title: What is the difference between Type and Element in WSDL?
body: <p>In WSDL file a function can return a Type or an Element. I have used only custom types as a results so far. However, I wonder when the Element should be more appropriate than the Type? What is the difference between them?</p>
  
  <p>Is there any difference between</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;wsdl:message name="MyFunction"&gt;
      &lt;wsdl:part name="parameters" element="tns:Person"&gt;&lt;/wsdl:part&gt;
  &lt;/wsdl:message&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>and</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;wsdl:message name="MyFunction"&gt;
      &lt;wsdl:part name="parameters" type="tns:Person"&gt;&lt;/wsdl:part&gt;
  &lt;/wsdl:message&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>from a Client perspective (application that uses the web service)?</p>
  
  <p>The above question, as skaffman pointed, leads to a another question. What is the difference between</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;xs:element name="Person" ... &gt;
   ...
  &lt;/xs:element&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>and</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;xs:complexType name="Person"&gt;
     ...
  &lt;/xs:complexType&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>?</p>