{"id":810,"date":"2006-08-29T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-08-28T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wwwneu.strehle.de\/tim\/weblog\/archives\/2006\/08\/29\/748\/"},"modified":"2006-08-29T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2006-08-28T22:00:00","slug":"748","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/weblog\/archives\/2006\/08\/29\/748\/","title":{"rendered":"NOT Getting Started with PHP 5 SOAP"},"content":{"rendered":"

Not having played with PHP 5’s native SOAP extension<\/a> yet, I did expect it to work smoothly with the most simple application I could think of – querying Google via its SOAP Search API<\/a>. Well…<\/p>\n

I first compiled the latest PHP 5.1.6 with –enable-soap<\/em> and downloaded the Google SOAP Search API developer’s kit<\/a> which contains their WSDL file, GoogleSearch.wsdl<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Running this example PHP code…<\/p>\n

<?php $client = new SoapClient(‚GoogleSearch.wsdl‘); try { $result = $client->doGoogleSearch( ‚[Secret Google key]‘, ‚Tim Strehle‘, 0, 3 ); foreach ($result->resultElements as $resultElement) { print $resultElement->URL; } } catch (SOAPFault $f) { echo $f->faultstring . „\\n“; } ?><\/div>\n

… produced a lovely error message:<\/p>\n

tim@vm:\/tmp>php test.php No Deserializer found to deserialize a ‚:filter‘ using encoding style ‚http:\/\/schemas.xmlsoap.org\/soap\/encoding\/‘.<\/div>\n

Here’s the actual SOAP request PHP was sending:<\/p>\n

<?xml version=“1.0″ encoding=“UTF-8″?> <SOAP-ENV:Envelope xmlns:SOAP-ENV=“http:\/\/schemas.xmlsoap.org\/soap\/envelope\/“ xmlns:ns1=“urn:GoogleSearch“ 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:doGoogleSearch> <key xsi:type=“xsd:string“>[Secret Google key]<\/key> <q xsi:type=“xsd:string“>Tim Strehle<\/q> <start xsi:type=“xsd:int“>0<\/start> <maxResults xsi:type=“xsd:int“>3<\/maxResults> <filter xsi:nil=“true“\/> <restrict xsi:nil=“true“\/> <safeSearch xsi:nil=“true“\/> <lr xsi:nil=“true“\/> <ie xsi:nil=“true“\/> <oe xsi:nil=“true“\/> <\/ns1:doGoogleSearch> <\/SOAP-ENV:Body> <\/SOAP-ENV:Envelope><\/div>\n

The error message did come from Google:<\/p>\n

<?xml version=“1.0″ encoding=“UTF-8″?> <SOAP-ENV:Envelope xmlns:SOAP-ENV=“http:\/\/schemas.xmlsoap.org\/soap\/envelope\/“ xmlns:xsi=“http:\/\/www.w3.org\/1999\/XMLSchema-instance“ xmlns:xsd=“http:\/\/www.w3.org\/1999\/XMLSchema“> <SOAP-ENV:Body> <SOAP-ENV:Fault> <faultcode>SOAP-ENV:Client<\/faultcode> <faultstring>No Deserializer found to deserialize a ‚:filter‘ using encoding style ‚http:\/\/schemas.xmlsoap.org\/soap\/encoding\/‘.<\/faultstring> <faultactor>\/search\/beta2<\/faultactor> <\/SOAP-ENV:Fault> <\/SOAP-ENV:Body> <\/SOAP-ENV:Envelope><\/div>\n

Obviously Google doesn’t like the *xsi:nil* stuff created by PHP. Modifying those empty tags manually in an XML file…<\/p>\n

<?xml version=“1.0″ encoding=“UTF-8″?> <SOAP-ENV:Envelope xmlns:SOAP-ENV=“http:\/\/schemas.xmlsoap.org\/soap\/envelope\/“ xmlns:ns1=“urn:GoogleSearch“ 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:doGoogleSearch> <key xsi:type=“xsd:string“>[Secret Google key]<\/key> <q xsi:type=“xsd:string“>Tim Strehle<\/q> <start xsi:type=“xsd:int“>0<\/start> <maxResults xsi:type=“xsd:int“>3<\/maxResults> **<filter xsi:type=“xsd:boolean“>false<\/filter> <restrict xsi:type=“xsd:string“><\/restrict> <safeSearch xsi:type=“xsd:boolean“>false<\/safeSearch> <lr xsi:type=“xsd:string“><\/lr> <ie xsi:type=“xsd:string“><\/ie> <oe xsi:type=“xsd:string“><\/oe>** <\/ns1:doGoogleSearch> <\/SOAP-ENV:Body> <\/SOAP-ENV:Envelope><\/div>\n

… and sending the SOAP request using [curl](http:\/\/curl.haxx.se\/ „cURL and libcurl“) finally produced correct results:<\/p>\n

tim@vm:\/tmp>**cat test.curl** header = „SOAPAction: urn:GoogleSearchAction“ header = „Content-Type: text\/xml“ data = „@\/tmp\/test.xml“ url = „http:\/\/api.google.com\/search\/beta2″ tim@vm:\/tmp>**curl -K test.curl | xmllint –format -** <?xml version=“1.0″ encoding=“UTF-8″?> <SOAP-ENV:Envelope xmlns:SOAP-ENV=“http:\/\/schemas.xmlsoap.org\/soap\/envelope\/“ xmlns:xsi=“http:\/\/www.w3.org\/1999\/XMLSchema-instance“ xmlns:xsd=“http:\/\/www.w3.org\/1999\/XMLSchema“> <SOAP-ENV:Body> <ns1:doGoogleSearchResponse xmlns:ns1=“urn:GoogleSearch“ SOAP-ENV:encodingStyle=“http:\/\/schemas.xmlsoap.org\/soap\/encoding\/“> <return xsi:type=“ns1:GoogleSearchResult“> <directoryCategories xmlns:ns2=“http:\/\/schemas.xmlsoap.org\/soap\/encoding\/“ xsi:type=“ns2:Array“ ns2:arrayType=“ns1:DirectoryCategory[0]“> <\/directoryCategories> <documentFiltering xsi:type=“xsd:boolean“>false<\/documentFiltering> <endIndex xsi:type=“xsd:int“>3<\/endIndex> <estimateIsExact xsi:type=“xsd:boolean“>false<\/estimateIsExact> <estimatedTotalResultsCount xsi:type=“xsd:int“>184000<\/estimatedTotalResultsCount> <resultElements xmlns:ns3=“http:\/\/schemas.xmlsoap.org\/soap\/encoding\/“ xsi:type=“ns3:Array“ ns3:arrayType=“ns1:ResultElement[3]“> <item xsi:type=“ns1:ResultElement“> <URL xsi:type=“xsd:string“>http:\/\/tim.digicol.de\/<\/URL> <cachedSize xsi:type=“xsd:string“>4k<\/cachedSize> <directoryCategory xsi:type=“ns1:DirectoryCategory“> <fullViewableName xsi:type=“xsd:string“\/> <specialEncoding xsi:type=“xsd:string“\/> <\/directoryCategory> <directoryTitle xsi:type=“xsd:string“\/> <hostName xsi:type=“xsd:string“\/> <relatedInformationPresent xsi:type=“xsd:boolean“>true<\/relatedInformationPresent> <snippet xsi:type=“xsd:string“>&lt;b&gt;Tim&lt;\/b&gt; at his desk &lt;b&gt;Tim Strehle&lt;\/b&gt; @ Digital Collections &lt;b&gt;…&lt;\/b&gt; &lt;b&gt;Tim&amp;#39;s&lt;\/b&gt; Weblog &amp;middot; Ceterum censeo…&lt;br&gt; www.liederdatenbank.de, my personal project for building a database &lt;b&gt;…&lt;\/b&gt;<\/snippet> <summary xsi:type=“xsd:string“\/> <title xsi:type=“xsd:string“>&lt;b&gt;Tim Strehle&lt;\/b&gt; @ Digital Collections<\/title> <\/item> <item xsi:type=“ns1:ResultElement“> <URL xsi:type=“xsd:string“>http:\/\/tim.digicol.de\/weblog\/<\/URL> <cachedSize xsi:type=“xsd:string“>33k<\/cachedSize> <directoryCategory xsi:type=“ns1:DirectoryCategory“> <fullViewableName xsi:type=“xsd:string“\/> <specialEncoding xsi:type=“xsd:string“\/> <\/directoryCategory> <directoryTitle xsi:type=“xsd:string“\/> <hostName xsi:type=“xsd:string“\/> <relatedInformationPresent xsi:type=“xsd:boolean“>true<\/relatedInformationPresent> <snippet xsi:type=“xsd:string“>My linkblog: What I (&lt;b&gt;Tim Strehle&lt;\/b&gt;) read on the web, on PHP. XML. Information Science&lt;br&gt; and Information Architecture… 2006-08-23 &lt;b&gt;…&lt;\/b&gt;<\/snippet> <summary xsi:type=“xsd:string“\/> <title xsi:type=“xsd:string“>&lt;b&gt;Tim&amp;#39;s&lt;\/b&gt; Weblog \u00bb Latest posts<\/title> <\/item> <item xsi:type=“ns1:ResultElement“> <URL xsi:type=“xsd:string“>http:\/\/freshmeat.net\/~tistre\/<\/URL> <cachedSize xsi:type=“xsd:string“>12k<\/cachedSize> <directoryCategory xsi:type=“ns1:DirectoryCategory“> <fullViewableName xsi:type=“xsd:string“\/> <specialEncoding xsi:type=“xsd:string“\/> <\/directoryCategory> <directoryTitle xsi:type=“xsd:string“\/> <hostName xsi:type=“xsd:string“\/> <relatedInformationPresent xsi:type=“xsd:boolean“>true<\/relatedInformationPresent> <snippet xsi:type=“xsd:string“>User info page for &lt;b&gt;Tim Strehle&lt;\/b&gt;. Name: &lt;b&gt;Tim Strehle&lt;\/b&gt;. User ID: #96744. Email: &lt;b&gt;tim&lt;\/b&gt;&lt;br&gt; __at__ &lt;b&gt;strehle&lt;\/b&gt; __dot__ &lt;b&gt;…&lt;\/b&gt; &lt;b&gt;Tim Strehle&lt;\/b&gt; didn&amp;#39;t post any article comments yet. &lt;b&gt;…&lt;\/b&gt;<\/snippet> <summary xsi:type=“xsd:string“\/> <title xsi:type=“xsd:string“>freshmeat.net: User information<\/title> <\/item> <\/resultElements> <searchComments xsi:type=“xsd:string“\/> <searchQuery xsi:type=“xsd:string“>Tim Strehle<\/searchQuery> <searchTime xsi:type=“xsd:double“>0.020699<\/searchTime> <searchTips xsi:type=“xsd:string“\/> <startIndex xsi:type=“xsd:int“>1<\/startIndex> <\/return> <\/ns1:doGoogleSearchResponse> <\/SOAP-ENV:Body> <\/SOAP-ENV:Envelope><\/div>\n

I don’t know enough SOAP so I cannot say whether this is Google’s or PHP’s fault, but it’s definitely not the „just works“ experience I’d expect from both of them. If SOAP’s complexity itself is to blame, I may have been right to lean towards REST (or POX over HTTP) without ever having used much SOAP…<\/p>\n

Update:<\/em> „Optional fields cause problems“, says Dare Obasanjo – ETech 2005 Trip Report: Building a New Web Service at Google<\/a>… It turns out that filling in all optional parameters in the SOAP call makes the PHP script work:<\/p>\n

<?php $client = new SoapClient(‚GoogleSearch.wsdl‘); try { $result = $client->doGoogleSearch( ‚[Secret Google key]‘, ‚Tim Strehle‘, 0, 3, **false, “, false, “, “, “** ); … ?><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not having played with PHP 5’s native SOAP extension yet, I did expect it to work smoothly with the most simple application I could think of – querying Google via its SOAP Search API. Well… I first compiled the latest PHP 5.1.6 with –enable-soap and downloaded the Google SOAP Search API developer’s kit which contains […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weblog"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}