The SDK's interface is a web service offering a SOAP as well as a RESTful interface. All requests are available in both ways. This makes the service actually acting as a kind of "Hybrid" web service.
SOAP is typically recommended to be used with high level programming languages like C# or within in a J2EE application. An integrated development environment (IDE) will usually automatically build wrapper classes from the SDK's WSDL. For more information see Use Nexus Card SDK with different programming languages.
REST may be used as a lean and easy interface with languages like JavaScript (with its XML-HttpRequest object) or even with C (with Window'sWinINet functions like HttpSendRequest).
The choice, SOAP or REST, may also depend on your knowledge or on your personal preference. However, independent of using SOAP or REST, the web service offers a basically identical communication style: Each SDK function request receives its data as XML and returns its response as XML.
These basic rules regarding the request XMLs applies for all web service functions:
- Response XML = Sent XML + Enriched data: The returned XML corresponds to the sent request XML and is extended or modified by some return data. However, a few exceptions for this rule exist but they are explicitly named in the sections below.
- Language identifier: A request that shows a user interface may contain a language attribute to control the language of its interface. This language attribute is always part of the XMLs root element. Supported values correspond to the 2-letter code as defined in ISO 639-1. Currently supported language identifiers are EN, DE, SV, FR, IT, ES, PT, PL, RU, AR, ZH.