integration with SOAP-based web services?

[Robert Hollingsworth]

About 18 months ago I added a CONNECTIONTYPE to mapserver to consume ESRI
ArcWeb Services via the SOAP api for obtaining map images.  My client uses
GE Smallworld and needed up-to-date landbase without purchasing datasets. 
We basically used mapserver as a translator from ArcWeb to WMS because
Smallworld knows how to consume WMS.

I did this as a hack on ms4.8.3.  We may have to revisit this mechanism
because of some changes in the ArcWeb protocols.  We may, in fact, attempt
to add the ArcWeb access directly in GE Smallworld to improve performance.

But I've been wondering if mapserver would benefit from having some SOAP
client capabilities.  My original hack built the SOAP request and decomposed
the SOAP reply directly -- bypassing the WSDL files.  I would think an
"official" mapserver SOAP client would want to use as much WSDL automation
as possible.

It might be difficult to generalize SOAP client behavior over more than one
specific service.  For example, ESRI ArcWeb is a commercial service and
requires purchase of "credits" which are expended at varying rates depending
on what data sources you're using.  You have to acquire a "token" before
accessing map images.  Also, ArcWeb has specific constructs for naming data
sources and for turning individual layers on or off.  And its product is a
raster image; I could imagine another SOAP-based map service returning
individual shapes with attributes.

Anyway, I'm wondering if the mapserver dev community sees any value in
adding some type of SOAP client processing to mapserver.

And what about mapserver as a SOAP SERVER?  That's another can of worms
entirely...

thanks,
R. Hollingsworth
"Kartanica GeoSystems"