HelloServer.php - First SOAP Server Application

PHP Tutorials - Herong's Tutorial Examples

∟HelloServer.php - First SOAP Server Application

This section provides a tutorial example on how to write a simple SOAP server application. The HelloServer.php example defines a hello() function, adds it to the SOAP server, waits for the client program to call.

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) 2007-2019, 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:

This SOAP server application can not be used as a standalone SOAP server. It needs a HTTP server to receive SOAP requests, and a PHP runtime to act as a CGI to feed SOAP requests.
The "uri" value is just an unique identification, used as the namespace for the response message.

The HTTP server I will be using is the Apache Server. It has already configured correctly to interface with PHP CGI. All I have to do is to move my server application to Apache document directory:

C:\herong> copy HelloServer.php \apache\htdocs

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

<?php 
#  HelloClient.php
#- Copyright (c) 2007-2019, 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());
?>

Check your Web server to make sure it is running. Then run HelloClient.php. You will get:

Returning value of __soapCall() call: Hello world!

Dumping request headers:
POST /HelloServer.php HTTP/1.1
Host: localhost
Connection: Keep-Alive
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
Server: Apache
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8
Content-Length: 522

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:

                 IIS      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  |

Last update: 2019.

Table of Contents

About This Book

Introduction and Installation of PHP 7.3

PHP Script File Syntax

PHP Data Types and Data Literals

Variables, References, and Constants

Expressions, Operations and Type Conversions

Conditional Statements - "if" and "switch"

Loop Statements - "while", "for", and "do ... while"

Function Declaration, Arguments, and Return Values

Arrays - Ordered Maps