Thank you for this recommendation. SOAP::WSDL does, in fact, seem to have been designed for this problem.

I was able to get the simple methods to work using the WSDL, which saves some grief in terms of rolling my own XML. Unfortunately, again, I got hung up on the complex types, and the error messages produced aren't very elaborate. It seems that when I call a method that involves complex types, the WSDL is not able to resolve the definitions. I suspect this is because of a corporate firewall, but I'm not sure.

Here's the code I have so far (somewhat sanitized):

#!/usr/local/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use SOAP::WSDL +trace => 'all';

use Data::Dumper;

Main: {
  my $soap=SOAP::WSDL->new( wsdl => 'http://some_ip/wsdl/myServiceName
+.wsdl' );

  $soap->proxy('http://some_ip:port/some/path/myServiceLocation');

  $soap->servicename('myServiceName');
 
  $soap->wsdlinit( caching => 1);

  my $response;
  
  eval { # this one worked with no troubles
    $response = $soap->call( 'queryItem' ,  
      id => 'blah' ,
      pwd => 'bleh',
      itemId => '9015');
  };

  if ($@) {
    print "SOAP call failed: $@\n";
    exit;
  }
      
  eval { # this one fails with the "error processing WSDL" message
    $response = SOAP_add_Item($soap);
  };

  if ($@) {
    print "SOAP call failed: $@\n";
    exit;
  }
    
  if ($response->fault) { 
    print Dumper($response->faultdetail), "\n"; 
  }
  else {
    my $body = $response->result; 
    unless ($body == 0) {
      print "SOAP Message: ", Dumper($body);
    }
  }
}


sub SOAP_add_Item {
    my $soap = shift;
    my $response = $soap->call('addItem',
   'id' => 'blah',
   'pwd' => 'bleh',
   'itemId' => '1234',
   'itemName' => 'Test Item',
   'Ranges' => [
     { 'min' => '8605118310',
       'max' => '8605118319' } ] );
   
  return $response;
}
    
#   'Ranges' => [
#     bless( {
#       'min' => '8605118310',
#       'max' => '8605118319'
#     }, 'SoapTypeRange' ) ] );
[download]

I've tried the complex 'Ranges' type with and without the reference to the type 'SoapTypeRange', but in neither case does it seem to be able to resolve the type.

Instead, I get this message:

SOAP call failed: Error processing WSDL: './/xsd:element' not found at
+ /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.6/SOAP/WSDL.pm line 504.
[download]

That line in WSDL.pm seems to be in the context of attempting to resolve definitions for complex types. The relevant lines in the WSDL seem to be:

<wsdl:definitions name="myServiceName" 
targetNamespace="http://some_ip/wsdl/myServiceName/" 
xmlns:tns="http://some_ip/wsdl/myServiceName/" 
xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/soap/" xmlns:soap12="http:
+//schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/soap12/" 
xmlns:http="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/http/" xmlns:mime="http://
+schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/mime/" 
xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" 
xmlns:soapenc="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/" xmlns:wsdl="
+http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/" 
<wsdl:types> 
<xsd:schema xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" 
targetNamespace="http://some_ip/package/various.other.soap.types 
/"> 
<xsd:import namespace="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/" /> 
<xsd:complexType name="SoapTypeRange"> 
<xsd:all> 
<xsd:element name="min" type="xsd:long" /> 
<xsd:element name="max" type="xsd:long" /> 
</xsd:all> 
</xsd:complexType> 
<xsd:complexType name="ArrayOfSoapTypeRange"> 
<xsd:complexContent> 
<xsd:restriction base="soapenc:Array"> 
<xsd:attribute ref="soapenc:arrayType" wsdl:arrayType="n11:SoapTypeRan
+ge[]" /> 
</xsd:restriction> 
</xsd:complexContent> 
</xsd:complexType> 
</xsd:schema> 
</wsdl:types>
[download]

I'm stumped. If I can't get outside the firewall to resolve the complex type definitions, then how can I build a workable SOAP call to this service? Any additional thoughts are very welcome.

One of the tools available on the soapclient.com site may be able to help in debugging. I've only used the Generic SOAP Client in the past, but it proved very handy indeed for pointing out that my initial code was a steaming pile of... ;-)

Hope that helps.