SOAP (again?)

[Claes Wikstrom]

Richard Cameron wrote:

> Although this has remarkably little to do with Erlang (I primarily  want 
> to moan about the state of the world to anyone who'll listen),  there is 
> the observation that I constantly find myself able to  implement most 
> (non-XML) protocols in Erlang remarkably easily by  using a combination 
> of bit syntax and writing little finite state  machines.
> 
> In general, dealing with things which would be very scary for Java  and 
> C# programmers (low level bit twiddly stuff, or texty protocols  like 
> HTTP or SMTP) always turns out to be remarkably easy in Erlang.  
> Unfortunately the flip-side of that is also true: communicating over  
> "industry standard" protocols like SOAP (which Java/C# programmers  are 
> forced to use because there's no sane alternative) always turns  out to 
> be a real pain in Erlang. I don't think that's because it's  technically 
> more difficult to implement a SOAP client in Erlang, it's  just because 
> there's usually a nicer/easier way to do it so nobody's  really been 
> inclined to build the XML tools that the Java and  Microsoft boys have.


The solution is ofcourse to do a proper SOAP implementation
in Erlang. It shouldn't be to hard and it sure would be blindingly
fast - if done properly.

1. parse the wsdl file (using xmerl)
2. generate datatypes (records) in .hrl files for all
    complextypes found
3. generate marshalling code to send and receive those records
    (probably using xmerl)


1 week of work or so. My SOAP days are over (for ever I hope !!)
so I won't do it :-)





/klacke


-- 
Claes Wikstrom                        -- Caps lock is nowhere and
http://www.hyber.org                  -- everything is under control
cellphone: +46 70 2097763