This is my server code:

  #!D:/perl/bin/perl.exe -w
  use strict;
  use SOAP::Transport::HTTP;

  SOAP::Transport::HTTP::CGI
      -> dispatch_to( 'Temperatures' )
      -> handle;

  package Temperatures;

  sub f2c {
      my ( $self, $f, $format ) = @_;
      my $fmt = $format || $self->{_format};
      return sprintf $fmt, (5/9 * ($f - 32));
  }

  sub c2f {
      my ( $self, $c, $format ) = @_;
      my $fmt = $format || $self->{_format};
      return sprintf $fmt, (32 + $c*9/5);
  }

  sub format {
      my ( $self, $format ) = @_;
      $self->{_format} = $format if $format;
      $self->{_format};
  }

  sub new {
      my $class = shift;
      bless {
          _format => '%.2f'
      }, $class;
  }
[download]

And this is my client (I stripped out the HTML part). Notice that I appear to be instantiating a new Temperature object and then calling methods on it. However, my co-worker cannot do anything with the returned data.

  #!D:/perl/bin/perl.exe -wT
  use strict;
  use CGI  qw/:standard/;
  use SOAP::Lite +autodispatch =>
    uri   => 'http://192.168.1.26/Temperatures',
    proxy => 'http://192.168.1.26/soap/temper.cgi';

  my $temp   = param( 'temp' );
  my $type   = param( 'type' )   || '';
  my $format = param( 'format' ) || '';

  $temp = '' if ! defined $temp;

  ($temp) = $temp =~ /([\d.]+)/;
  ($type) = $type =~ /([cf])/;

  my $temp_result;

  if ( $temp ) {
    my $temperature = Temperatures->new;
    $temperature->format( $format ) if $format;
    $temp_result =  $type eq 'c'
      ? $temperature->c2f( $temp )
      : $temperature->f2c( $temp );
  }
[download]

Here's the XML response he gets when he calls new():

<SOAP-ENV:Body>
  <namesp1:newResponse xmlns:namesp1="http://192.168.1.26/Temperatures
+">
    <Temperatures xsi:type="namesp1:Temperatures">
      <_format xsi:type="xsd:string">%.2f</_format>
    </Temperatures>
  </namesp1:newResponse>
</SOAP-ENV:Body>
[download]

Frankly, I have no idea where to look next. I've done a lot of Web searching, but to no avail. Since I know nothing about SOAP, is it possible that I am just totally misunderstanding the way things work? Is it not possible for a Python client to call a Perl constructor via SOAP? If that's the case, does this mean that the Simple Object Access Protocol isn't really for accessing objects?

Note that if I recode everything in a functional style, Python has no problem communicating with my server.

Cheers,
Ovid

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