NAME WSDL::Generator - Generate wsdl file automagically SYNOPSIS use WSDL::Generator; my $wsdl = WSDL::Generator->new($init); Foo->a_method($param}; print $wsdl->get('Foo'); DESCRIPTION You know folks out there who use another language than Perl (huh?) and you want to release a SOAP server for them 1/ that's very kind of you 2/ you need to generate a wsdl file 3/ this module can help Because Perl is dynamically typed, it is a fantastic language to write SOAP clients, but that makes perl not-so-easy to use as SOAP server queried by statically typed languages such as Delphi, Java, C++, VB... These languages need a WSDL file to communicate with your server. The WSDL file contains all the data structure definition necessary to interact with the server. It contains also the namespace and URL as well. CONSTRUCTOR new($init) $init = { 'schema_namesp' => 'http://www.acmetravel.com/AcmeTravelServices.xsd', 'services' => 'AcmeTravel', 'service_name' => 'BookFlight', 'target_namesp' => 'http://www.acmetravel.com/SOAP/', 'documentation' => 'Service to book tickets online', 'location' => 'http://www.acmetravel.com/SOAP/BookFlight' }; Install a spy which captures all the methods and subs calls to other classes METHODS get($class) Returns the WSDL code for a specific class get_all() Returns all classes available for a WSDL generation schema_namesp($value) Get or Set schema name space value service($value) Get or Set service name value services($value) Get or Set services name value CAVEATS WSDL is very flexible since it can describe any kind of data structure in a language non dependant description. But that flexibility makes certain things difficult, such as array of inconsistant data types. So, here is the current limitation of WSDL::Generator : Rule - "An array must contain elements of the same perl type". Understand perl type as "scalar", "arrayref" or "hashref". So, if you send this: [ { key1 => 'Hello', key2 => 'world', }, { key1 => 'Hi', key3 => 'there', }, { key1 => 'Hi', }, ] That will do, but if you send: [ { key1 => 'Hello', key2 => 'world', }, { key1 => 'Hi', key3 => 'there', }, 'a string instead of a hash ref', ] That won't work, since your structure is not "consistent", your array cannot contain both hashref and string. Another situation, if you send this: [ { key1 => 'Hello', key2 => 'world', }, { key1 => 'Hi', key3 => 'there', }, { key1 => 'Hi', }, ] That will do, but if you send: [ { key1 => 'Hello', key2 => 'world', }, { key1 => [1,2,3], key3 => 'there', }, ] That won't work either, since your key1 can have two complete different types of value (a string or an arrayref) Finally, if you call several times a method, only the last call will be scanned to produce the WSDL file. I hope these limitations will be lifted in the future. BUGS This is an alpha release, so don't expect miracles and don't use it without caution - you've been warned! Feel free to send me your bug reports, contribution and comments about this project. SEE ALSO SOAP::Lite, Class::Hook http://www.w3.org/TR/SOAP/ http://www.w3.org/TR/wsdl ACKNOWLEDGEMENT A lot of thanks to: Paul Kulchenko for his fantastic SOAP::Lite module and his help Patrick Morris, a Delphi wizard, for testing the wsdl generated and investing weird things Leon Brocard for his code review James Duncan for his support AUTHOR "Pierre Denis" <pdenis@fotango.com> COPYRIGHT Copyright (C) 2001, Fotango Ltd - All rights reserved. This is free software. This software may be modified and/or distributed under the same terms as Perl itself.