Question

I want to return the following XML in SOAP when a function is called rather than just a string. There are many different functions that will return an xml formatted this way, is there a way that I can define what a function returns? Like making my own data type?

<meta>
    <supplier>Amazon.com</supplier>
    <datetime>2010/08/21 14:32:40</datetime>
</meta>
<results>
    <result>
        <manufacturer>Intel</manufacturer>
        <itemno>8236476234</itemno>
        <prices>
            <price>
                <quantity>10</quantity>
                <cost>$1.20</cost>
            </price>
            <price>
                <quantity>100</quantity>
                <cost>$0.80</cost>
            </price>
        </prices>
    </result>
    <result> ... </result>
</results>

Answer 1

The best way is to put your result in an array and then convert it to XML. Here is a ready made script for that:

http://rssphp.net/examples/convert_array_to_xml/

It converts almost any kind of associative array to full formed XML.