param0 disappearing in Soap request in PHP using SoapClient class

Question

I am trying to call a web service from PHP code using SoapClient.

$service = new SoapClient($wsdl);
$service->myFunction('something', 'anotherthing', 'onemore');

If I turn on trace and get the last request, I can see that the first parameter is always missing from the Soap message, i.e. param0 is never there. It's the same in functions with less or more parameters.

The Soap request:

<SOAP-ENV:Envelope xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"&gt;
  <SOAP-ENV:Body>
    <myFunction />
    <param1>anotherthing</param1>
    <param2>onemore</param2>
  </SOAP-ENV:Body>
</SOAP-ENV:Envelope>

What I expect it to be (and what my web service accepts when using soapUI):

<SOAP-ENV:Envelope xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"&gt;
  <SOAP-ENV:Body>
    <myFunction>
      <param0>something</param0>
      <param1>anotherthing</param1>
      <param2>onemore</param2>
    </myFunction>
  </SOAP-ENV:Body>
</SOAP-ENV:Envelope>

It's the same with

__soapCall('myFunction', array($something, $anotherthing, $onemore));

I am using xampplite on Windows XP.

Update: http://programming.itags.org/php/236781/ is a link to someone with the same problem (posted in 2008 with no answers :( ).

Update 2: I also noticed that it doesn't put the xml elements representing the parameters as child elements of the element representing the function. This can't be right?!!?

I've done a horrible fix where I overload the __doRequest function and edit the $request variable. It works, but it sucks. I might as well compile the entire request myself......

Update 3: To me it feels like PHP is just malfunctioning. But if it was a bug in the soap implementation, I'd think there would be more info on it on the web. aaaargh. Next attempt is to try NuSoap and PEAR.

Update 4: To round it off, I didn't try NuSoap and PEAR. I just went with my 'hack' because it worked and there were other activities that needed doing. Furthermore, the demo has been given and for the next phase PHP will not be used anymore. So the whole thing will be re-implemented anyway.

Answer 1

You can see what the SoapClient is sending by extending the doRequest method and debugging the $request argument.

Alternatively, SoapClient::__getLastRequest can also be used, but I had some problems in the past when my calls generated an exception (ie: do not comply with the WDSL), in doRequest you can inspect the XML prior to sending.

Be assured that passing along arguments works like expected, and that your problem probably lies with the actual variables you are sending, or that the call doesn't match the operation as specified in the WSDL.