I’m working on a project where I need to fetch all the custom fields that have been set up in our JIRA instance. I want to do this programmatically using Perl with SOAP calls.
I found some documentation about JIRA’s SOAP service that mentions methods for retrieving field information, but I’m struggling with the actual implementation. The documentation shows the available methods but doesn’t provide clear examples of how to structure the Perl code.
Has anyone successfully implemented this kind of functionality before? I’m particularly interested in understanding how to properly authenticate and make the SOAP request to get back a complete list of custom fields with their properties and configurations.
Any code examples or guidance on the correct approach would be really helpful. I’m relatively new to working with SOAP in Perl, so detailed explanations would be appreciated.
JIRA’s SOAP integration can be quite challenging, particularly when dealing with custom fields, especially given that it’s deprecated. If you find yourself having to work with this legacy system, be aware that the metadata for custom fields often comes in a complex nested format, requiring careful parsing. It’s crucial to properly handle RemoteField objects and recognize that the context of custom fields may vary depending on the project or issue type. Depending on your needs, you might want to utilize methods like getFieldsForEdit or getFieldsForCreate to retrieve the appropriate field sets. Additionally, be cautious of authentication timeouts; sessions can expire unexpectedly, so incorporating a token refresh logic is advisable. Lastly, keep in mind that certain custom field types may necessitate additional API calls to retrieve their configuration data, which can lead to multiple requests for a single field.
had this same prob last month. if ur stuck using soap, double-check your session token handling - they expire fast and throw confusng auth errors. also, custom field mappings can be tricky since they dont always return the data structure you’d expect. that said, rest api is def the way to go now.
Had the same problem two years back migrating custom field data between JIRA instances. Heads up - JIRA’s SOAP API has been deprecated forever, so you might want to rethink this approach. If you’re stuck with SOAP for legacy reasons, authentication works by creating a token with the login method first, then passing that token with every request after. The getCustomFields method returns an array of RemoteField objects with the field details you need. But seriously, just switch to JIRA’s REST API. It’s way easier to work with in Perl using LWP::UserAgent or HTTP::Tiny. Hit /rest/api/2/field and you’ll get all fields including custom ones. JSON response is much cleaner than parsing SOAP XML, and auth is simpler with basic auth or API tokens. If you absolutely have to use SOAP, use SOAP::Lite and handle the WSDL properly - but the REST route will save you tons of dev time.