How to get started with web services?

Been doing a lot of reading and need a little help

[Ben_Johnson]

I have a project that would be perfect to use a web services architecture. Although I've never done anything with web services. I've been doing quite a bit of reading on how to create a web service with PHP and I got about 10 different ways to do them.

So my question is, what is the absolute best way to create a web service using PHP. Do you know of any good books, article, tutorials, etc. that would help with this issue? I just need to be pointed in the right direction so I can start reading and playing around with them.

I saw this book, and I've read a few books published by apress, they are great. Although this book hasn't come out yet, ha ha.

[amazon.com...]

Thanks a lot for your help.

[coopster]

Web services use XML to code/decode data and SOAP to transport the data. I would probably lean toward PHP5 using SimpleXML and SOAP.

[Ben_Johnson]

I actually found a class called nusoap. It seems to be extremely helpful for creating web service servers and clients. Just thought I would add it to this thread for anyone that reads this.

It takes care of all the dirty details for you.