How to consume a webservice with PHP using WSDL mode

Question

I'm trying to consume a webservice using PHP.

This is the code I have:

<?php

ini_set('soap.wsdl_cache_enabled', false);

class SayHelloResponse
{
    public $sayHelloResult;
    public $greeting;
}

$client = new SoapClient(
    'http://localhost:8000/greetings_server.php?wsdl', [
        'trace' => 1,
        'soap_version' => SOAP_1_2,
        'classmap' => [
            'sayHelloResponse' => SayHelloResponse::class,
        ]
    ]);

if ($argc === 1) {
    echo "Service description:" . PHP_EOL;
    echo "--------------------" . PHP_EOL;
    echo "Functions:" . PHP_EOL;
    print_r($client->__getFunctions());
    echo "=====" . PHP_EOL;
    echo "Types:" . PHP_EOL;
    print_r($client->__getTypes());
} elseif ($argv[1] == "h") {
    try {
        echo "Making the call" . PHP_EOL;
        $sayHelloResponse = $client->sayHello(
            [
                'name' => $argv[2]
            ]);

        var_dump($sayHelloResponse);
        var_dump($client->__getLastResponse());
    } catch (SoapFault $exception) {
        echo "Error: " . $exception->getMessage() . PHP_EOL;
        var_dump($client->__getLastRequest());
        var_dump($client->__getLastResponse());
    }
} else {
    echo $client->sayGoodBye($argv[2]);
}

When I run the script without any CLI arguments I get:

Service description:
--------------------
Functions:
Array
(
    [0] => sayHelloResponse sayHello(sayHello $parameters)
    [1] => sayGoodByeResponse sayGoodBye(sayGoodBye $parameters)
)
=====
Types:
Array
(
    [0] => struct sayHello {
 string name;
}
    [1] => struct sayHelloResponse {
 string sayHelloResult;
}
    [2] => struct sayGoodBye {
 string name;
}
    [3] => struct sayGoodByeResponse {
 string sayGoodByeResult;
}
)

Then, when I run it with php greetings.php h Mauro I get:

Making the call
object(SayHelloResponse)#2 (2) {
  ["sayHelloResult"]=>
  NULL
  ["greeting"]=>
  NULL
}
string(559) "<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<env:Envelope xmlns:env="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope" xmlns:ns1="urn:Greetings" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:enc="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-encoding"><env:Body xmlns:rpc="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-rpc"><ns1:sayHelloResponse env:encodingStyle="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-encoding"><rpc:result>greeting</rpc:result><greeting xsi:type="xsd:string">Hello Mauro!</greeting></ns1:sayHelloResponse></env:Body></env:Envelope>
"

So I can see the result I'm looking for is right there ( Hello Mauro! ), I just don't know how to access it :(

The thing is, if I try to use the webservice in non-wsdl mode it works fine but I need to use the WSDL (Which I'm generating at the other end with another PHP script).

And, if you're wondering, the WSDL seems to be fine as I checked it with SoapUI.

Thanks for your help

--

Edit:

I tried this little python script:

from zeep import Client
client = Client('http://localhost:8000/greetings_server.php?wsdl')
result = client.GreetingsService.sayHello('Mauro')

And when I run it I get:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/mauro/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/zeep/xsd/types/complex.py", line 206, in parse_xmlelement
    result = element.parse_xmlelements(
  File "/home/mauro/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/zeep/xsd/elements/indicators.py", line 617, in parse_xmlelements
    item_subresult = element.parse_xmlelements(
  File "/home/mauro/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/zeep/xsd/elements/element.py", line 206, in parse_xmlelements
    raise UnexpectedElementError(
zeep.exceptions.UnexpectedElementError: Unexpected element 'greeting', expected 'sayHelloResult'

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/home/mauro/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/zeep/proxy.py", line 46, in __call__
    return self._proxy._binding.send(
  File "/home/mauro/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/zeep/wsdl/bindings/soap.py", line 135, in send
    return self.process_reply(client, operation_obj, response)
  File "/home/mauro/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/zeep/wsdl/bindings/soap.py", line 231, in process_reply
    result = operation.process_reply(doc)
  File "/home/mauro/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/zeep/wsdl/bindings/soap.py", line 430, in process_reply
    return self.output.deserialize(envelope)
  File "/home/mauro/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/zeep/wsdl/messages/soap.py", line 101, in deserialize
    body_result = self._deserialize_body(body)
  File "/home/mauro/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/zeep/wsdl/messages/soap.py", line 442, in _deserialize_body
    result = self.body.parse(xmlelement, self.wsdl.types, context=context)
  File "/home/mauro/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/zeep/xsd/elements/element.py", line 126, in parse
    return xsd_type.parse_xmlelement(
  File "/home/mauro/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/zeep/xsd/types/complex.py", line 212, in parse_xmlelement
    raise XMLParseError(exc.message)
zeep.exceptions.XMLParseError: Unexpected element 'greeting', expected 'sayHelloResult'

From this I get that there is a mismatch between the WSDL and the response the server is returning... I checked an older version of the greetings.wsdl file and found this misterious "greeting" element. I guess there must be a cache issue but I can't put my finger on it.

The python library I'm using is this

Answer 1

I finally got my answer... It was a difficult one and I'm not even sure how I spotted it but the problem was in the WSDL definition.

More specifically, the binding style was wrong (or at least not compatible with the client I was using).

The original one was document and I needed it to be rpc .

Once I made that little change everything worked as expected.

I'm leaving a reference to my code for someone else looking at it.

Edit: for the record, this site's example was the one that tipped me off :)