Does Ksoap2 require that a web service produce a wsdl? - php

Question

I have successfully written an Android app which calls an asp.net web service using Ksoap2. I now want to migrate the app to use a PHP web service. I have successfully migrated the web service over to a native PHP web service (and tested it using a PHP client) but I'm having trouble calling it using KSOAP. One thought that struck me was that the native PHP web service was not generated using a wsdl, and is not able to automatically generate a wsdl.
Does ksoap2 require a wsdl to successfully call a web service method?
The asp.net web service is located at http://mycomputer/AlumLocateService/Service.asmx
For the succesful call to asp.net service:
private static final String NAMESPACE = "http://mycomputer/";
private static final String URL = "http://mycomputer/AlumLocateService/Service.asmx";
private static final String METHOD_NAME_3 = "FindCloseDetails";
private static final String SOAP_ACTION_3 = NAMESPACE + METHOD_NAME_3;
SoapObject request = new SoapObject(NAMESPACE, METHOD_NAME_3);
PropertyInfo pi = new PropertyInfo();
pi.setName("userid");
pi.setValue(userid);
pi.setType(string.class);
request.addProperty(pi);
SoapSerializationEnvelope envelope = new SoapSerializationEnvelope(SoapEnvelope.VER11);
envelope.dotNet = true;
envelope.setOutputSoapObject(request);
HttpTransportSE androidHttpTransport = new HttpTransportSE(URL);
androidHttpTransport.call(SOAP_ACTION_3, envelope);
//Parse Response
Object myResult = envelope.bodyIn;
SoapObject resultsRequestSOAP = (SoapObject) myResult;
String[] results = getStringArrayResponse(resultsRequestSOAP, null);
return results;
The PHP service is located at http://mycomputer/PHPTest/testserver.php and replicates the methods of the asp.net web service. I had hoped thta all I woudl need to do would be to change the following
private static final String URL = "http://mycomputer/PHPTest/testserver.php";
and remove the line
envelope.dotNet = true;
but when I do that i get "XmlPullParserException: unexpected type (position END_DOCUMENT null...." when the androidHttpTransport.call(SOAP_ACTION_3, envelope) call is made.

Answer 1

One I had changed to using a PHP Zend_Soap_Server I had to change the last part of my Android code to:
Object myResult = envelope.getResponse();
String[] results = null;
if (myResult instanceof Vector)
{
Vector<Object> myVector = (Vector<Object>) myResult;
results = new String[myVector.size()];
for (int i = 0; i< myVector.size();i++){
results[i] = myVector.elementAt(i).toString();
}
}
return results;