PHP SOAP Call

I'll see if I can give you a PHP example in a moment, but just a suggestion -- if at all possible, get rid of SOAP and move to a RESTful interface.  The internet is littered with the rotting husks of failed SOAP project.  In contrast, I've never seen anyone who could not immediately understand and use a RESTful API.

I would, but I am consuming a 3rd party API and have no control.

See if this might make sense.  Dealing with SOAP namespaces is not exactly PHP's strong suit.  I find it's easier to just mung the data so you can use a path of less resistance.  Please post back if you have questions about what's going on here.
http://iconoun.com/demo/temp_padas.php

<?php // demo/temp_padas.php

/**
 * See http://www.experts-exchange.com/Programming/Languages/Scripting/PHP/Q_28645118.html
 */
error_reporting(E_ALL);
echo '<pre>';

$xml = <<<EOD
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<soap:Envelope xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
  <soap:Body>
    <getBeerBrands xmlns="http://www.uri.com/someapi">
      <objQueryStuff>
        <strParam1>string</strParam1>
        <strParam2>string</strParam2>
        <intParam3>int</intParam3>
        <objStores>
          <strParam4>string</strParam4>
        </objStores>
      </objQueryStuff>
    </getBeerBrands>
  </soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>
EOD;


// LOAD THE XML STRING
$obj = simplexml_load_string(mungXML($xml));

// ACTIVATE THIS TO SHOW THE ENTIRE OBJECT MADE FROM THE MUNG XML
// var_dump($obj);

// USE AN ITERATOR TO FIND DATA INSIDE THE OBJECT
foreach ($obj->soap_Body as $b)
{
    var_dump($b);
}

// USE DIRECT ADDRESSING TO FIND DATA INSIDE THE OBJECT
$d = $obj->soap_Body->getBeerBrands->objQueryStuff->objStores;
var_dump($d);



// FUNCTION TO MUNG THE XML SO WE DO NOT HAVE TO DEAL WITH NAMESPACE
function mungXML($xml)
{
    $obj = SimpleXML_Load_String($xml);
    if ($obj === FALSE) return $xml;

    // GET NAMESPACES, IF ANY
    $nss = $obj->getNamespaces(TRUE);
    if (empty($nss)) return $xml;

    // CHANGE ns: INTO ns_
    $nsm = array_keys($nss);
    foreach ($nsm as $key)
    {
        // A REGULAR EXPRESSION TO MUNG THE XML
        $rgx
        = '#'               // REGEX DELIMITER
        . '('               // GROUP PATTERN 1
        . '\<'              // LOCATE A LEFT WICKET
        . '/?'              // MAYBE FOLLOWED BY A SLASH
        . preg_quote($key)  // THE NAMESPACE
        . ')'               // END GROUP PATTERN
        . '('               // GROUP PATTERN 2
        . ':{1}'            // A COLON (EXACTLY ONE)
        . ')'               // END GROUP PATTERN
        . '#'               // REGEX DELIMITER
        ;
        // INSERT THE UNDERSCORE INTO THE TAG NAME
        $rep
        = '$1'          // BACKREFERENCE TO GROUP 1
        . '_'           // LITERAL UNDERSCORE IN PLACE OF GROUP 2
        ;
        // PERFORM THE REPLACEMENT
        $xml =  preg_replace($rgx, $rep, $xml);
    }
    return $xml;
}

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It was all going nicely until there was nesting.

Would it be easier to use cURL?  Convert the xml to a $variable and submit via cURL.  That's what I used to do for Classic ASP where everything was done by hand.

<?php
  $soap_request  = "<?xml version=\"1.0\"?>\n";
  $soap_request .= "<soap:Envelope xmlns:soap=\"http://www.w3.org/2001/12/soap-envelope\" soap:encodingStyle=\"http://www.w3.org/2001/12/soap-encoding\">\n";
  $soap_request .= "  <soap:Body xmlns:m=\"http://www.example.org/stock\">\n";
  $soap_request .= "    <m:GetStockPrice>\n";
  $soap_request .= "      <m:StockName>IBM</m:StockName>\n";
  $soap_request .= "    </m:GetStockPrice>\n";
  $soap_request .= "  </soap:Body>\n";
  $soap_request .= "</soap:Envelope>";
 
  $header = array(
    "Content-type: text/xml;charset=\"utf-8\"",
    "Accept: text/xml",
    "Cache-Control: no-cache",
    "Pragma: no-cache",
    "SOAPAction: \"run\"",
    "Content-length: ".strlen($soap_request),
  );
 
  $soap_do = curl_init();
  curl_setopt($soap_do, CURLOPT_URL, "http://localhost/php-soap-curl/soap-server.php" );
  curl_setopt($soap_do, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 10);
  curl_setopt($soap_do, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT,        10);
  curl_setopt($soap_do, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true );
  curl_setopt($soap_do, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);
  curl_setopt($soap_do, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, false);
  curl_setopt($soap_do, CURLOPT_POST,           true );
  curl_setopt($soap_do, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS,     $soap_request);
  curl_setopt($soap_do, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER,     $header);
 
  if(curl_exec($soap_do) === false) {
    $err = 'Curl error: ' . curl_error($soap_do);
    curl_close($soap_do);
    print $err;
  } else {
    curl_close($soap_do);
    print 'Operation completed without any errors';
  }

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http://eureka.ykyuen.info/2011/05/05/php-send-a-soap-request-by-curl/

Maybe I'm missing something. I thought you wanted to consume the SOAP output.

Is there API documentation available?

Thanks Ray, I will give it a try

Sorry for the delay in accepting.  Ray is always a great resource.

Thanks for the points, Scott!  All the best, ~Ray