Implementing WSDL-oriented SOAP applications in Perl

This post is mostly an update of the features of the Catalyst::Controller::SOAP module, but since this is a groundbreaking release and that you now can deploy easily WSDL oriented services, I thought it is worth a post here.

Usage

RPC/Literal

RPC Literal is an alternative to RPC/Encoded, as many people don't like SOAP-Encoding. You still have the RPC semantics and the input and output are parsed according to the WSDL

package MyApp::Controller::Service;
use strict;
use warnings;
use base qw(Catalyst::Controller::SOAP::RPC);

__PACKAGE__->config->{wsdl} = 'foo.wsdl';

sub operation : SOAP(RPCLiteral) {
   my ($self, $c, $in) = @_;
   # where $in is a hashref with the result of the 
   # XML::Compile::Schema
   # parse for the type of each of the message parts,
   # the key is the name of the part, the value is the
   # result of the parse.
   ...
   # to return a value, you can also use XML::Compile
   # features, according to the WSDL types.
   $c->stash->{soap}->compile_return({ ... });
}
[download]

Document/Literal

Also known as Document/Literal-Bare, this is a usage where each endpoint has only one operation. This way, your operation look like

sub other_operation : Local SOAP('DocumentLiteral') {
    # the body is parsed the same way as RPC literal,
    # except that RPC Literal starts the parsing inside
    # the operation element, while Document Literal parses
    # the whole body.
    # The return can be set in the exact same way.
}
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Document/Literal Wrapped

THIS IS IMPLEMENTED FOR COMPATIBILITY REASONS ONLY, and provides an endpoint that delays the dispatch based on the SOAPAction header. Please see Catalyst::Controller::SOAP::DocumentLiteralWrapped documentation for a detailed explanation of why this usage SUCKS

Here the programming semantics are the same of RPC/Literal, but the parsing semantics are the same of Document/Literal.

 
package MyApp::Controller::Service;
use strict;
use warnings;
use base qw(Catalyst::Controller::SOAP::DocumentLiteralWrapped);

__PACKAGE__->config->{wsdl} = 'foo.wsdl';
__PACKAGE__->config->{soap_action_prefix} = 'http://example.com/';

sub operation : SOAP('DocumentLiteral') {
   # The final operation is still DocumentLiteral, but
   # the superclass registers a dispatcher that will 
   # forward to this action based on the SOAPAction
   # header.
}
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BUT I, AGAIN, WARN YOU THAT THIS IS A PSEUDO-STANDARD DEFINED BY MICROSOFT THAT IS HTTP-SPECIFIC, AND SHOULD BE DISCOURAGED. RPC/Literal CAN IMPLEMENT THE EXACT SAME MESSAGES THAN Document/Literal-Wrapped AND KEEPS THE DISPATCHING SEMANTICS SANE.

And what about client use?

Catalyst::Controller::SOAP have the companion Catalyst::Model::SOAP that maps stub methods for every operation as described by XML::Compile::WSDL11.

So, happy hacking...

daniel


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