In PHP how can you clear a WSDL cache?

In through php_info() where the WSDL cache is held (/tmp), but I don't necessarily know if it is safe to delete all files starting with WSDL.

Yes, I should be able to just delete everything from /tmp, but I don't know what else this could effect if I delete any all WSDL files.


You can safely delete the WSDL cache files. If you wish to prevent future caching, use:

ini_set("soap.wsdl_cache_enabled", 0);

or dynamically:

$client = new SoapClient('http://somewhere.com/?wsdl', array('cache_wsdl' => WSDL_CACHE_NONE) );

Remove all wsdl* files in your /tmp folder on the server.

WSDL files are cached in your default location for all cache files defined in php.ini. Same location as your session files.


if you already deployed the code or can't change any configuration, you could remove all temp files from wsdl:

rm /tmp/wsdl-*

I recommend using a cache-buster in the wsdl url.

In our apps we use a SVN Revision id in the wsdl url so the client immediately knows of changing structures. This works on our app because, everytime we change the server-side, we also need to adjust the client accordingly.

$client = new SoapClient('http://somewhere.com/?wsdl&rev=$Revision$');

This requires svn to be configured properly. Not on all repositories this is enabled by default.

In case you are not responsible for both components (server,client) or you don't use SVN you may find another indicator which can be utilised as a cache-buster in your wsdl url.


Just for the reason of documentation:

I have now (2014) observed that from all these valuable and correct approaches only one was successful. I've added a function to the WSDL on the server, and the client wasn't recognizing the new function.

  • Adding WSDL_CACHE_NONE to the parameters didn't help.
  • Adding the cache-buster didn't help.
  • Setting soap.wsdl_cache_enabled to the PHP ini helped.

I am now unsure if it is the combination of all three, or if some features are terribly implemented so they may remain useless randomly, or if there is some hierarchy of features not understood.

So finally, expect that you have to check all three to solve problems like these.