SoapClient::__soapCall

(PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)

SoapClient::__soapCallCalls a SOAP function

Description

public SoapClient::__soapCall(
    string $name,
    array $args,
    ?array $options = null,
    SoapHeader|array|null $inputHeaders = null,
    array &$outputHeaders = null
): mixed

This is a low level API function that is used to make a SOAP call. Usually, in WSDL mode, SOAP functions can be called as methods of the SoapClient object. This method is useful in non-WSDL mode when soapaction is unknown, uri differs from the default or when sending and/or receiving SOAP Headers.

On error, a call to a SOAP function can cause PHP to throw exceptions or return a SoapFault object if exceptions are disabled. To check if the function call failed to catch the SoapFault exceptions, check the result with is_soap_fault().

Parameters

name

The name of the SOAP function to call.

args

An array of the arguments to pass to the function. This can be either an ordered or an associative array. Note that most SOAP servers require parameter names to be provided, in which case this must be an associative array.

options

An associative array of options to pass to the client.

The location option is the URL of the remote Web service.

The uri option is the target namespace of the SOAP service.

The soapaction option is the action to call.

inputHeaders

An array of headers to be sent along with the SOAP request.

outputHeaders

If supplied, this array will be filled with the headers from the SOAP response.

Return Values

SOAP functions may return one, or multiple values. If only one value is returned by the SOAP function, the return value will be a scalar. If multiple values are returned, an associative array of named output parameters is returned instead.

On error, if the SoapClient object was constructed with the exceptions option set to false, a SoapFault object will be returned.

Examples

Example #1 SoapClient::__soapCall() example

<?php

$client
= new SoapClient("some.wsdl");
$client->SomeFunction($a, $b, $c);

$client->__soapCall("SomeFunction", array($a, $b, $c));
$client->__soapCall("SomeFunction", array($a, $b, $c), NULL,
new
SoapHeader(), $output_headers);


$client = new SoapClient(null, array('location' => "http://localhost/soap.php",
'uri' => "http://test-uri/"));
$client->SomeFunction($a, $b, $c);
$client->__soapCall("SomeFunction", array($a, $b, $c));
$client->__soapCall("SomeFunction", array($a, $b, $c),
array(
'soapaction' => 'some_action',
'uri' => 'some_uri'));
?>

See Also

add a note

User Contributed Notes 20 notes

up
96
vb
11 years ago
Note that calling __soapCall and calling the generated method from WSDL requires specifying parameters in two different ways.

For example, if you have a web service with method login that takes username and password, you can call it the following way:
<?php
$params
= array('username'=>'name', 'password'=>'secret');
$client->login($params);
?>

If you want to call __soapCall, you must wrap the arguments in another array as follows:
<?php
$client
->__soapCall('login', array($params));
?>
up
9
arturklesun at gmail dot com
8 years ago
Sharing my experience cuz i believe it is most important for you if you decide to use this Soap Client implementation.

At php 7.0.8 the stdClass generated by SoapClient from the response does not use "minOccurs" and "maxOccurs" WSDL modifiers to distinct properties in stdClass-es (aka keys in "associative arrays") and elements in arrays ("aka indexed arrays").

Instead, the implementation decides whether tag is _a key in associative array_ or _one of elements with same tag in indexed array_ by simply the fact whether there is just one element with such tag in the sequence or many.

Consider alive example from my case:
<?php
response xml
:
...
<
ValidatingCarrier>
<
Alternate>AA</Alternate>
</
ValidatingCarrier>
...
<
ValidatingCarrier>
<
Alternate>AA</Alternate>
<
Alternate>AY</Alternate>
</
ValidatingCarrier>
...

response structure generated by SoapClient:
...
[
ValidatingCarrier] => stdClass Object(
[
Alternate] => AA // here it is a string
)
...
[
ValidatingCarrier] => stdClass Object (
[
Alternate] => Array ( // and here this is an array
[0] => AA
[1] => AY
)
)
...

field XSD definition:
<
xs:element name="Alternate" type="CarrierCode" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="24">
?>

You see, the definition in XSD tells us this tag can be repeated up to 24 times, what means it would be an indexed array, but SoapClient does not take that into account and treats the first <Alternate> in example as a value instead of array containing this value.

Undoubtedly, a value should be a property in the stdClass (a key in associative array) _only_ when maxOccurs is 1 or less or not specified (default is 1, see https://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-0/#OccurrenceConstraints). Hope this info will be useful for you when you will be implementing your own, correctly working, SoapClient.
up
25
Shto
15 years ago
One thing to note.

This happened to me and it took a while until I discovered what the problem was.

I was trying to get .NET objects from a provided web service, however it always seemed to return empty objects. It did return the backbone, but nothing within the objects that made up the structure.

Anyhow, it seems that you have to be very precise with the arrays when calling these functions. Par example, do this:

<?php
$obj
= $client->__soapCall($SOAPCall, array('parameters'=>$SoapCallParameters));
?>

meaning that you must put an array as the second argument with 'parameters' as the key and the soap call parameters as the value.

Also make sure that the parameter variable, in my case $SoapCallParameters is in the form of what is requested by the webservice.

So, don't just make an array of the form:
<?php

(
[
0] => 'Mary',
[
1] => 1983
)

?>

but if the webservice requests a 'muid' variable as 'Mary' and a 'birthyear' as 1983, then make your array like this:

<?php

(
[
muid] => 'Mary',
[
birthyear] => 1983
)

?>

The above arrays refer to the $SoapCallParameters variable.

Hope this helps somebody, not having to spend too much time figuring out the problems.
up
8
DesmondJ
19 years ago
Following OrionI's example:

<?php
$client
= new SoapClient("http://server/sumservice.asmx?WSDL");
$params->a = 2;
$params->b = 3;
$objectresult = $client->Sum($params);
$simpleresult = $objectresult->SumResult;
print(
$simpleresult); //produces "-1"
?>

Please note that the lines:

"$client->Sum($params);"

and

"$simpleresult = $objectresult->SumResult;"

are based off of each other. If your web service function is called "Sum", then add "Result" to the end of it to get the results of the call.

EG:

<?php
$client
= new SoapClient("http://server/mathservice.asmx?WSDL");
$params->a = 2;
$params->b = 3;
$objectresult = $client->Minus($params); // note the name of the function is "Minus"
$simpleresult = $objectresult->MinusResult; // note the name of the result is referenced as "MinusResult"
print($simpleresult); //produces "5"
?>
up
8
ub at sturmundbraem dot ch
8 years ago
To avoid the SOAP client returning sometimes objects and sometimes arrays of objects, there's a setting:

$this->soapClient = new \SoapClient($wsdlUrl, array(
'features' => SOAP_SINGLE_ELEMENT_ARRAYS,
'trace' => DEBUG_SOAP
));
up
3
paulsjv at gmail dot com
18 years ago
I was working with SOAP for the first time and I had to create a client that sent a date range to a WSDL (Web Services Description Language) to return some information I needed. I didn't know how to pass the params and there really was no documentation about it. The main thing you have to make sure to do is when you pass params to a method that is definied by the WSDL that you are calling is that you use the same param name for the key of the array or the object variable as shown below. Also, if you don't know what the methods/functions that a WSDL has or the params that you need to pass it you can use the __getFunctions() and __getTypes() methods after you declare your new SoapClient.

<?php
// From and to are the two params that the execute function needs
// when called from the WSDL so make you to have them as the
// key to an array like below
$params["From"] = "06/01/2005"; // also can use $params->From = "date";
$params["to"] = "12/31/2005"; // also can use $params->to = "date";

$client = new SoapClient("some.wsdl");

try {
print(
$client->execute($params));
} catch (
SoapFault $exception) {
echo
$exception;
}
?>
up
4
OrionI
19 years ago
When calling over SOAP to a .NET application, you may end up with an object as a result instead of a simple type, even if you're just grabbing a simple type (like a boolean result). Use a property accessor to get the actual result, like this:
<?php
$client
= new SoapClient("http://server/myservice.asmx?WSDL");
$objectresult = $client->MyMethod($param1, $param2);
$simpleresult = $objectresult->MyMethodResult;
?>
Note that .NET seems to name the result MethodNameResult for method MethodName.
up
4
snuufix+nospam at gmail dot com
13 years ago
I am using SOAP call response headers to sign request results.

After alot of hours, I finally got the best way to get SOAP response headers (other than parsing __getLastResponse() witch requires trace option enabled) is using __soapCall() wrapper.

You can extend SoapClient class and wrap some functions to make sure you get the headers.

<?php

class API extends SoapClient
{

// ... Constructor, etc.

// Get SOAP Server response headers
public function __soapCall($function, $arguments, $options = array(), $input_headers = null, &$output_headers = null)
{
parent::__soapCall($function, $arguments, $options, $input_headers, $output_headers);

print_r($output_headers); // Array of response headers
}

// If you are using WSDL you need this, so you still can call functions directly without calling __soapCall manualy
public function __call($func, $args)
{
return
$this->__soapCall($func, $args);
}

?>
up
1
OrionI
19 years ago
Correction on the previously submitted code snippet...the incoming parameter for .NET also has to be in object or array form for it to be correctly converted to the XML form that .NET expects (as already mentioned by Llu?s P?mies). The full example (when using WSDL) should be like this:
<?php
$client
= new SoapClient("http://server/myservice.asmx?WSDL");
$params->param1 = $value1;
$params->param2 = $value2;
$objectresult = $client->MyMethod($params);
$simpleresult = $objectresult->MyMethodResult;
?>
So if you have a C# function like this:
//sumservice.asmx
...
[WebMethod]
public int Sum(int a, int b)
{
return a + b;
}
...
The PHP client would be this:
<?php
$client
= new SoapClient("http://server/sumservice.asmx?WSDL");
$params->a = 2;
$params->b = 3;
$objectresult = $client->Sum($params);
$simpleresult = $objectresult->SumResult;
print(
$simpleresult); //produces "5"
?>
up
7
Tim Williams
15 years ago
One little gotcha when passing the parameters where you need to have attributes and a simpletype value:

To get the xml

<foo bar="moo">cheese</foo>

You'd pass in:

<?php
array("foo" => array("_" => "cheese", "bar"=>"moo"));
?>

See that "_" bit? It really wasn't obvious from the documentation.
up
2
james dot ellis at gmail dot com
14 years ago
If you are using this method, remember that the array of arguments need to be passed in with the ordering being the same order that the SOAP endpoint expects.

e.g
<?php
//server expects: Foo(string name, int age)

//won't work
$args = array(32, 'john');
$out = $client->__soapCall('Foo', $args);

//will work
$args = array('john', 32);
$out = $client->__soapCall('Foo', $args);
?>
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4
stefan at datax dot biz
16 years ago
The call to __soapCall returned an object to me either. This is the function which makes my life easier:

function obj2array($obj) {
$out = array();
foreach ($obj as $key => $val) {
switch(true) {
case is_object($val):
$out[$key] = obj2array($val);
break;
case is_array($val):
$out[$key] = obj2array($val);
break;
default:
$out[$key] = $val;
}
}
return $out;
}

Usage:
...
$response = $client ->__soapCall("track", array('parameters' => $request));
$response = obj2array($response);

Hope it helps.
up
0
deWarlock
15 years ago
The most annoying thing is that you'll get no warning trying to pass object not matching wsdl e.g. if server expects smth like $Object->expName->... and you would pass $Object->otherName the client will send empty request without notifying you.
Also pay attention that names are key sensitive.

In my case I spent hours trying to pass $Post->Lead->... object instead of $Post->lead-> ...
up
0
Llu?s P?mies
19 years ago
If your service is a .NET doc/lit, which means the input message has a single part named 'parameters' that is a structure that wraps the parameters. Your call should look like this:

<?php

$params
= array('param_name_1'=>$val_1,'param_name_2'=>$val_2);
$client->call('MethodName', array('parameters' => $params));

?>
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-3
ryan at grunt dot tv
18 years ago
If you want to pass an xml document node as a function parameter, your need to create a SoapVar object with a text represention of the xml node and the XSD_ANYXML encoding constant. However, this constant is not exported by the extension and is not documented for some unknown reason.

Therefore, to get this to work you must either register the XSD_ANYXML #define as a PHP constant, or use the integer value of the constant when creating the SoapVar, which is 147.

$soapvar = new SoapVar($xml_text, 147);

$params = array("ItemXml" => $soapvar, "PropertyView" => "blah");
$result = $this->soapclient->__soapCall("SaveItem", array("parameters"=>$params), null, $this->soapheaders);

However, this still doesnt give the correct result. For some reason, the ItemXml parameter node is not wrapped around the associated xml parameter in the soap request, and the following soap is produced (assumming '<item>blah</item>' is used as the $xml_text):

<SOAP-ENV:Envelope xmlns:SOAP-ENV="..." xmlns:ns1="...">
<SOAP-ENV:Header>...</SOAP-ENV:Header>
<SOAP-ENV:Body>
<ns1:SaveItem>
<item>blah</item>
<ns1:PropertyView>blah</ns1:PropertyView>
</ns1:SaveItem>
</SOAP-ENV:Body>
</SOAP-ENV:Envelope>
up
-2
Alejandro Cavallo
16 years ago
I get the same problem reported above by ryan:
"ryan at grunt dot tv
22-Sep-2005 01:38
If you want to pass an xml document node as a function parameter, your need to create a SoapVar object with a text represention of the xml node and the XSD_ANYXML encoding constant. However, this constant is not exported by the extension and is not documented for some unknown reason."

When defined variable soapVar I assigned the type XSD_STRING rather than as XSD_ANYXML.
And when calls to the function you must pass the soapVar in an associative array.

For example if the function (called myFunc) expect a parameter called xmlInput you should do something like this:
$soapvar = new SoapVar($query, XSD_STRING);
$result = $client->myFunc(array('xmlInput'=>$soapvar));

This XML fragment are wrapped around xmlImput tags.-
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-3
pmeth at softersoftware dot com
10 years ago
Note, when trying to overload the __soapCall function, you should not use type hints or STRICT_STANDARDS will complain.
The correct signature is as follows:

<?php
class MySoapClient extends \SoapClient
{
...
public function
__soapCall($function_name, $arguments, $options = null, $input_headers = null, &$output_headers = null)
{
...
}
....
}
?>
up
-5
niko dot hujanen at gmail dot com
13 years ago
I was integrating a local warehouse system with a SOAP to our system and noticed some things.

1) Service uses "dot-namespacing" (fe. Item.Price) I classmapped this to Item_Price and used magical __get() and __set() to strip off 'Item.' from variable names. Works like a charm.

Example:
<Item.Price>1.52</Item.Price>

<?php
class Item_Price {
public
$price;
public function
__get($field) { $field = str_replace('Item.', '', $field); return $this->$field; }
public function
__set($field, $value) { $field = str_replace('Item.', '', $field); $this->$field = $value; }
?>

2) I noticed that classmapping a segment with attributes and value is possible. Class uses variables as attributes and $_ is the value.

Example:
<?php
class Foo {
public
$item = 'Bar';
public
$_ = 'Value here';
}
?>
Turns to <Foo item="Bar">Value here</Foo>

Example of using classes with soapcalls:
<?php
$client
= ExtendSoapClient::getInstance();
$foo = new Foo();
$response = $client->sendFoo($foo);
?>

Posted these since I think the documentation is lacking and very obsolete. Hopefully someone's burden eases.
up
-4
lesley at casbah dot com dot au
15 years ago
If you are calling a weblogic service with a certificate and you are getting this error on the soap method call statement:

[EJB:010160]Security Violation: User: '<anonymous>' has insufficient permission to access EJB: type=<ejb>, application=app2_0_52_3, module=appsejb.jar, ejb=AppMethod, method=AppMethod, methodInterface=Remote, signature={java.lang.String}.

then check the wsdl in the soap open call - it must be https. Supplied with an http wsdl this took some time to figure out.

<?php
$client
= new SoapClient("https://example.com/AppWs/Service?WSDL",
array(
'trace'=>true,
'exceptions'=>true,
'local_cert' => "/var/www/html/app/newcert.pem",
'passphrase' => "thepassphrase"));
$response = $client->__soapCall("MyMethod", array("param1" => $value1));
?>

Thanks to the authors for their comments on enabling openssl and curl by uncommenting extension=php_opensll.dll and extension=php_curl.dll in php.ini. Also for Olaf's instructions "append the content of the private key file and the certificate file to a single file". I did this using copy command on the DOS prompt:

copy mycert.pem+mykey.pem newcert.pem
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-5
temp at mailinator dot com
17 years ago
The options in the third argument is documented in http://php.net/manual/en/function.soap-soapclient-construct.php
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