A good place to look for a comparison of the various XML documents you might want to look at the Perl-XML FAQ

Any suggestions on what I might use to a) markup and send the HTTPS POST (XML) connection

Here is one way to do it. (well the posting part anyhow);

and b) accept/parse the reply?

Good Luck

-enlil

Essentially this is a trivial use of XML. The data could just as easily have been sent as Field: Value. You could quite easily just interpolate values into a post string to get the required format for the post data and then use LWP::UserAgent to do the POST and accept the REPLY. To parse the sort of trivial reply you have to deal with you could use XML::Simple. If you are certain that the XML will always be well formed you could use a simple RE (but this is not recommended)....

while(<DATA>){
    next unless m!^\s*<([^>]+)>([^<]+)</(\1)>!;
    $h{$1}=$2;
}
use Data::Dumper;
print Dumper \%h;

__DATA__
<Reply>
<TransactionReply>
<ResponseCode>0</ResponseCode>
<ResultCode>00</ResultCode>
<ResultMessage>APPROVED</ResultMessage> 
<TransactionID>100000182165</TransactionID>
<AVSResponseCode />
<CVVResponseCode />
<ApprovalNumber>123456</ApprovalNumber>
<AuthorizationNumber>123456</AuthorizationNumber>
<TransactionDate>021112</TransactionDate>
<TransactionTime>110544</TransactionTime>
<ReferenceNumber>1234</ReferenceNumber>
<AccountNumber>XXXXXXXXXXXX1111</AccountNumber>
<TransactionAmount>1.00</TransactionAmount> 
</TransactionReply>
</Reply>
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Don't forget to decode any XML escaped charaters in the value ($2).

XML::Writer is worth a look for writing XML.

For something a bit more in depth, I would actually recommend XML::LibXML over XML::DOM. XML::LibXML is actively maintained and is lightning fast. XML::DOM got somewhat neglected by Enno until TJ Mather rescued it last year and put out a release.

Personally I use XML::LibXML both for it's speed (based on libxml2 instead of expat) and because it validates XML against DTDs nicely.

Oh, did I mention how fast XML::LibXML is?

-- vek --

The EFSNet site suggests a solution to your problem. Did you experiment with the SOAP::Lite code samples provided by them:

# Note: To use this sample, insert your issued StoreID and StoreKey va
+lues where appropriate.

# This sample Perl code demonstrates calling the EFSnet SystemCheck me
+thod via the SOAP interface.
# This code requires SOAP::Lite and its pre-requisites (http://www.soa
+plite.com/).

use SOAP::Lite;

# Call EFSnet SystemCheck method
@OutputParams = SOAP::Lite
-> service('https://testefsnet.concordebiz.com/EFSnet2.wsdl')
-> SystemCheck('myStoreID', 'myStoreKey', 'EFSnet samples 1.0');

# Get output variables
$ResponseCode = $OutputParams[0];
$ResultCode = $OutputParams[1];
$ResultMessage = $OutputParams[2];
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Yes, I did. The SOAP SystemCheck method they provide for testing works fine, but neither their XML or CGI interfaces are authenticating successfully for me. The SOAP interface appears easy to use, but none of the other methods work at all for me. I'll be calling their support line soon.


-fp

  use XML::Smart ;

  my $url = 'http://www.perlmonks.org/index.pl?node_id=16046' ;
  my $XML = XML::Smart->new($url) ;
  
  my $sitename = $XML->{XPINFO}{INFO}{sitename} ;
  my $user = $XML->{XPINFO}{INFO}{foruser} ;
  my $id = $XML->{XPINFO}{INFO}{id} ;  
  my $msg = $XML->{XPINFO}{INFO} ;  
  
  ## Generating the XML data again:
  print $XML->data ;
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