/ 
SOAP-WSDL-2.00_20
River stage one • 7 direct dependents • 7 total dependents
/ SOAP::WSDL

NAME

SOAP::WSDL - SOAP with WSDL support

Overview

For creating Perl classes instrumenting a web service with a WSDL definition, read SOAP::WSDL::Manual.

For using an interpreting (thus slow and somewhat troublesome) WSDL based SOAP client, which mimics SOAP::Lite's API, read on.

SYNOPSIS

my $soap = SOAP::WSDL->new(
   wsdl => 'file://bla.wsdl',
);

my $result = $soap->call('MyMethod', %data);

DESCRIPTION

SOAP::WSDL provides easy access to Web Services with WSDL descriptions.

The WSDL is parsed and stored in memory.

Your data is serialized according to the rules in the WSDL.

The only transport mechanisms currently supported are http and https.

METHODS

new

Constructor. All parameters passed are passed to the corresponding methods.

call

Performs a SOAP call. The result is either an object tree (with outputtree), a hash reference (with outputhash), plain XML (with outputxml) or a SOAP::SOM object (with neither of the above set).

call() can be called in different ways:

  • Old-style idiom

    my $result = $soap->call('method', %data);

    Does not support SOAP header data.

  • New-style idiom

    my $result = $soap->call('method', $body_ref, $header_ref );

    Does support SOAP header data. $body_ref and $header ref may either be hash refs or SOAP::WSDL::XSD::Typelib::* derived objects.

    Result headers are accessible via the result SOAP::SOM object.

    If outputtree or outputhash are set, you may also use the following to access response header data:

    my ($body, $header) = $soap->call('method', $body_ref, $header_ref );

wsdlinit

Reads the WSDL file and initializes SOAP::WSDL for working with it.

Is called automatically from call() if not called directly before.

servicename
portname
call

You may set servicename and portname by passing them as attributes to wsdlinit:

$soap->wsdlinit(
   servicename => 'MyService',
   portname => 'MyPort' 
);

CONFIGURATION METHODS

outputtree

When outputtree is set, SOAP::WSDL will return an object tree instead of a SOAP::SOM object.

You have to specify a class_resolver for this to work. See class_resolver

class_resolver

Set the class resolver class (or object).

Class resolvers must implement the method get_class which has to return the name of the class name for deserializing a XML node at the current XPath location.

Class resolvers are typically generated by using the generate_typemap method of a SOAP::WSDL::Generator subclass.

Example:

XML structure (SOAP body content):

<Person>
   <Name>Smith</Name>
   <FirstName>John</FirstName>
</Person>

Class resolver

package MyResolver;
my %typemap = (
   'Person' => 'MyPersonClass',
   'Person/Name' => 'SOAP::WSDL::XSD::Typelib::Builtin::string',
   'Person/FirstName' => 'SOAP::WSDL::XSD::Typelib::Builtin::string',
);

sub get_class { return $typemap{ $_[1] } };
1;

You'll need a MyPersonClass module in your search path for this to work - see SOAP::WSDL::XSD::ComplexType on how to build / generate one.

servicename

$soap->servicename('Name');

Sets the service to operate on. If no service is set via servicename, the first service found is used.

Returns the soap object, so you can chain calls like

$soap->servicename->('Name')->portname('Port');

portname

$soap->portname('Name');

Sets the port to operate on. If no port is set via portname, the first port found is used.

Returns the soap object, so you can chain calls like

$soap->portname('Port')->call('MyMethod', %data);

no_dispatch

When set, call() returns the plain request XML instead of dispatching the SOAP call to the SOAP service. Handy for testing/debugging.

ACCESS TO SOAP::WSDL's internals

get_client / set_client

Returns the SOAP client implementation used (normally a SOAP::WSDL::Client object).

EXAMPLES

See the examples/ directory.

Differences to previous versions

  • WSDL handling

    SOAP::WSDL 2 is a complete rewrite. While SOAP::WSDL 1.x attempted to process the WSDL file on the fly by using XPath queries, SOAP:WSDL 2 uses a Expat handler for parsing the WSDL and building up a object tree representing it's content.

    The object tree has two main functions: It knows how to serialize data passed as hash ref, and how to render the WSDL elements found into perl classes.

    Yup your're right, there's a builting code generation facility. Read SOAP::WSDL::Manual for using it.

  • no_dispatch

    call() with no_dispatch set to true now returns the complete SOAP request envelope, not only the body's content.

  • outputxml

    call() with outputxml set to true now returns the complete SOAP response envelope, not only the body's content.

  • servicename/portname

    Both servicename and portname can only be called after calling wsdlinit().

    You may pass the servicename and portname as attributes to wsdlinit, though.

Differences to SOAP::Lite

readable

readable is a no-op in SOAP::WSDL. Actually, the XML output from SOAP::Lite is hardly readable, either with readable switched on.

If you need readable XML messages, I suggest using your favorite XML editor for displaying and formatting.

Message style/encoding

While SOAP::Lite supports rpc/encoded style/encoding only, SOAP::WSDL currently supports document/literal style/encoding.

autotype / type information

SOAP::Lite defaults to transmitting XML type information by default, where SOAP::WSDL defaults to leaving it out.

autotype(1) might even be broken in SOAP::WSDL - it's not well-tested, yet.

Output formats

In contrast to SOAP::Lite, SOAP::WSDL supports the following output formats:

  • SOAP::SOM objects.

    This is the default. SOAP::Lite is required for outputting SOAP::SOM objects.

  • Object trees.

    This is the recommended output format. You need a class resolver (typemap) for outputting object trees. See class_resolver above.

  • Hash refs

    This is for convnience: A single hash ref containing the content of the SOAP body.

  • xml

    See below.

outputxml

SOAP::Lite returns only the content of the SOAP body when outputxml is set to true. SOAP::WSDL returns the complete XML response.

Auto-Dispatching

SOAP::WSDL does does not support auto-dispatching.

This is on purpose: You may easily create interface classes by using SOAP::WSDL::Client and implementing something like

sub mySoapMethod {
    my $self = shift;
    $soap_wsdl_client->call( mySoapMethod, @_);
}

You may even do this in a class factory - see wsdl2perl.pl for creating such interfaces.

Debugging / Tracing

While SOAP::Lite features a global tracing facility, SOAP::WSDL allows to switch tracing on/of on a per-object base.

This has to be done in the SOAP client used by SOAP::WSDL - see get_client for an example and SOAP::WSDL::Client for details.

Bugs and Limitations

  • Apache SOAP datatypes are not supported

    You currently can't use SOAP::WSDL with Apache SOAP datatypes like map.

    If you want this changed, email me a copy of the specs, please.

  • Incomplete XML Schema definitions support

    XML Schema attribute definitions are not supported yet.

    Importing external definitions is not supported yet.

    The following XML Schema definitions varieties are not supported:

    group
union
simpleContent

    The following XML Schema definition content model is only partially supported:

    complexContent - only restriction variety supported

    See SOAP::WSDL::Manual::XSD for details.

  • Serialization of hash refs dos not work for ambiguos values

    If you have list elements with multiple occurences allowed, SOAP::WSDL has no means of finding out which variant you meant.

    Passing in item => [1,2,3] could serialize to

    <item>1 2</item><item>3</item>
<item>1</item><item>2 3</item>

    Ambiguos data can be avoided by providing data as objects.

  • XML Schema facets

    Almost no XML schema facets are implemented yet. The only facets currently implemented are:

    fixed
default

    The following facets have no influence yet:

    minLength
maxLength
minInclusive
maxInclusive
minExclusive
maxExclusive
pattern
enumeration

SEE ALSO

  • SOAP::Lite

    Full featured SOAP-library, little WSDL support. Supports rpc-encoded style only. Many protocols supported.

  • <XML::Compile::WSDL|XML::Compile::WSDL>

    A promising-looking approach derived from a cool functional DOM-based XML schema parser.

    Will support encoding/decoding of SOAP messages based on WSDL definitions.

    Not yet finished at the time of writing - but you may wish to give it a try, especially if you need to adhere very closely to the XML Schema / WSDL specs.

Sources of documentation

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

There are many people out there who fostered SOAP::WSDL's developement. I would like to thank them all (and apologize to all those I have forgotten).

Giovanni S. Fois wrote a improved version of SOAP::WSDL (which eventually became v1.23)

David Bussenschutt, Damian A. Martinez Gelabert, Dennis S. Hennen, Dan Horne, Peter Orvos, Mark Overmeer, Jon Robens, Isidro Vila Verde and Glenn Wood spotted bugs and/or suggested improvements in the 1.2x releases.

Andreas 'ac0v' Specht constantly asked for better performance.

JT Justman provided some early feedback for the 2.xx pre-releases.

Numerous people sent me their real-world WSDL files for testing. Thank you.

Paul Kulchenko and Byrne Reese wrote and maintained SOAP::Lite and thus provided a base (and counterpart) for SOAP::WSDL.

LICENSE

Copyright 2004-2007 Martin Kutter.

This file is part of SOAP-WSDL. You may distribute/modify it under the same terms as perl itself

AUTHOR

Martin Kutter <martin.kutter fen-net.de>

REPOSITORY INFORMATION

$Rev: 308 $
$LastChangedBy: kutterma $
$Id: WSDL.pm 308 2007-10-05 17:35:28Z kutterma $
$HeadURL: https://soap-wsdl.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/soap-wsdl/SOAP-WSDL/trunk/lib/SOAP/WSDL.pm $