RESTful PHP Web Services

Samisa has written a book :-)

I'm happy to hear that for two reasons. First, the book fills a gap between PHP web developers and RESTful web services. Second,it is written by someone who really knows ins and outs of the technology.

Given Samisa's expereinces in web services I'd recommend he should write a book on SOAP+PHP as well.

The book is available here

Web services in scripting langauges. PHP, Perl and Ruby

I have done survey to compare features of three scripting languages related to web services implementations. Those three languages are PHP, Perl and Ruby. This comparison also contrasts WSF/* family of products with other implementations. For example WSF/PHP vs nuSOAP. Please note that the features are compared to the latest released versions mentioned below.


And here is the feature comparison.


Not Implemented
Implemented
Experimental

WSF/PHP : Creating Business-Conscious IT Solutions

In this article I have shown how to address a typical business communication scenario using WSF/PHP. It also discusses the importance of the message level security and shown how exactly those will be used in a scenario like this. The complete source code is available here.

A collection of PHP demos

Wanna try out some samples in PHP web services?
Try out this collection of demos.
You can try, download, rate samples and view the source code to get an idea what you can do with web services in PHP language. The demos here are developed with WSO2 Web Services Framework for PHP (WSF/PHP).

WSO2 Web Services Framework for C language

As the B2B communication becomes loosely coupled and automated in a distributed environment, web services technology is blooming as the perfect solution for numerous business applications. With the ability of multiple legacy applications to be integrated to form a single system and allowing various clients, dispersed in contrasting platforms in different coordinates of the world to communicate are the major challenges faced by many software architects and developers.
As a solution for this WSO2 has introduced a series of web services middle-ware that can be used to implement your business application. Amongst them WSO2 Web services framework for C (WSF/C) can become appealing to the C, C++ community.
If you are a PHP or Ruby developer you have the option of using respective extensions of WSF/C in these languages. Please check WSF/PHP and WSF/Ruby for more details.

Facing security threats with WSF/PHP

Following table shows how to use/combine WSO2 WSF/PHP security features to face the common web services security threats...



Note that it is necessary to use username tokens with transport level security

Training : SOAP and WS-Security in PHP

16th Wednesday...

If you are a PHP developer and would like to learn, how to deploy or consume web services, there are live on-line training sessions available in WSO2 developer portal.
Check this out...
This is a three hour course that brings you the essentials for building quick, inter-operable and secure applications using web services.
There are some other courses too. The complete course list can be seen here.

WSO2's WSF/PHP and Apache Ramaprt/C

Following diagram shows how the WSO2 WSF/PHP is arranged...



Basically the WSO2 WSF/PHP is a PHP extension. It can be seen as the upper layer of a 3-core wire.
And inside it there is another layer wrapping many other products, which we call the WSO2 WSF/C. These products are the implementations of WS-* of specifications including Apache Rampart/C, Apache Sandesha2/C, Apache Savan/C.
A PHP user will basically consume/provide web services by using the upper WSF/PHP layer. The core specifications and implementations are transparent to the PHP user to make the life easier. But sometimes it's worth to know how exactly are the inner components arranged. :)

In order to provide security, WSO2 WSF/PHP uses Apache Rampart/C. Actually via WSO2 WSF/C. Apache Rampart/C is the security module for the Apache Axis2/C engine, which the WSF/PHP depends on. You may refer my this blog entryto see how to write a PHP script to encrypt a SOAP message.