XSD_ANYXML Encoding - Building SOAP Body Element

WSDL Tutorials - Herong's Tutorial Examples

∟XSD_ANYXML Encoding - Building SOAP Body Element

This section provides a tutorial example to show different behaviors of SoapClient on XML document based Web services.

One important thing I learned from the previous tutorial is that XSD_ANYXML can be used to provide an input parameter as a raw XML string. This feature can be used to call XML document based Web services.

Let's look at my simplest XML document based Web service, Hello, again. The WSDL document is located at https://www.herongyang.com/Service/ Hello_WSDL_11_SOAP.wsdl. Here is the WSDL part that defines the request XML document:

  <wsdl:types>
    <xsd:schema xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
      targetNamespace="https://www.herongyang.com/Service/">
      <xsd:element name="HelloRequest" type="xsd:string"/>
      ...
    </xsd:schema>
  </wsdl:types>

  <wsdl:message name="helloInputMessage">
    <wsdl:part name="helloInputPart" element="hy:HelloRequest"/>
  </wsdl:message>
  ...

The expected request should look at this:

<soapenv:Envelope
  xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"
  xmlns:ser="https://www.herongyang.com/Service/">
  <soapenv:Header/>
  <soapenv:Body>
    <ser:HelloRequest>Hello from client.</ser:HelloRequest>
  </soapenv:Body>
</soapenv:Envelope>

I wrote the following program, SoapClient_XSD_ANYXML.php, to test how SoapClient behaves on the Hello service:

<?php
# SoapClient_XSD_ANYXML.php
# Copyright (c) 2007 HerongYang.com. All Rights Reserved.
#
#- Loading the WSDL document
   $server = "https://www.herongyang.com/Service/";
   $wsdl = $server . "Hello_WSDL_11_SOAP.wsdl";
   $client = new SoapClient($wsdl,
      array('trace' => TRUE));

#- Test 1: Calling with a string directly
   $input = "Hello as a string";
   $result = $client->Hello($input);
   print $client->__getLastRequest()."\n";

#- Test 2: Calling with a SoapParam object
   $input = new SoapParam("Hello as a SoapParam object", "SoapParam");
   $result = $client->Hello($input);
   print $client->__getLastRequest()."\n";

#- Test 3: Calling with a XSD_ANYXML SoapVar object
   $input = new SoapVar(
     "<SoapVar>Hello as an XSD_ANYXML SoapVar object</SoapVar>",
     XSD_ANYXML);
   $result = $client->Hello($input);
   print $client->__getLastRequest()."\n";
?>

Here is the result of this tutorial program:

<SOAP-ENV:Envelope
  xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"
  xmlns:ns1="https://www.herongyang.com/Service/">
  <SOAP-ENV:Body>
    <ns1:HelloRequest>Hello as a string</ns1:HelloRequest>
  </SOAP-ENV:Body>
</SOAP-ENV:Envelope>

<SOAP-ENV:Envelope
  xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"
  xmlns:ns1="https://www.herongyang.com/Service/">
  <SOAP-ENV:Body>
    <ns1:HelloRequest>Hello as a SoapParam object</ns1:HelloRequest>
  </SOAP-ENV:Body>
</SOAP-ENV:Envelope>

<SOAP-ENV:Envelope
  xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"
  xmlns:ns1="https://www.herongyang.com/Service/">
  <SOAP-ENV:Body>
    <SoapVar>Hello as an XSD_ANYXML SoapVar object</SoapVar>
  </SOAP-ENV:Body>
</SOAP-ENV:Envelope>

This result is very interesting:

Test 1 generated a correct request. SoapClient was able to follow the parameter element definition to generate the HelloRequest element correctly.
Test 2 also generated a correct request. SoapClient ignored the name provided by the SoapParam constructor.
Test 3 is more interesting. SoapClient took the XSD_ANYXML value as the SOAP Body element as is without any changes. This gives us the possibility to build more complex SOAP Body elements.