Sorry, my first go was more complicated than necessary. Here is a second simplified go to demonstrate my problem:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict;

use SOAP::Lite;

my $xml = <<'eof';
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<SOAP-ENV:Envelope xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/env
+elope/">
  <SOAP-ENV:Header/>
  <SOAP-ENV:Body>
    <command id="1">
      <message id="2">
        <time time="27.07.2007-10:37:49 +0200"/>
      </message>
    </command>
  </SOAP-ENV:Body>
</SOAP-ENV:Envelope>
eof

my $som = SOAP::Deserializer->deserialize($xml);

print "time = ", $som->dataof('//command/message/time')->attr->{time},
+ "\n";
print "done.\n";
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Output is

time = 27.07.2007-10:37:49 +0200
done.
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but

Can't call method "attr" on an undefined value at deserialize-test2.pl
+ line 23.
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as soon as the id attributes of command and message are identical. I wouldn't care if I could get the raw XML from the SOAP response. Axel.