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

Monks,

I'm a complete beginner to the SOAP concept, needing to start making use of SOAP as part of a major project I'm currently working on.

The project is based in Perl, and a search on CPAN has turned up two likely-looking modules to help with the SOAP side of things: SOAP and SOAP::Lite.

Which of these two modules would you recommend (if either), and why? SOAP::Lite seems to have more complete documentation, which immediately attracts me, but I don't want to base a decision on this alone.

Are there any other useful modules for SOAP that I should be aware of?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: SOAP vs SOAP::Lite
by rob_au (Abbot) on Jan 05, 2004 at 12:10 UTC
    I would most definitely recommend that you start out with the SOAP::Lite package as this provides a much higher-level interface for those unfamiliar with SOAP design and implementation. Additionally, it is this package which is most widely documented and most commonly referenced in connection with SOAP implementation in Perl.

    Additionally, it may be worth taking a look at the the SOAP::Lite user guide and SOAP::Lite cookbook for example usage and code.

     

    perl -le "print unpack'N', pack'B32', '00000000000000000000001010101000'"

Re: SOAP vs SOAP::Lite
by samtregar (Abbot) on Jan 05, 2004 at 18:57 UTC
    SOAP::Lite, no doubt about it. But instead of slogging through the documentation, which is more voluminous than revealing, I suggest you pick up a copy of "Programming Web Services with Perl". That book will teach you everything you need to know about SOAP and how to use SOAP::Lite too!

    -sam