How to print XML provided by SOAP Webservice using Perl - web-services

Question

I am completely new to Perl and I need to create a tool that will consume a SOAP Webservice and I need to save the XML provided by this WS in an output file. At this point I can consume the webservice and save it as hash data, but I need it to be in XML format.
My code is pretty simple and goes like this:
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use SOAP::Lite ( +trace => "all", maptype => {} );
use IO::File;
use Data::Dump "pp";
sub SOAP::Transport::HTTP::Client::get_basic_credentials {
return 'username' => 'password';
}
my $soap = SOAP::Lite
-> proxy('https://.../WebService.do?SOAP', ssl_opts => [ SSL_verify_mode => 0 ] );
my $method = SOAP::Data->name('execute') -> attr({xmlns => 'http://.../'});
my $output = IO::File->new(">output.xml");
my %keyHash = %{ $soap->call($method)->body};
print $output pp({%keyHash});
$output->close();
As I have the trace full on, I can see the XML that the webservice provide in the console while my program is executed, but, when it gets printed in the output file, I see the hash as defined in Perl, with the pairs of key => values, organized just like if it was a json:
{
Docs => {
AssetDefinition => "AccountNumber",
BatchId => 1,
Doc => [
{
AssetDefinitionId => "CNTR0016716",
DateForRetention => "",
FileName => "",
FilePath => "",
SequenceNumber => "",
},
],
},
}
The data is completely correct, but I needed it saved in the file as XML and at this point I think I am going in the wrong direction.
Any help will be fairly appreciated.
Thanks and regards,
Felipe

Answer 1

You are on the right track. The soap call just returns a perl data structure, a hash of hashes. You need an additional step to convert it to XML.
I would recommedn this module http://search.cpan.org/~grantm/XML-Simple-2.20/lib/XML/Simple.pm
use XML::Simple qw(:strict);
my $xml = XMLout(\%keyHash);
You can supply options to give more control over the XML formatting