This is a simple tutorial on how to generate WSDL file for PHP SoapServer class.
For this tutorial to work, you need to enable SOAP in your PHP configuration. If not, you will get this error message if you try to run this tutorial without soap enabled.
Fatal error: Class 'SoapServer' not found in...
Just google around on how to enable soap in php.
INTRODUCTION
PHP 5 SOAP
Server class support both WSDL and Non WSDL mode. In WSDL mode, you typically
pass a WSDL file as a parameter to the SoapServer class. eg,
In non WSDL
mode, we pass NULL to the PHP Server class and set the uri option to the target
namespace for the server. eg
This means
that if we need the WSDL from our PHP SOAP Server (as in the case of some clients
that need to create a reference to our PHP class/functions), we have to find a
way to create it and pass it a parameter to the PHP SOAP Server.
CREATING THE WSDL FILE FOR PHP SOAP SERVER
To setup
our PHP Server class to generate WSDL automatically, we can either use the Zend
Framework or NuSOAP. In this tutorial, we will focus on how to create the
WSDL file manually. The only disadvantage of using this method is that you have to
modify the WSDL file whenever you add a new function or change a method signature in your PHP code. So, it is better to write your PHP SOAP Server
functions before creating the WSDL.
We create a
class, ExampleClass, with two functions, boom and getDate. The boom
function takes two parameters (an associative array with two keys),
first and last. It retrieves the values and returns the concatenated string.
The getDate function simply returns the current server date.
CREATE THE
WSDL FILE
Creating a WSDL file from scratch can be very complicated and error prone. To ease this process, we will use an IDE such as Netbeans to create the WSDL file for our PHP functions. We are not going to write any code in Netbeans, but simply use
the IDE to define our PHP functions so that Netbeans can generate the
WSDL file for us.
1. 1. Open Netbeans and go to File ->
New Project -> Java Web -> Web Application
2. Click
on Next and enter the project name
3. Click next on the remaining dialog boxes .
4. Right-click the ExampleClass node
and choose New -> Web Service.
5. Enter, ExampleClassWS as the Web service
name and type org.example.wsdl in Package. Ensure that, Create Web Service from
Scratch is selected. Click on finish.
6. To create our functions in the WSDL,
navigate to the design view window shown below
7. Click on Add Operation in the visual
designer
8. Enter the function name, boom. Leave
the “Return Type” as String. As earlier said, the function, boom, is expecting
two parameters, first and last. Click on “Add” on the dialog box to enter these
values. Leave the parameter “Type” as String.
9 . Click OK to exit the dialog box and return
to the editor.
10. Repeat step 7 and 8 to create the second function
-> Delete the default hello() method in the
source code to remove the hello operation.
11. Go to the Projects tab in the IDE, expand the Web
Services node of the ExampleClass project. Right-click the ExampleClassWS node,
and choose Generate and Copy WSDL...
12. Specify
where you want to store the WSDL file. In our example, the WSDL file will be
stored in the root folder of our project, ExampleClass. Click Ok to generate
the WSDL file.
13. Go
to netbeans project directory ->
ExampleClass, to see the generated WSDL file.
This is all
you need to generate the WSDL file for your PHP SOAP Server class.
Find below the generated WSDL file.
A sample SOAP request and response obtained from calling the boom() method is also shown below;
