title: PHP 5 SOAP client returns NULL when WSDL-provided function is called
body: <p>I am trying to use a webservice to look for specific users from my PHP application. I have used that exact same webservice in ASP.NET with success.</p>
  
  <p>Basically, I do everything like the PHP doc tells me to, and I use the same methods/variables I used in ASP.NET (for the webservice itself), but I can't seem to get a result.</p>
  
  <p>The function is listed in __getFunctions() and should return <code>anyType</code>, which if I understand correctly is the equivalent of <code>mixed</code> in PHP:</p>
  
  <pre><code>array(1) { [0]=&gt;  string(63) "anyType basicSearch(string $sharedSecret, string $searchParams)" } 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>When I do call basicSearch() though, it seems returns NULL.</p>
  
  <p>basicSearch() is supposed to return an XML document with the information. In ASP.NET I used to simply cast the  response to, I believe, and XmlDocument. Should I do that in PHP too? With which representation of an XML document (SimpleXML, DOM, etc.)?</p>
  
  <p>Could it show as NULL just because PHP can't understand the format?</p>
  
  <p>Am I doing something wrong in PHP? Or should I look into the webservice itself and try to debug on that side?</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;?php
      $client = new SoapClient($wsdl_url);
  
      echo $client-&gt;__getFunctions();
      echo "&lt;br /&gt;\n";
      echo $client-&gt;basicSearch($key, $req);
  ?&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>PS: I am using the PHP 5 library. Maybe using some other library like nu-soap would help? There seems to be more doc online about it.</p>
  
  <hr>
  
  <p><strong>Update:</strong></p>
  
  <p>Using an array to pass the parameter does not work, SOAP expects separate arguments. Calling __getLastRequest() returns a string concatenating $key and $req with no other XML. Calling __getLastResponse() returns an empty string. No exception is thrown whatsoever. It seems PHP does not know what to do with the arguments I give it, even though it has parsed the WSDL file since I get the function I use listed when I call __getFunctions().</p>
  
  <p>Any help would be appreciated.</p>
  
  <p>Update': Still no solution working. I am baffled...</p>