About SOAP Formatter

Format SOAP XML messages. Part of the DevTools Surf developer suite. Browse more tools in the XML collection.

Use Cases

• Integration engineers debugging SOAP request and response messages
• Backend devs formatting SOAP payloads for logging and troubleshooting
• QA engineers comparing expected vs actual SOAP message structures
• Support engineers making SOAP error responses readable for analysis

Tips

• Format SOAP envelopes to clearly see Header and Body sections
• Verify namespace prefixes are consistent throughout the message
• Use formatting to spot missing required SOAP elements quickly

Fun Facts

• SOAP was originally named Simple Object Access Protocol, but the acronym was dropped in SOAP 1.2 (2003) since it was considered misleading.
• SOAP was first designed by Dave Winer, Don Box, Bob Atkinson, and Mohsen Al-Ghosein at Microsoft in 1998.
• Despite REST's dominance, SOAP remains widely used in banking and healthcare, where WS-Security provides enterprise-grade encryption.

FAQ

What makes SOAP different from plain XML?

A SOAP envelope has a specific structure: Envelope > Header + Body. The formatter highlights these sections and keeps WS-Addressing and WS-Security headers grouped.

Does it validate against the SOAP spec?

Structurally yes — missing Envelope, mismatched namespace, missing Body are flagged. For full WSDL-based validation use the WSDL Formatter alongside.

Can I strip security headers for debugging?

Toggle 'hide WS-Security' to visually collapse those headers while keeping them in the output. Useful when the Body is the part you're actually debugging.

Does it handle SOAP 1.1 and 1.2?

Both. The tool auto-detects the envelope namespace and adjusts formatting accordingly.