Php soap service evenlope <return> element - php

Question

I am trying to build a web service to a specification of a 3rd party who will be connecting to it as a client, the service must be written in PHP but I am a total PHP n00b so struggling a little. Basically my responses are being wrapped in a element however the client is not accepting my responses because of this, here is an example.
service.php
<?php
class MyService {
public function Ping() {
return date('d/m/Y H:i:s');
}
}
$server = new SoapServer(null, array( 'soap_version' => SOAP_1_2, 'encoding' => 'UTF-8', 'uri' => 'http://tempuri.org/'));
$server->setClass("MyService");
$server->handle();
?>
Request
<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"
xmlns:tem="http://tempuri.org/">
<soapenv:Header/>
<soapenv:Body>
<tem:Ping />
</soapenv:Body>
</soapenv:Envelope>
Response
<SOAP-ENV:Envelope xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:ns1="http://tempuri.org/" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:SOAP-ENC="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/">
<SOAP-ENV:Body>
<ns1:PingResponse>
<return xsi:type="xsd:string">18/11/2010 18:51:02</return>
</ns1:PingResponse>
</SOAP-ENV:Body>
</SOAP-ENV:Envelope>
What the client is expecting is the PingResponse to just contain the date but without the wrapped around the outside. How can I get the PHP SoapClient to do this?
E.g.
<ns1:PingResponse>18/11/2010 18:51:02</ns1:PingResponse>

Answer 1

I don't think you can, I think this is written into the core of SOAP so it's something your client will have to work around. If they're already getting the contents of PingResponse I can't see it being much more difficult for them to go 1 tree deeper into the response.