On PHPMaster.com today they've posted the second part of their series looking at creating a SOAP web service with NuSOAP. (Part one is here)

In this article we'll talk about what WSDL files are and how to use them. I'll show you how to quickly build your WSDL files with NuSOAP and incorporate a WSDL file into the SOAP server and client examples from the first part.

He introduces WSDL files, the specially formatted XML definitions that tell SOAP clients what's available on the service and includes some markup as examples. Creating one from scratch ca be a hassle, so it's handy that NuSOAP generates one for you from your server class. He includes sample code to create this generated file and how to create a SOAP client pointed to the PHP script to get the result.

On PHPMaster.com today there's a new tutorial posted, the first part in a series, showing how to create SOAP web services with the help of the NuSOAP library.

In this first of a two part series on web services I'll talk about the SOAP specification and what is involved in creating SOAP messages. I'll also demonstrate how to create a SOAP server and client using the excellent NuSOAP library to illustrate the flow of SOAP. In the second part I'll talk about the importance of WSDL files, how you can easily generate them with NuSOAP as well, and how a client may use a WSDL file to better understand your web service.

He introduces you to the concepts behind SOAP, the normal structure of a SOAP-formatted XML message and what an example might look like for fetching a stock price from a remote service. He then shows how to use NuSOAP to create both a simple server and client to pull information about books - sample code and a screenshot of the output is included.

In a new post to his blog David Dudok de Wit has a mini-tutorial on how to get you your PHP script connected with SharePoint to add new items to a list (based on an earlier post of his).

If you read my previous post (Reading a SharePoint list with PHP) you'll notice that the code is very similar. In fact, only the CAML query (which is contained in the SOAP request) and the Lists method has changed. Once again, I recommend following this simple guideline when coding a SharePoint application from PHP or Java.

He lists two resources that can help you get started on formatting the queries and some code that, using NuSOAP (yes, use can use PHP's SOAP extension too), connects to the remote SharePoint server and pushes across a SOAP message (XML) to update the given list's items.

In a new article from PHPBuilder.com.au today, they talk about the "powerhouse of web services", SOAP, and how to get started working with it in PHP.

You've tried your hand at building mashups, experimented with a few RESTful Web services, maybe even started your own. Sure, you've got data sharing working. But how do you make your Web applications really talk to each other? In this tutorial, I'll show you how to take your Web applications to the next level with SOAP.

They opt to go with the NuSOAP method to consume another service and create your own simple one. They include a few code examples for either side and a (very) brief look at doing some debugging with what NuSOAP has to offer. One thing to note - if you have PHP5's SOAP extension compiled in and working, NuSOAP will throw an error about redeclaring a class name. This is because of a conflict between the naming of the SOAP extension's methods and NuSOAP.

There's a new article from PHPBuilder.com today that focuses on one of the "glue" that helps bind the web together (and is binding it more and more each day) - web services, specifically with PHP and SOAP.

Web Services is a system which enables and supports interoperability. It enables applications written in different languages, located in different places, running on different operating systems, to talk to each other, exchange information and perform different operations. The building blocks of Web Services are a set of XML based standards namely SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol), WSDL (Web Services Description Language) and UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration).

They opted to go the NuSOAP route (the popular PHP4-ish way to do SOAP) but the same general ideas apply with with PHP5 implementation of the SOAP protocol.

They introduce web service a bit, explaining the different parts of the typical service setup then move into NuSOAP and examples of its use. Their code example sends a string ("Hello World") to the remote service that takes it in and validates it on if it's actually a string or not. If it is, all is returned well - otherwise, it returns an error.

DevShed has a new article posted today - a tutorial walking you through a sort of brief history of SOAP support in PHP and some working examples of each - NuSOAP, PEAR::SOAP and PHP's SOAP extension.

SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) provides a flexible communication layer between applications, regardless of platform and location. As long as both the server and the client speak SOAP, they can communicate. A PHP-based web application can ask a Java database application to get some information. In this article we will try to focus on different methods of developing SOAP web service clients in PHP.

They start with a look at NuSOAP and the creation of both a client and server (as well as an example on how to use some of its debugging. Next up is PEAR::SOAP, a powerful package that simplifies much of the same functionality NuSOAP has to offer. Finally, they get to the most recent SOAP functionality for PHP, the PHP SOAP extension that comes loaded with PHP5 installations by default. This includes a brief overview of its API and code examples that, in a few lines, do what takes the others twice as much.

Normal internet applications are great for letting users talk to servers (or other users for that matter), but not so good when one of your scripts wants to ask a remote site for some data. Enter web services - a handy interface to remote data stores that can be queried to narrow down to just what you need. PHP has several ways to go about using (and creating) these, but one of the most popular, moreso for PHP4 users, is NuSOAP. Using it can be a little tricky, though, so thankfully there's tutorials like this on DevBuilder to get you started.

They provide a great overview of what web services are/how they're used/benefits before even getting into the technical side of things. From there, it's all examples and screenshots of their example to grab information from a remote service - GeoCash from serviceobjects.net.