Arrays of hashes sent to SOAP::Data - arrays

Question

I'm sending a fairly simple Perl hash to SOAP::Data, but I'm not getting the XML that I want with an array of hashes. Here's what I'm sending it:
'hash' => {
'Location' => [
{
'key1' => 'value1',
'key2' => 'value2',
'key3' => 'value3',
},
{
'key1' => 'value1',
'key2' => 'value2',
'key3' => 'value3',
},
],
}
Here's what I get:
<hash>
<Location>
<c-gensym9>
<key1>value1</key1>
<key2>value2</key2>
<key3>value3</key3>
</c-gensym9>
<c-gensym10>
<key1>value1</key1>
<key2>value2</key2>
<key3>value3</key3>
</c-gensym10>
</Location>
</hash>
But what I want is this:
<hash>
<Location>
<key1>value1</key1>
<key2>value2</key2>
<key3>value3</key3>
</Location>
<Location>
<key1>value1</key1>
<key2>value2</key2>
<key3>value3</key3>
</Location>
</hash>
What am I missing? I suppose it'd help if I gave some code!:
my $hash = {};
my #Locations;
my #loc_codes = qw(0_4_10 0_51_117);
foreach my $l ( #loc_codes ) {
my #arr = split ('_', $l);
my $loc = {};
$loc->{key1} = $arr[0]; # country
$loc->{key2} = $arr[1]; # state
$loc->{key3} = $arr[2]; # city
push ( #Locations, $loc );
}
$hash->{Location} = \#Locations;
my $soap_elements = SOAP::Data->value(
SOAP::Data->name( 'some_method' => $hash )->prefix('p1')
)->prefix('p2');

Answer 1

You need strict, first of all
use strict;
use SOAP::Lite +trace => 'all';
my #loc_codes = qw(0_4_10 0_51_117);
my #Locations;
foreach my $l ( #loc_codes ) {
my #arr = split ('_', $l);
my $loc =
SOAP::Data
->name("Location" => \SOAP::Data->value(
SOAP::Data->name('key1', $arr[0]),
SOAP::Data->name('key2', $arr[1]),
SOAP::Data->name('key3', $arr[2])));
push ( #Locations, $loc );
}
my $soap_elements;
$soap_elements = SOAP::Data->value(
SOAP::Data->name( hash => \#Locations ));
my $serializer = SOAP::Serializer->new();
$serializer->readable('true');
my $xml = $serializer->serialize($soap_elements);
print $xml;
generates
<hash
soapenc:arrayType="xsd:anyType[2]"
xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"
xmlns:soapenc="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/"
xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:type="soapenc:Array">
<Location>
<key1 xsi:type="xsd:int">0</key1>
<key2 xsi:type="xsd:int">4</key2>
<key3 xsi:type="xsd:int">10</key3>
</Location>
<Location>
<key1 xsi:type="xsd:int">0</key1>
<key2 xsi:type="xsd:int">51</key2>
<key3 xsi:type="xsd:int">117</key3>
</Location>
</hash>
So I think you need to build your array elements first

Answer 2

Well ,currently , SOAP::Data is not as powerful as you imagined. It cannot dynamically or recursively analyse your compound(complex) data structure such as the nest of array , hash and scalar value.You can just pass simple data(scalar value)to SOAP::Data ,or , an SOAP::Data instance which is already assembled manually by your self thus creating a nested SOAP::Data strucure;Please refer to the SOAP::Data tutorial.
The tutorial has a simple but clear explanation on how to use SOAP::Data to deal with complex data type . But personally ,I don't recommend you to use perl as a soap client .From my previous experience, perl don't have a full support for SOAP protocal ,especially when dealing with complex data type or higher-version soap like soap 1.2.. Instead,you'd better use java .java has a very power support for latest soap and complex data type.