SoapClient 3.3.0: Any hints how to generate class with default value initialization?

[trailsnail]

Are there some best practices on how to generate soap classes with assigning default values?

I try to explain the problem with following class as example:

class ShipmentMethodTranslations
{
    /**
     * @var array<int<0,max>, \WebConnector\MasterData\Type\ShipmentMethodTranslation>
     */
    private array $Shipment_Method_Translation;

    /**
     * @return array<int<0,max>, \WebConnector\MasterData\Type\ShipmentMethodTranslation>
     */
    public function getShipmentMethodTranslation() : array
    {
        return $this->Shipment_Method_Translation;
    }

    /**
     * @param array<int<0,max>, \WebConnector\MasterData\Type\ShipmentMethodTranslation> $Shipment_Method_Translation
     * @return static
     */
    public function withShipmentMethodTranslation(array $Shipment_Method_Translation) : static
    {
        $new = clone $this;
        $new->Shipment_Method_Translation = $Shipment_Method_Translation;

        return $new;
    }
}

We receive ShipmentMethods from API. These ShipmentMethod objects contain a property ShipmentMethodTranslations.
But not every translation is filled on API side.
What we do is to call:

ShipmentMethodTranslations::getShipmentMethodTranslation(): array

But ShipmentMethodTranslations's private array $Shipment_Method_Translation; isn't initialized, due to not existing data on API side.
This results in following error:

Typed property WebConnector\MasterData\Type\ShipmentMethodTranslations::$Shipment_Method_Translation must not be accessed before initialization

In my opinion it makes sense to generate the class with property with a default value:

private array $Shipment_Method_Translation = [] // define default direct at property;

Maybe a __construct() would also work, but could be more complicated due to knowledge whar as to be injected.

Any thoughts on this?

Wish a nice day 🌞

[trailsnail]

Did some debugging and found while generating classes, that the default value null seems to be omited.
But property is defined also not nullalbe with nullable: false

Laminas\Code\Generator\ClassGenerator {#2858
  #isSourceDirty: true
  #indentation: "    "
  #sourceContent: null
  #containingFileGenerator: null
  #namespaceName: "WebConnector\MasterData\Type"
  #docBlock: null
  #name: "ShipmentMethodTranslations"
  #flags: 0
  #extendedClass: null
  #implementedInterfaces: []
  #properties: array:1 [
    "Shipment_Method_Translation" => Laminas\Code\Generator\PropertyGenerator {#2798
      #isSourceDirty: true
      #indentation: "    "
      #sourceContent: null
      #docBlock: Laminas\Code\Generator\DocBlockGenerator {#2797
        #isSourceDirty: true
        #indentation: ""
        #sourceContent: null
        #shortDescription: ""
        #longDescription: ""
        #tags: array:1 [
          0 => Laminas\Code\Generator\DocBlock\Tag {#2796
            #isSourceDirty: true
            #indentation: "    "
            #sourceContent: null
            #name: "var"
            #content: "array<int<0,max>, \WebConnector\MasterData\Type\ShipmentMethodTranslation>"
          }
        ]
        #wordwrap: false
      }
      #name: "Shipment_Method_Translation"
      #flags: 64
      #isConst: false
      #type: Laminas\Code\Generator\TypeGenerator {#2795
        -type: Laminas\Code\Generator\TypeGenerator\AtomicType {#2793
          +sortIndex: 5
          +type: "array"
        }
        -nullable: false // <=== not nullable
      }
      #defaultValue: null
      -omitDefaultValue: true // <=== no default value
    }
  ]

[trailsnail]

Found a solution to generate default [] onto array properties - thanks.

But while investigation the question came up, what is SoapClients behavior if mixed="true" enters the game.

Given following wsdl:

<xsd:complexType name="Shipment_Method">
<xsd:sequence>
<xsd:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1" name="Code" type="xsd:string"/>
<xsd:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1" name="Description" type="xsd:string"/>
<xsd:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1" name="Shipment_Method_Translations" type="q26:Shipment_Method_Translations"/>
</xsd:sequence>
</xsd:complexType>

Results in following correct class properties:

class ShipmentMethod
{
    /**
     * @var null | string
     */
    private ?string $Code = null;

    /**
     * @var null | string
     */
    private ?string $Description = null;

	...

But then we have this wsdl:

<xsd:complexType name="Shipment_Method_Translations" mixed="true">
<xsd:sequence>
<xsd:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded" name="Shipment_Method_Translation" type="q27:Shipment_Method_Translation"/>
</xsd:sequence>
</xsd:complexType>

What does this mixed="true" do, since the result is a class property $Shipment_Method_Translation without usefull default.

class ShipmentMethodTranslations
{
    /**
     * @var array<int<0,max>, \WebConnector\MasterData\Type\ShipmentMethodTranslation>
     */
    private array $Shipment_Method_Translation;
	...

This question came up, because API Response does not contain $Shipment_Method_Translation (optional) - and so trhe property was never initialized 👈🏻 Error on first access in code

Maybe if there is a problem while interpreting WSDL, the the solution should be somewhere else instead of adding empty arrays with Assembler

[veewee]

I don't think the wsdl-reader is parsing that mixed info at the moment, so it should fall back to the array default of [].
It's also a very confusing property that allows a mix of text and elements.
I'm not sure how it should behave. An example can be found here:

https://www.w3schools.com/xml/schema_complex_mixed.asp

<letter>
  Dear Mr. <name>John Smith</name>.
  Your order <orderid>1032</orderid>
  will be shipped on <shipdate>2001-07-13</shipdate>.
</letter> 

<xs:element name="letter">
  <xs:complexType mixed="true">
    <xs:sequence>
      <xs:element name="name" type="xs:string"/>
      <xs:element name="orderid" type="xs:positiveInteger"/>
      <xs:element name="shipdate" type="xs:date"/>
    </xs:sequence>
  </xs:complexType>
</xs:element> 

Feel free to test it out on regular ext-soap to see how it works with mixed content and enlightn me :)

[trailsnail]

mixed="true" has nothing to do with our problem - we found out. 😉 Hope you are enlighted now 🤣

But we found this while debugging more: #515 (comment) which describes our problem we have with arrays.
Seems that there is missing some default behavior for arrays which are defined as minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded" without a nillable="true" attribute.

The question is: should they be null by default too? Or should I use our new DefaultValueForEmptyArrayAssembler 🤣

to be more specific:

<xsd:complexType name="Shipment_Method_Translations" mixed="true">
	<xsd:sequence>
	<xsd:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded" name="Shipment_Method_Translation" type="q27:Shipment_Method_Translation"/>
	</xsd:sequence>
</xsd:complexType>

should result in:

 /**
     * @var array<int<0,max>, \WebConnector\MasterData\Type\ShipmentMethodTranslation>
     */
    private array $Shipment_Method_Translation = []

and

<xsd:complexType name="Shipment_Method_Translations" mixed="true">
	<xsd:sequence>
	<xsd:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded" nillable="true" name="Shipment_Method_Translation" type="q27:Shipment_Method_Translation"/>
	</xsd:sequence>
</xsd:complexType>

should result in:

 /**
     * @var null | array<int<0,max>, \WebConnector\MasterData\Type\ShipmentMethodTranslation>
     */
    private ?array $Shipment_Method_Translation = null

Last example width nillable WSDL already works.

[veewee]

Those rules are being covered by the code generator though:

See https://github.com/phpro/soap-client/blob/v4.x/src/Phpro/SoapClient/CodeGenerator/TypeEnhancer/MetaTypeEnhancer.php

Our assemblers are not the once setting default values.
That is what laminas-code is doing for you. If you want to overwrite the default value - you should be configuring this through a custom property assembler:

https://github.com/laminas/laminas-code/blob/562e02b7d85cb9142b5116cc76c4c7c162a11a1c/src/Generator/PropertyGenerator.php#L42-L44

If done right, it could be added to this package maybe.

However, the problem you are really facing, is the fact that ext-soap is skipping setting the property during hydration instead of []. This is what our new custom encoder (for v4 which is in alpha - you should definetly check it out ;-) ) is doing right. Therefore, you won't get that uninitialized property error anymore and you wouldn't care about the default of the property anymore.

[trailsnail]

Then we found a solution: set a default value [] for array properties - already working, were some hard last days migrate from SoapClient 1.7.4 to 3.3.0: but now configuration feels more easy - Good work 👍🏻