The Magnet Blog

nirav January 27th, 2006

I was working with PHP5 webservices and had a head spinning experience because of the WSDL cache. Everything was working fine on my local setup, but when I uploaded that to the server, it said:

[faultstring] => Function ("savePrefs") is not a valid method for this service [faultcode] => Client [faultcodens] => http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/ )

Another variant of this was Procedure ("savePrefs") not found. I checked and rechecked my WSDL and Webservice files. But everything was just right. Tried changing the parameters of the function, assuming that there was some problem in the WSDL definition. That too did not work. Google’d for this, did not get much. I then did everything possible to get this to work: even recompiled PHP to the latest version on the server

But then I figured that it was not accepting any new methods I add to the web service. Which meant that something was cached. Digging further, I found it was the WSDL being cached on the server side. PHP caches the WSDL file for better performance. There is no way to turn off this cache other than a php.ini setting.

So I added this line to my .htaccess file:
php_value soap.wsdl_cache_enabled 0

And it worked!

I think I can write a book about SOAP and WSDL blues now!

• PHP
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nirav January 25th, 2006

My brother in law wanted to find out about a legal advisor today. He only had their address and the names of two lawyers in the organization. He asked me if I could find out their phone numbers.

This firm is at Free Press House, Nariman Point and I will be going there this evening. So I thought I will go personally and check. But then, it would be too late and the offices may be closed. So I could send my office boy to go and find out!

Then I thought I could use the “2888 8888″ service to find out! So I called them up. Now they are a phone based information provider. They can provide phone numbers of only organizations they have in their database. They did not know anything about the people I wanted to find out.

Next, I checked up MTNL website. They have an online directory service to find phone numbers. None of the queries I made produce any results. I don’t know if they even have this service working!

So I called up MTNL telephonic service that finds out numbers for you. (call 197). The call center executive was very courteous and willing to help. She actually did many permutations to find the numbers. But alas, nothing worked.

She then gave me the numbers of Ask Me services (2411 1111), so I called them up. They did not have the details either. But they could provide me the phone numbers of 3 other lawyer firms in the same area.

So I called up those three firms to find out if they know any one of the lawyers I was looking for. The receptionists were a bit apprehensive of talking to a stranger who was asking not for their services, but a competitor’s! Nonetheless, they did do their best.

Dad suggested looking up the printed Yellow Pages next. So he started searching in there. He looked up one name, but then got tired of flipping through the yellow pages.

Then I thought I should look up the websites of the yellow pages and search there. So I did. But then, I thought let me try Google! I was not expecting the law firm to have a website or to find anything online.

But I was proved wrong! And I was happy about it! I searched for the address of the firm and it landed me straight to a page not only with the full address, but also phone numbers and the details about the company - including the bio’s of the partners! Superb!

Martindale.com is the website I found their info from. I spent some time on the site after getting the info, and found it very interesting!

Next time you are looking for a lawyer, you know where to go!

• Personal , Technology
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nirav January 25th, 2006

Vinay setup Drupal on OpenCerti website. There is no content on it yet, but it’s great to have the site up.

We welcome your comments and content on the site.

• OpenCerti
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nirav January 23rd, 2006

Mark Shuttleworth spoke at the Mumbai LUG yesterday. The event was attended by around 60 people. Mark was late due to traffic but he spoke well about Ubuntu, community building and his experiences of India. The question a lot of people wanted to ask: “How do you manage to send out so many free CDs?” was aptly answered when Mark remarked at the end: “(cause) I can afford it!”

But Mark is really an inspiring person. I was moved by how he spoke, answered the questions, and achieved so much at this age. I wish he could speak more and there was more time for interaction.

And yes, people ran to grab the Ubuntu CDs!

The pictures will be available on the LUG site soon!

• General , GNU/Linux
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nirav January 21st, 2006

SharpDevelop is an open source IDE for .Net. It allows you to create desktop and web applications in C# and VB.Net. The Beta of SharpDevelop 2 is now available and it support .Net 2.0 too.

The interface is very similar to Visual Studio, and I recommend you to try out SharpDevelop 2.0. If you want to be sure before you try, take this quick feature tour!

Another thing:

APress, a technical books publisher, has put up a few books for free download. They are PDF books and you can easily download them.

The one that looked most interesting to me was “Dissecting a C# Application: Inside SharpDevelop”. This book takes a peek inside how SharpDevelop works. The book is a bit advanced level, but a great resource to learn things! Published in 2004, it is still relevant. And the best thing I like about this book is the coding advice it provides!

• .Net and Mono , Recommended Reading
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