ethrbunny has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Im needing to install SOAP servers on several hundred WinXP machines. I have the server-side code written in Java using Axis2 but am wondering about implementing it in Perl so that I can avoid having to mess with Tomcat.

I've been reading about Soap::Lite but am not clear on the implementation of the server side. Im assuming I need an application server of some sort. Will Apache be sufficient? The pages I found for Soap::Lite have plenty of samples but not much about actual setup/install.

Whats the latest in this field? Are sites deploying SOAP using Perl or am I painfully behind the times?

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Re: SOAP/RPC - whats the latest?
by zer (Deacon) on Jul 17, 2007 at 20:56 UTC
      Right - I read that series early on. I don't understand Apache well enough to know how to use the sample code. Clearly it's something *so* trivial that they don't get into it.

      Is the implication that one could use any app server?

      edit: I did find this site. Is this the correct combination? mod_perl + soap::lite + apache?

        That's one way :) Another way would be to use Apache2::SOAP.

        In my /etc/httpd/conf.d/perl.conf file:

        LoadModule perl_module modules/mod_perl.so PerlRequire "/etc/httpd/conf.d/startup.pl" <Location /soap> SetHandler perl-script PerlResponseHandler Apache2::SOAP PerlSetVar dispatch_to "/var/www/html/soap" PerlSetVar options "compress_threshold => 10000" </Location>

        perl_startup.pl file (this includes the modules that you will be accessing - note that you will still have to do the "use MODULE" in the (service).pm files):

        use ModPerl::Util (); #for CORE::GLOBAL::exit use Apache2::Request; use Apache2::RequestRec (); use Apache2::RequestIO (); use Apache2::RequestUtil (); use Apache2::ServerUtil (); use Apache2::ServerRec (); use Apache2::Connection (); use Apache2::Log (); use Apache::Session (); use Apache::DBI; use CGI (); use CGI::Cookie (); use APR::Table (); use ModPerl::Registry (); use Apache2::Const -compile => ':common'; use APR::Const -compile => ':common'; use DBI; use XML::Handler::YAWriter; use XML::Generator::DBI; use File::Basename; 1;

        Example soap service (/var/www/html/soap/Demo2.pm):

        package Demo2; use XML::Generator::DBI; use XML::Handler::YAWriter; use DBI; =begin WSDL _IN hi $string A foo _DOC This is a test soap web service that prints a list of the + current DBAs _RETURN $string Returns a string containing the current DBAs =end WSDL sub hi { my $out_xml = "hi"; my $ya = XML::Handler::YAWriter->new(); # Stuff return $out_xml; } 1;

        demo.pl: access the Demo2 web service (example soap client):

        #!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; use SOAP::Lite; my $soap = SOAP::Lite->uri('urn:Demo2'); my $proxy = $soap->proxy("http://localhost/soap/"); my $obj = $proxy->hi(); print $obj->result . "\n";

        This will make any calls to http://localhost/soap be handled by perl. Changing this to work for Apache on windows should be a simple matter :)

        Jason L. Froebe

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