I am having trouble with PHP parsing of a SoapClient call’s response. For some

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Asked: May 13, 20262026-05-13T10:50:31+00:00 2026-05-13T10:50:31+00:00

I am having trouble with PHP parsing of a SoapClient call’s response. For some

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I am having trouble with PHP parsing of a SoapClient call’s response. For some types of answers, it is returning arrays of empty stdClass objects instead of initialized stdClass objects.

The server is a java webservice deployed with axis2 on tomcat6. The Java signature of the problematic service call is public Course getCourseDetails(Long courseId) Course is a standard POJO defined as:

public class Course {
    private Long id;
    private List<Hole> holes;
    private String name;
    private String tees;

    //etc...
}

Hole is a standard POJO with only primative members.

When called with PHP, the holes member is an array with the correct length, but each hole is empty.

$args = array();
$args["courseId"] = $courseId;
$response = $client->getCourseDetails($args);
$course = $response->return;
//course has all of its primitive members set correctly: good
$holes = $course->holes;
//holes is an array with count = 18: good
$hole = $holes[0];
//hole is an empty stdClass: bad

Printing out the returned XML with $soapClient->__getLastResponse() what looks like the correct representation:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
<soapenv:Body>
<ns:getCourseDetailsResponse xmlns:ns="http://webservice.golfstats">
<ns:return xmlns:ax21="http://datastructures.server.golfstats/xsd" xmlns:ax22="http://util.java/xsd" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:ax24="http://uuid.eaio.com/xsd" xsi:type="ax21:Course">
<ax21:courseLocation>Faketown, VA</ax21:courseLocation>
<ax21:courseName>Fake Links</ax21:courseName>
<ax21:dateAdded>2003-01-02</ax21:dateAdded>
<ax21:holes><ax21:id>1</ax21:id><ax21:number>1</ax21:number><ax21:par>4</ax21:par><ax21:yardage>345</ax21:yardage></ax21:holes>
<ax21:holes><ax21:id>2</ax21:id><ax21:number>2</ax21:number><ax21:par>3</ax21:par><ax21:yardage>150</ax21:yardage></ax21:holes>
<ax21:holes><ax21:id>3</ax21:id><ax21:number>3</ax21:number><ax21:par>5</ax21:par><ax21:yardage>502</ax21:yardage></ax21:holes>
<ax21:holes><ax21:id>4</ax21:id><ax21:number>4</ax21:number><ax21:par>4</ax21:par><ax21:yardage>345</ax21:yardage></ax21:holes>
<ax21:holes><ax21:id>5</ax21:id><ax21:number>5</ax21:number><ax21:par>4</ax21:par><ax21:yardage>345</ax21:yardage></ax21:holes>
<ax21:holes><ax21:id>6</ax21:id><ax21:number>6</ax21:number><ax21:par>4</ax21:par><ax21:yardage>345</ax21:yardage></ax21:holes>
<ax21:holes><ax21:id>7</ax21:id><ax21:number>7</ax21:number><ax21:par>4</ax21:par><ax21:yardage>345</ax21:yardage></ax21:holes>
<ax21:holes><ax21:id>8</ax21:id><ax21:number>8</ax21:number><ax21:par>4</ax21:par><ax21:yardage>345</ax21:yardage></ax21:holes>
<ax21:holes><ax21:id>9</ax21:id><ax21:number>9</ax21:number><ax21:par>4</ax21:par><ax21:yardage>345</ax21:yardage></ax21:holes>
<ax21:holes><ax21:id>10</ax21:id><ax21:number>10</ax21:number><ax21:par>4</ax21:par><ax21:yardage>345</ax21:yardage></ax21:holes>
<ax21:holes><ax21:id>11</ax21:id><ax21:number>11</ax21:number><ax21:par>4</ax21:par><ax21:yardage>345</ax21:yardage></ax21:holes>
<ax21:holes><ax21:id>12</ax21:id><ax21:number>12</ax21:number><ax21:par>4</ax21:par><ax21:yardage>345</ax21:yardage></ax21:holes>
<ax21:holes><ax21:id>13</ax21:id><ax21:number>13</ax21:number><ax21:par>4</ax21:par><ax21:yardage>345</ax21:yardage></ax21:holes>
<ax21:holes><ax21:id>14</ax21:id><ax21:number>14</ax21:number><ax21:par>4</ax21:par><ax21:yardage>345</ax21:yardage></ax21:holes>
<ax21:holes><ax21:id>15</ax21:id><ax21:number>15</ax21:number><ax21:par>4</ax21:par><ax21:yardage>345</ax21:yardage></ax21:holes>
<ax21:holes><ax21:id>16</ax21:id><ax21:number>16</ax21:number><ax21:par>4</ax21:par><ax21:yardage>345</ax21:yardage></ax21:holes>
<ax21:holes><ax21:id>17</ax21:id><ax21:number>17</ax21:number><ax21:par>4</ax21:par><ax21:yardage>345</ax21:yardage></ax21:holes>
<ax21:holes><ax21:id>18</ax21:id><ax21:number>18</ax21:number><ax21:par>4</ax21:par><ax21:yardage>345</ax21:yardage></ax21:holes>
<ax21:id>1</ax21:id>
<ax21:rating>68.5</ax21:rating>
<ax21:slope>113</ax21:slope>
<ax21:tees>Blue</ax21:tees>
</ns:return>
</ns:getCourseDetailsResponse>
</soapenv:Body>
</soapenv:Envelope>

Why is each hole an empty stdClass? Are there known limitations to the number of levels SoapClient will parse a response?