The “O” in SOAP stands for “object” and has to do with its roots as a way of invoking COM objects across the Internet. As with its close cousin XML-RPC, SOAP is fully capable of describing a remote procedure call or method invocation. Here’s a typical SOAP document that describes a method invocation on a remote object:

POST /StockQuote HTTP/1.1
Host: www.example.org
Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"
Content-Length: nnnn
SOAPAction: "http://example.org/2001/06/quotes"

<env:Envelope xmlns:env="http://www.w3.org/2001/09/soap-envelope" >
 <env:Body>
  <m:GetLastTradePrice
        env:encodingStyle="http://www.w3.org/2001/09/soap-encoding"
        xmlns:m="http://example.org/2001/06/quotes">
    <symbol>DIS</symbol>
 </m:GetLastTradePrice>
 </env:Body>
</env:Envelope>

Section 3.5 discusses the details of this SOAP request. For now, it should suffice to say that the two most important parts are the method name, GetLastTradePrice, and its parameter, the ticker symbol DIS.