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 doesn't works only on perl 5.6 and not 5.8. UNIVERSAL::AUTOLOAD is broken in perl 5.8 and it is used by Class::Hook upon wich WSDL::Generator depends.

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 till n 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
  Joe Breeden for his excellent documentation
  Yuval Mazor for his patch to make it compatible with .net wsdl compiler
  Leon Brocard for his code review
  James Duncan for his support

AUTHOR

Pierre Denis, <pierre@itrelease.net>.

COPYRIGHT

Copyright 2009, Pierre Denis, All Rights Reserved.

You may use, modify, and distribute this package under the same terms as Perl itself.

cpanm WSDL::Generator

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install WSDL::Generator