How to swap SOAP calls to cURL, to work within allow_url_fopen limitation?

Question

I've recently had a problem where the SOAP calls to the ID3Global/address service suddenly stopped working(they previously worked fine). I believe it has something to do with the hosting provider turning off allow_url_fopen on our server which now means the service doesn't work.

I've been told I'll need to switch to using cURL to grab the files (WSDL) as file_get_contents requires 'allow_url_fopen' to be set in the php.ini file for this to work. However I don't seem to be using file_get_contents in my file to get the WSDL file.

How can I to switch to using cURL?

Here's my PHP file making the SOAP address call:

<?php
ini_set("soap.wsdl_cache_enabled", "0");

$username = '[email protected]';
$password = 'xxxxxxx';

$profile_id = 'xxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxx';

// Live WSDL
$wsdl = 'https://id3global.com/ID3gWS/ID3global.svc?wsdl';

$postcode = $_POST['ZipPostcode'];

/**
 * Method to arrange the address into a sane
 * order for displaying back to the user
 *
 * @param $item
 * @param $key
 * @internal param $address
 */
function sortAddress(&$item, $key)
{
    // Convert the object to an array
    $address = (array) $item;

    // Reorder the address lines
    $addressLines = array(
        'Company' => $address['Company'],
        'Building' => $address['Building'],
        'SubBuilding' => $address['SubBuilding'],
        'Premise' => $address['Premise'],
        'SubStreet' => $address['SubStreet'],
        'Street' => $address['Street'],
        'City' => $address['City'],
        'StateDistrict' => $address['StateDistrict'],
        'ZipPostcode' => $address['ZipPostcode'],
        'Country' => $address['Country'],
    );

   // Remove blank address lines
   // $item = array_filter($addressLines);
   $item = $addressLines;

}

class clsWSSEAuth { 
    private $Username; 
    private $Password;  
    function __construct($username, $password) { 
        $this->Username=$username; 
        $this->Password=$password; 
    } 
} 

class clsWSSEToken { 
    private $UsernameToken; 
    function __construct ($UsernameToken){ 
        $this->UsernameToken = $UsernameToken; 
    } 
} 

$strWSSENS = "http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-secext-1.0.xsd"; 

//Auth
$objSoapVarUser = new SoapVar($username, XSD_STRING, NULL, $strWSSENS, NULL, $strWSSENS); 
$objSoapVarPass = new SoapVar($password, XSD_STRING, NULL, $strWSSENS, NULL, $strWSSENS); 
$objWSSEAuth = new clsWSSEAuth($objSoapVarUser, $objSoapVarPass); 

//Token
$objSoapVarWSSEToken = new SoapVar($objWSSEAuth, SOAP_ENC_OBJECT, NULL, $strWSSENS, 'UsernameToken', $strWSSENS); 
$objWSSEToken = new clsWSSEToken($objSoapVarWSSEToken); 

//Header
$objSoapVarWSSEAuth = new SoapVar($objWSSEToken, SOAP_ENC_OBJECT, NULL, $strWSSENS, 'UsernameToken', $strWSSENS); 
$objSoapVarHeaderVal = new SoapVar($objSoapVarWSSEAuth, SOAP_ENC_OBJECT, NULL, $strWSSENS, 'Security', $strWSSENS); 
$objSoapVarWSSEHeader = new SoapHeader($strWSSENS, 'Security', $objSoapVarHeaderVal, true); 

//Client
$client = new SoapClient($wsdl, array(
    'soap_version' => SOAP_1_1, 
    'trace' => 1, 
    'exception' => true, 
)); 

$client->__setSoapHeaders($objSoapVarWSSEHeader);

$results = $client->AddressLookup(array(
    'InputData' => array('ZipPostcode' => strtoupper($postcode)),
));

$addresses = $results->AddressLookupResult->GlobalAddress;


array_walk($addresses, 'sortAddress');
//var_dump($addresses);

echo json_encode( $addresses );

This is triggered using AJAX and here's the JavaScript/jQuery file:

jQuery(document).ready(function($) {

    var addresses = [];

    $("body").on('click', '.find-address', function(e){
        e.preventDefault();
        url = '/wp-content/themes/Cornhill/gbgroup-address-lookup_2.php';
        postode_id = $(this).data('postcode');
        address_id = $(this).data('address');
        postcode = $('#'+postode_id).val();
        console.log('Stage 1');

        if (postcode != '')
        {
            var addressList = $('#'+address_id);
            addressList.find('option').remove();
            opt = $('<option>').html('Loading...');
            opt.val('');
            addressList.append(opt);
            console.log('stage 2');

            $.ajax({
                url: url,
                dataType: 'json',
                type: 'post',
                data: {
                    'ZipPostcode': postcode
                },
                success: function(response){
                    addressList.find('option').remove();
                    addresses[address_id] = response;

                    opt = $('<option>').html('Please select');
                    opt.val('');
                    addressList.append(opt);

                    for(x=0; x<addresses[address_id].length; x++){

                        addressArray = new Array();
                        addressArray.push(addresses[address_id][x].Building);
                        addressArray.push(addresses[address_id][x].Street);
                        addressArray.push(addresses[address_id][x].City);
                        addressArray.push(addresses[address_id][x].ZipPostcode);

                        addressString = addressArray.join(', ');

                        opt = $('<option>').attr('value', x);
                        opt.html(addressString);

                        addressList.append(opt);
                    }
                }
            });
        }
        else
        {
            return;
        }
    });

    $("body").on('change', '.select-address', function(){
        address_id = $(this).attr('id');
        street_id = $(this).data('street');
        town_id = $(this).data('town');
        postcode_id = $(this).data('postcode');

        value = $(this).val();
        if(value != ''){
            address = addresses[address_id][value];

            if (address.Building != '')
            {
                $('#'+street_id).val(address.Building+' '+address.Street);
            }
            else
            {
                $('#'+street_id).val(address.Street);
            }
            $('#'+town_id).val(address.City);
            $('#'+postcode_id).val(address.ZipPostcode);
        }

    });

});

I've previously tried switching using the following code to grab the WSDL file but am not really sure what else I'm supposed to do with it:

$ch =  curl_init('https://id3global.com/ID3gWS/ID3global.svc?wsdl');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
$resultSuper = curl_exec($ch);

Answer 1

The parameter allow_url_fopen has no effect on the way that SOAP works. You can easily test this with the following script:

<?php

echo "allow_url_fopen status is: " . ini_get('allow_url_fopen') . "\n";

$wsdl = 'https://id3global.com/ID3gWS/ID3global.svc?wsdl';

file_get_contents($wsdl);

$client = new SoapClient($wsdl, array(
    'soap_version' => SOAP_1_1,
    'trace' => 1,
    'cache_wsdl' => WSDL_CACHE_NONE, // this is important for the purpose of the test
    'exception' => true,
));

print_r($client);

?>

When allow_url_fopen is enabled, you will see the following output:

allow_url_fopen status is: 1 SoapClient Object ( [trace] => 1 [_soap_version] => 1 [sdl] => Resource id #11 )

When allow_url_fopen is disabled, you will see the following output:

allow_url_fopen status is: 0 
Warning: file_get_contents(): https:// wrapper is disabled in the server configuration by allow_url_fopen=0 in /var/www/test.php on line 9

Warning: file_get_contents(https://id3global.com/ID3gWS/ID3global.svc?wsdl): failed to open stream: no suitable wrapper could be found in /var/www/test.php on line 9
SoapClient Object ( [trace] => 1 [_soap_version] => 1 [sdl] => Resource id #10 )

Notice that no SOAP error is reported.

The reason for this behaviour is the following code in file ext/soap/php_xml.c in PHP's source:

old_allow_url_fopen = PG(allow_url_fopen);
PG(allow_url_fopen) = 1;
ctxt = xmlCreateFileParserCtxt(filename);
PG(allow_url_fopen) = old_allow_url_fopen;

So, allow_url_fopen is enabled for the WSDL download. If you comment the lines as follows:

/* old_allow_url_fopen = PG(allow_url_fopen);
PG(allow_url_fopen) = 1; */
ctxt = xmlCreateFileParserCtxt(filename);
/* PG(allow_url_fopen) = old_allow_url_fopen; */

And compile PHP with the changed source, you will see the following results:

Enabled allow_url_fopen:

allow_url_fopen status is: 1 SoapClient Object ( [trace] => 1 [_soap_version] => 1 [sdl] => Resource id #11 )

Disabled allow_url_fopen:

allow_url_fopen status is: 0 
Warning: file_get_contents(): https:// wrapper is disabled in the server configuration by allow_url_fopen=0 in /var/www/test.php on line 9

Warning: file_get_contents(https://id3global.com/ID3gWS/ID3global.svc?wsdl): failed to open stream: no suitable wrapper could be found in /var/www/test.php on line 9

Fatal error: Uncaught SoapFault exception: [WSDL] SOAP-ERROR: Parsing WSDL: Couldn't load from 'https://id3global.com/ID3gWS/ID3global.svc?wsdl' : failed to load external entity "https://id3global.com/ID3gWS/ID3global.svc?wsdl" in /var/www/test.php:16 Stack trace: #0 /var/www/test.php(16): SoapClient->SoapClient('https://id3glob...', Array) #1 {main} thrown in /var/www/test.php on line 16

You can see that this time we have fatal SOAP error and that the WSDL cannot be loaded. I observed this behaviour with PHP 5.4.40 and PHP 5.6.8.