WCF service with PHP client - complex type as parameter not working

Question

I have a WCF service with three methods. Two of the methods return custom types (these work as expected), and the third method takes a custom type as a parameter and returns a boolean. When calling the third method via a PHP soap client it returns an 'Object reference not set to an instance of an object' exception.

Example Custom Type:

_ Public Class MyClass

Private _propertyA As Double
<DataMember()> _
Public Property PropertyA() As Double
    Get
        Return _propertyA
    End Get
    Set(ByVal value As Double)
        _propertyA = value
    End Set
End Property

Private _propertyB As Double
<DataMember()> _
Public Property PropertyB() As Double
    Get
        Return _propertyB
    End Get
    Set(ByVal value As Double)
        _propertyB = value
    End Set
End Property

Private _propertyC As Date
<DataMember()> _
Public Property PropertyC() As Date
    Get
        Return _propertyC
    End Get
    Set(ByVal value As Date)
        _propertyC = value
    End Set
End Property

End Class

Method:

Public Function Add(ByVal param As MyClass) As Boolean Implements IService1.Add ' ... End Function

PHP client call:

$client->Add(array('param'=>array( 'PropertyA' => 1, 'PropertyB' => 2, 'PropertyC' => "2009-01-01" )));

The WCF service works fine with a .Net client but I'm new to PHP and can't get this to work.

Is it possible to create an instance of 'MyClass' in PHP.

Any help would be appreciated.

Note: I'm using PHP 5 (XAMPP 1.7.0 for Windows).

Thanks

Matt

Matt -- did you ever find a solution to this? I'm having a similar problem with a PHP not being able to pass a class instance into a web service. — Steve Wranovsky
we ended up solving our problem. It was the nesting of the array() in the PHP. We needed another array() nesting to make it work. It appears that .NET adds another abstraction layer in SOAP that isn't clear when just looking at the service definitions in .NET. — Steve Wranovsky

Matt F Matt F · Accepted Answer · 2010-10-05T08:58:19

I no longer have XAMPP setup in order to test but here is some example code:

PHP:

$wsdl = "https://....../ServiceName.svc?wsdl";
$endpoint = "https://...../ServiceName.svc/endpointName";
$client = new SoapClient($wsdl, array('location'=>$endpoint));

$container = new stdClass();

$container->request->PropertyA = 'Test 1';
$container->request->PropertyB = 'Test 2';
$container->request->PropertyC = '05/10/2010';

$response = $client->ServiceMethodA($container);

request is the name of the parameter expected by the web service.

If you have a custom type with references to other custom types you can set those properties as follows:

$container->request->OtherCustomType->Property1 = 'Test';

Hope that helps.

WCF service with PHP client - complex type as parameter not working

5 Answers