HelloServer.php - First SOAP Server Application

This section describes a tutorial example of a complete SOAP application with both server and client programs.

Okay. Now let's build our first SOAP server. I want the first server to perform a very simple function of return a greeting string based on the input name. Here is my version called, HelloServer.php:

<?php 
# HelloServer.php
# Copyright (c) 2007 HerongYang.com. All Rights Reserved.
#
function hello($someone) { 
   return "Hello " . $someone . "!";
} 
   $server = new SoapServer(null, 
      array('uri' => "urn://www.herong.home/res"));
   $server->addFunction("hello"); 
   $server->handle(); 
?>

The sever application is ready. Note that:

The HTTP server I will be using is the Apache Web server. It has already configured correctly to interface with PHP CGI. For details, see my other book: "Herong's Tutorial Notes on PHP". All I have to do is to move my server application to the Web server document directory:

herong> copy HelloServer.php \local\apache\htdocs

To test my server application, I wrote this client application, HelloClient.php:

<?php 
# HelloClient.php
# Copyright (c) 2007 HerongYang.com. All Rights Reserved.
#
   $client = new SoapClient(null, array(
      'location' => "http://localhost/HelloServer.php",
      'uri'      => "urn://www.herong.home/req",
      'trace'    => 1 ));

   $return = $client->__soapCall("hello",array("world"));
   echo("\nReturning value of __soapCall() call: ".$return);

   echo("\nDumping request headers:\n" 
      .$client->__getLastRequestHeaders());

   echo("\nDumping request:\n".$client->__getLastRequest());

   echo("\nDumping response headers:\n"
      .$client->__getLastResponseHeaders());

   echo("\nDumping response:\n".$client->__getLastResponse());
?>

Make sure my Apache Web server is running. Then run HelloClient.php:

herong> php HelloClient.php

Returning value of __soapCall() call: Hello world!

Dumping request headers:
POST /HelloServer.php HTTP/1.1
Host: localhost
Connection: Keep-Alive
User-Agent: PHP-SOAP/7.0.2
Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8
SOAPAction: "urn://www.herong.home/req#hello"
Content-Length: 499

Dumping request:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<SOAP-ENV:Envelope 
 xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" 
 xmlns:ns1="urn://www.herong.home/req" 
 xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" 
 xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
 xmlns:SOAP-ENC="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/" 
 SOAP-ENV:encodingStyle="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/">
 <SOAP-ENV:Body>
  <ns1:hello>
   <param0 xsi:type="xsd:string">world</param0>
  </ns1:hello>
 </SOAP-ENV:Body>
</SOAP-ENV:Envelope>

Dumping response headers:
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Sun, 02 Sep 2018 18:31:47 GMT
Server: Apache/2.4.12 (Win32) PHP/7.0.2
X-Powered-By: PHP/7.0.2
Content-Length: 522
Keep-Alive: timeout=5, max=100
Connection: Keep-Alive
Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8

Dumping response:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<SOAP-ENV:Envelope
 xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"
 xmlns:ns1="urn://www.herong.home/res"
 xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
 xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
 xmlns:SOAP-ENC="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/"
 SOAP-ENV:encodingStyle="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/">
 <SOAP-ENV:Body>
  <ns1:helloResponse>
   <return xsi:type="xsd:string">Hello world!</return>
  </ns1:helloResponse>
 </SOAP-ENV:Body>
</SOAP-ENV:Envelope>

Very exciting, right? Both server and client work nicely.

If you are interested in how the execution was carried out on the server, I have a simplified execution flow diagram on the server side:

                Apache      PHP (SOAP Extension)      HelloServer.php
    HTTP request  |
   -------------->|
    SOAP message  |
                  |  CGI   |      PHP CGI API
                  |------->|------------------------>|
                                                     | addFunction()
                                                     |
                                SOAP Extension API   | handle()
                           |<------------------------|
                           |
                           |    SOAP Extension API
                           |------------------------>|
                                SOAP Extension API   | hello()
                           |<------------------------|
                     CGI   |
                  |<-------|
    HTTP response | 
   <--------------| 
    SOAP message  | 

Table of Contents

 About This Book

 Introduction to Web Service

 Introduction to SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol)

 SOAP Message Structure

 SOAP Message Transmission and Processing

 SOAP Data Model

 SOAP Encoding

 SOAP RPC Presentation

 SOAP Properties Model

 SOAP MEP (Message Exchange Patterns)

 SOAP HTTP Binding

 SOAP PHP Implementations

 PHP SOAP Extension Client Programs

PHP SOAP Extension Server Programs

 PHP SOAP Extension Functions for Server Programs

HelloServer.php - First SOAP Server Application

 HelloServer12.php - SOAP 1.2 Server Application

 HelloServerWsdl.php - SOAP 1.2 Server in WSDL Mode

 HelloServerWsdl2.php - SOAP 1.1/1.2 Server in WSDL Mode

 PHP SOAP Web Service Example - getTemp

 SOAP Perl Implementations

 Perl SOAP::Lite - SOAP Server-Client Communication Module

 Perl Socket Test Program for HTTP and SOAP

 Perl SOAP::Lite for NumberToWords SOAP 1.1 Web Service

 Perl SOAP::Lite for SOAP 1.2 Web Services

 Perl SOAP::Lite for WSDL

 Python SOAP Client: Zeep

 SOAP Java Implementations

 Java Socket and HttpURLConnection for SOAP

 SAAJ - SOAP with Attachments API for Java

 SoapUI - SOAP Web Service Testing Tool

 WS-Security - SOAP Message Security Extension

 WS-Security X.509 Certificate Token

 Perl SOAP::Lite for GetSpeech SOAP 1.1 Web Service

 Perl SOAP::Lite 0.710 for SOAP 1.2 Web Services

 Perl SOAP::Lite 0.710 for WSDL

 Web Services and SOAP Terminology

 Archived Tutorials

 References

 Full Version in PDF/EPUB