Newbie question - passing XML using POST

[Stephen Young <steve@neon.com.au>]

Hi Guys

I'm trying find a way to send and receive XML using HTTP POST.  You'd think
it would be simple, but my low level programming skills are struggling with
the task.

I work in a Microsoft environment, and I have two methods that work, but
they both involve sending the XML as an array (Safe Array) of bytes.  One
sends an MSXML3 DOMDocument and the other does a unicode converion of the
bytes at each end.

1) I don't imagine that either method will make it easy for non-Microsoft
apps to communicate and
2) There's gotta be an easier way - I'm just having a mental block on what
it is ;-)

A simple solution is to forget using POST altogether, and either do the GET
double round trip thing, or pass the XML in a querystring.  There has to be
a better way.

I've taken a look at a few objects for the purpose (eg. MS SOAP stuff) but I
don't want to limit communication methods at this early stage.  A simple
method to initiate a transaction by sending an XML document is all I'm
looking for.

Any ideas?