Converting this simple XML to a Struct?

You cannot, in general, convert XML into struct. An XML object has elements, which may or may not have attributes. The attributes have values and the element itself may have a "value" in the form of XMLText. Whereas, a struct basically has key-value pairs. As XML packs many more properties that a struct, a one-to-one mapping is often impossible.

In any case, there is little point converting the XML to a struct. A struct is typical ColdFusion lingo that wont be understood by webservices. I would suggest you send the XML itself to the service! How? As a SOAP message.

You could do something like this

!--- Web service WSDL --->

<cfset wsdl_url="http://mydomain.com/myws.cfc?wsdl">

<!--- Compose SOAP message to send to web service--->

<cfsavecontent variable="soap"><?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>

<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">

soapenv:Body>               

<book_ids quantity="2">7,9</book_ids>               

</soapenv:Body>

</soapenv:Envelope>

</cfsavecontent>

<!--- Invoke web service and send message--->

<cftry>    

        <cfhttp url="#wsdl_url#" method="post" >

            <cfhttpparam type="header" name="content-type" value="text/xml">

            <cfhttpparam type="header" name="SOAPAction" value="">

            <cfhttpparam type="header" name="content-length" value="#len(soap)#">

            <cfhttpparam type="header" name="charset" value="utf-8">

            <cfhttpparam type="xml" name="message" value="#trim(soap)#">

        </cfhttp>

        <p><cfoutput>#xmlFormat(cfhttp.fileContent)#</cfoutput> </p>

    <cfcatch type="any">

        <cfdump var="#cfcatch#">

    </cfcatch>

</cftry>

What is the Web Service expecting as a parameter?  More information is needed.

-Carl V.