I've started out with a basic soap server (which was shamelessly copied from somewhere or other):

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use diagnostics;
# Remove from production code
use SOAP::Transport::HTTP;
# Get the object for standalone servers

my $SERVER_PORT = 9000;
my $SERVER_NAME = 'localhost';

# Create a SOAP server object
my $soap_server = SOAP::Transport::HTTP::Daemon
    -> new (LocalAddr => $SERVER_NAME, LocalPort => $SERVER_PORT )


# What is the root directory for our objects?
# (Remember, the default Perl @INC path will
# be ignored.)
# Do *not* use /tmp on a real server!
    -> dispatch_to('/data/jeff/soap');

# Indicate on which port we're expecting
# SOAP requests
print "SOAP server is waiting on port $SERVER_PORT...\n";

# Now handle the incoming SOAP method call,
# and return an appropriate SOAP response.
$soap_server->handle();
[download]

Now in /data/jeff/soap I place a directory Text and within it a module called Caps.pm containing the following code:

use strict;
use LWP;
use LWP::UserAgent;
#use diagnostics;
# Turn off in production code capitalize expects to
# receive one argument. It returns that argument,
# capitalized, using Perl's built-in
# capitalization (uc) function.

sub capitalize
{
    my $self = shift;
    my $word = shift;

    return uc ($word);
}
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I then call this with the following SOAP::Lite client:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use diagnostics;      # Remove from production code
use SOAP::Lite;

# Pass the command-line argument for capitalization
my $result = SOAP::Lite -> uri('Text/Caps') ->
   proxy('http://localhost:9000')
    -> capitalize('Mares Eat Oats, And Does Eat Oats, and Little Lambs
+ Eat Ivy')

    -> result() || '';

# Print the result
print "Result = '$result'\n";
[download]

Running this client gives me the desired output

Result = 'MARES EAT OATS, AND DOES EAT OATS, AND LITTLE LAMBS EAT IVY'
[download]

So far, so good. All of that comes from an exaple found somewhere. Note that in the Text::Caps module I have the LWP modules included just to illustrate they don't cause a problem.

Now what I really want to do involves tasks that need base64 encoding to achieve their results. But if I simply add a "use MIME::Base64;" to the perl module Text::Caps and kill and restart the server script, I get:

Result = ''
[download]

when I run the same client script. No error messages are produced in either the client or the server. In fact, I don't think the module is actually loading, as warnings I insert also are not displayed.

My questions are:

1. Are only some modules allowed within SOAP servers (perhaps for security reasons)?
2. How can I add additional modules to that list or circumvent the "feature" in #1?
3. What sort of code can I add to my server script or module to tell me what is going on with respect to the module loading or other errors?

Note that I know I can write code to do the base64 encoding, that's not the problem. I just want to know the ground rules as there are other modules I'd like to use in my SOAP servers!

Thank you for bearing with me on this extremely long post oh wise and patient monks.

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