What is the difference between a return value and an out (in/out) parameter?

[Lene Bredgaard]

Title: What is the difference between a return value and an out (in/out) parameter?

Hi

I am puzzled by the section 7.1 of the SOAP1.1 spec, describing the RPC response message:
The method response is viewed as a single struct containing an accessor for the return value and each [out] or [in/out] parameter.

What is the difference between a return value and an out parameter?
Is there any difference in Java?

If somebody has an enlightening example it would help me.

Lene