What is the purpose of using SOAP in PHP and what are its advantages?

SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) is a protocol used for exchanging structured information in the form of XML between applications. In PHP, SOAP can be used to communicate with web services and integrate different systems. Its advantages include platform independence, language neutrality, and the ability to work with different transport protocols such as HTTP and SMTP.

// Create a new SOAP client
$client = new SoapClient("http://example.com/soap.wsdl");

// Call a remote SOAP function
$response = $client->someFunction($params);

// Process the response
echo $response;