Provided by: libxml-compile-perl_1.42-1_all 
NAME
XML::Compile - Compilation based XML processing
INHERITANCE
XML::Compile is extended by
XML::Compile::Schema
SYNOPSIS
# See XML::Compile::Schema / ::WSDL / ::SOAP11 etc
DESCRIPTION
Many (professional) applications process XML messages based on a formal specification, expressed in XML
Schemas. XML::Compile translates between XML and Perl with the help of such schemas. Your Perl program
only handles a tree of nested HASHes and ARRAYs, and does not need to understand namespaces and other
general XML and schema nastiness.
Three serious WARNINGS:
• The focus is on data-centric XML, which means that mixed elements are not handler automatically: you
need to work with XML::LibXML nodes yourself, on these spots.
• The data is not strictly validated, still a large number of compile-time errors can be reported.
Values are checked quite thoroughly. Structure as well.
• Imports and includes, as used in the schemas, are NOT performed automatically. Schema's and such are
NOT collected from internet dynamically; you have to call XML::Compile::Schema::importDefinitions()
explicitly with filenames of locally stored copies. Includes do only work if they have a
targetNamespace defined, which is the same as that of the schema it is included into.
METHODS
Methods found in this manual page are shared by the end-user modules, and should not be used directly:
objects of type "XML::Compile" do not exist!
Constructors
These constructors are base class methods to be extended, and therefore should not be accessed directly.
XML::Compile->new([XMLDATA], OPTIONS)
The XMLDATA is a source of XML. See dataToXML() for valid ways, for example as filename, string or
"undef".
If you have compiled all readers and writers you need, you may simply terminate the compiler object:
that will clean-up (most of) the XML::LibXML objects.
-Option --Default
parser_options <many>
schema_dirs undef
parser_options => HASH|ARRAY
See XML::LibXML::Parser for a list of available options which can be used to create an XML parser
(the new method). The default will set you in a secure mode. See initParser().
schema_dirs => DIRECTORY|ARRAY-OF-DIRECTORIES
Where to find schema's. This can be specified with the environment variable "SCHEMA_DIRECTORIES"
or with this option. See addSchemaDirs() for a detailed explanation.
Accessors
$obj->addSchemaDirs(DIRECTORIES|FILENAME)
XML::Compile->addSchemaDirs(DIRECTORIES|FILENAME)
Each time this method is called, the specified DIRECTORIES will be added in front of the list of
already known schema directories. Initially, the value of the environment variable
"SCHEMA_DIRECTORIES" is added (therefore tried as last resort). The constructor option "schema_dirs"
is a little more favorite.
Values which are "undef" are skipped. ARRAYs are flattened. Arguments are split at colons (on UNIX)
or semi-colons (windows) after flattening. The list of directories is returned, in all but VOID
context.
When a ".pm" package FILENAME is given, then the directory to be used is calculated from it (platform
independently). So, "something/XML/Compile.pm" becomes "something/XML/Compile/xsd/". This way,
modules can simply add their definitions via "XML::Compile->addSchemaDirs(__FILE__)" in a BEGIN block
or in main. ExtUtils::MakeMaker will install everything what is found in the "lib/" tree, so also
your xsd files. Probably, you also want to use knownNamespace().
example: adding xsd's from your own distribution
# file xxxxx/lib/My/Package.pm
package My::Package;
use XML::Compile;
XML::Compile->addSchemaDirs(__FILE__);
# now xxxxx/lib/My/Package/xsd/ is also in the search path
use constant MYNS => 'http://my-namespace-uri';
XML::Compile->knownNamespace(&MYNS => 'my-schema-file.xsd');
$schemas->importDefinitions(MYNS);
Compilers
$obj->dataToXML( NODE|REF-XML-STRING|XML-STRING|FILENAME|FILEHANDLE|KNOWN )
XML::Compile->dataToXML( NODE|REF-XML-STRING|XML-STRING|FILENAME|FILEHANDLE|KNOWN )
Collect XML data, from a wide variety of sources. In SCALAR context, an XML::LibXML::Element or
XML::LibXML::Document is returned. In LIST context, pairs of additional information follow the
scalar result.
When a ready XML::LibXML::Node (::Element or ::Document) NODE is provided, it is returned immediately
and unchanged. A SCALAR reference is interpreted as reference to XML as plain text (XML texts can be
large, and you can improve performance by passing it around by reference instead of copy). Any value
which starts with blanks followed by a '<' is interpreted as XML text.
You may also specify a pre-defined known name-space URI. A set of definition files is included in
the distribution, and installed somewhere when this all gets installed. Either define an environment
variable named SCHEMA_LOCATION or use new(schema_dirs) (option available to all end-user objects) to
inform the library where to find these files.
According the XML::LibXML::Parser manual page, passing a FILEHANDLE is much slower than pasing a
FILENAME. However, it may be needed to open a file with an explicit character-set.
example:
my $xml = $schema->dataToXML('/etc/config.xml');
my ($xml, %details) = $schema->dataToXML($something);
my $xml = XML::Compile->dataToXML('/etc/config.xml');
$obj->initParser(OPTIONS)
XML::Compile->initParser(OPTIONS)
Create a new parser, an XML::LibXML::Parser object. By default, the parsing is set in a safe mode,
avoiding exploits. You may explicitly overrule it, especially if you need to process entities.
Administration
$obj->findSchemaFile(FILENAME)
XML::Compile->findSchemaFile(FILENAME)
Runs through all defined schema directories (see addSchemaDirs()) in search of the specified
FILENAME. When the FILENAME is absolute, that will be used, and no search is needed. An "undef" is
returned when the file is not found, otherwise a full path to the file is returned to the caller.
Although the file may be found, it still could be unreadible.
$obj->knownNamespace(NAMESPACE|PAIRS)
XML::Compile->knownNamespace(NAMESPACE|PAIRS)
If used with only one NAMESPACE, it returns the filename in the distribution (not the full path)
which contains the definition.
When PAIRS of NAMESPACE-FILENAME are given, then those get defined. This is typically called during
the initiation of modules, like XML::Compile::WSDL11 and XML::Compile::SOAP. The definitions are
global: not related to specific instances.
The FILENAMES are relative to the directories as specified with some addSchemaDirs() call.
$obj->walkTree(NODE, CODE)
Walks the whole tree from NODE downwards, calling the CODE reference for each NODE found. When that
routine returns false, the child nodes will be skipped.
DETAILS
Distribution collection overview
For end-users, the following packages are of interest (the other are support packages):
• XML::Compile::Schema
Interpret schema elements and types: create processors for XML messages.
• XML::Compile::Cache
Helps you administer compiled readers and writers, especially useful it there are a lot of them.
Extends XML::Compile::Schema.
• XML::Compile::SOAP
Implements the SOAP 1.1 protocol. client side.
• XML::Compile::SOAP12
Implements the SOAP 1.2 protocol.
• XML::Compile::WSDL11
Use SOAP with a WSDL version 1.1 communication specification file.
• XML::Compile::SOAP::Daemon
Create a SOAP daemon, directly from a WSDL file.
• XML::Compile::Tester
Helps you write regression tests.
• XML::Rewrite
Clean-up XML structures: beautify, simplify, extract.
• XML::Compile::Dumper
Enables you to save pre-compiled XML handlers, the results of any "compileClient". However, this
results in huge files, so this may not be worth the effort.
Comparison
Where other Perl modules (like SOAP::WSDL) help you using these schemas (often with a lot of run-time
XPath searches), XML::Compile takes a different approach: instead of run-time processing of the
specification, it will first compile the expected structure into a pure Perl CODE reference, and then use
that to process the data as often as needed.
There are many Perl modules with the same intention as this one: translate between XML and nested hashes.
However, there are a few serious differences: because the schema is used here (and not by the other
modules), we can validate the data. XML requires validation but quite a number of modules simply ignore
that.
Next to this, data-types are formatted and processed correctly; for instance, the specification
prescribes that the "Integer" data-type must accept values of at least 18 digits... not fitting in Perl's
idea of longs.
XML::Compile also supports all more complex data-types like "list", "union", "substitutionGroup" (unions
on complex type level), and even the nasty "any" and "anyAttribute", which is rarely the case for the
other modules.
SEE ALSO
This module is part of XML-Compile distribution version 1.42, built on January 06, 2014. Website:
http://perl.overmeer.net/xml-compile/
Other distributions in this suite: XML::Compile, XML::Compile::SOAP, XML::Compile::WSDL11,
XML::Compile::SOAP12, XML::Compile::SOAP::Daemon, XML::Compile::SOAP::WSA, XML::Compile::C14N,
XML::Compile::WSS, XML::Compile::WSS::Signature, XML::Compile::Tester, XML::Compile::Cache,
XML::Compile::Dumper, XML::Compile::RPC, XML::Rewrite and XML::LibXML::Simple.
Please post questions or ideas to the mailinglist at
http://lists.scsys.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xml-compile . For live contact with other developers,
visit the "#xml-compile" channel on "irc.perl.org".
LICENSE
Copyrights 2006-2014 by [Mark Overmeer]. For other contributors see ChangeLog.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl
itself. See http://www.perl.com/perl/misc/Artistic.html
perl v5.18.1 2014-01-11 XML::Compile(3pm)