SOAP client generates
business-object interfaces and network stubs from PayPal-provided WSDL and XSD files that
specify the PayPal SOAP message structure, its contents, and the PayPal API service bindings.
A business application works with data in the form of object properties to send and receive
data by calling object methods. The SOAP client handles the details of building the SOAP
request, sending it to the PayPal service, and converting the response back to an object.