Need advice on a PHP SOAP server

[lorax]

I need to write a SOAP server. I've been wanting to do this for over a year and now I'm here! :) I would like to know what to look out for or if you have any good resources to read through. The data will come from a MySQL database and needs to be formatted into an XML format (obviously).

Specific questions I have are:

Do I need to build a schema - or how does the client know what the tags are?

The data won't change much and I'm toying with building a flat-file from the a dbquery output to save time. I could save the file in XML format. Or would the time savings be worth it?

Any other considerations?

[lorax]

Well, as usual I was making much harder on myself. nusoap makes life much easier as a quick and dirty toolkit for SOAP classes. I'll have to write my own at another time.

[coopster]

Bummer. I've not yet done anything in this area either and was truly hoping to glean your noggin' for some instruction when the time came. Well, lorax, I'm counting on you to come through anyway ;) Best of luck with the new frontier here...

[lorax]

Don't dispair Coopster - I may write my own sooner than later. The Nusphere classes are easy to use but the file is 156K! I have to believe there's a lot of fat in there. At least more than what I need to accomplish what I want to do.

I had originally thought of using straight XML-RPC but it didn't offer the functionality I wanted - at least that's what I gathered from the stuff I've read.

I'll pass along what I run into/build if it's of interest to anyone. Sometimes I feel like I'm so far out on a limb with this stuff that I think I can hear jatar_k and Nick_W laughing hysterically! :)

[lorax]

Well I've been playing with SOAP all day and it's pretty neat. I'm pulling data from a remote database that I have control over and filling in a template with it and you wouldn't know it. Let alone the whole thing looks like it's built with static pages.

My head is spinning with the possibiities.