PortType Description Component

WSDL defines the messages exchanges in which a service can engage in the PortType Description Component of a WSDL document. As your widget supplier in Katmandu may indicate that she can input a bill and output an international cashers check, the PortType Description Component of a WSDL document specifies the various message exchanges a service can participate in. To get a feel for this, lets look at a snippet:

<portType name="StockQuotePortType">
  <operation name="GetLastTradePrice">
    <input message="tns:GetLastTradePriceInput"/>
    <output message="tns:GetLastTradePriceOutput"/>
  </operation>
</portType>

This snippet describes one message exchange GetLastTradePrice in which the described service may engage. A set of such message exchanges is called a portType, God knows why, and the particular portType defined in the snippet is called StockQuotePortType. The StockQuotePortType has one message exchange, an operation, GetLastTradePrice that takes as input a GetLastTradePriceInput message and outputs a GetLastTradePriceOutput message, messages we defined previously.