Fetch and display products from a SOAP call

Question

I'm relatively new to php and any advice is appreciated.

I retrieve some data from an external source and process them in a foreach loop to display the items. Now I'm not sure if the way I choose is the right way or if there is a better way for a situation like this.

And here the code I use:

define ("WSDL_SERVER",
"XXX");
$oSmartFeed= new SoapClient(WSDL_SERVER);
$oSessionHash= $oSmartFeed->login('XXX', 'XXX');
if(!$oSessionHash->HasError){
$sSessionHash= $oSessionHash->Records['sessionHash'];
$aConfig= array('limit'=>5, 'offset'=>2, 'feeds'=>[XXX]);
$aResult= $oSmartFeed-> getProductData ($sSessionHash, $aConfig);

echo '<ul>';

foreach ($aResult->Records AS $aRecord) {

    $produktName = $aRecord['productname'];
    $imageUrl = $aRecord['imagebigurl'];
    $price = $aRecord['currentprice'] . $aRecord['currency'];
    $affLink = $aRecord['deeplinkurl'];
    $productDescription = $aRecord['productdescriptionlong'];
    $versandKosten = $aRecord['shipping'] . ' €';

    ?>
       <li>
           <a href="<?php echo $affLink;?>">
               <img src="<?php echo $imageUrl; ?>" alt="<?php echo $produktName; ?>">
               <h3>
                   <?php echo $produktName; ?>
               </h3>
               <p>
                   <?php echo $productDescription;?>
               </p>
               <aside>
                   <span>
                       Price: <?php echo $price; ?>
                   </span>
                   <br>
                   <span>
                       Shipping: <?php echo $versandKosten; ?>
                   </span>
               </aside>
           </a>
       </li>
    <?php
}
echo '</ul>';
$oSmartFeed->logout($sSessionHash);

Answer 1

Have you considered using a template engine vs. writing old-style PHP spaghetti code?

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if(!$oSessionHash->HasError){

Reverse this conditional to get rid of the huge section of code within this conditional (whihc is actually not even closed with the code shown. So something like:

if($oSessionHash->HasError) {
    // die, exit, redirect or similar
}
// rest of code, now no longer in a conditional.

This strategy of existing early from scripts/function/methods will help you write much less fragile code.

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A number of stylistic concerns:

• Drop the whole $o*, $a*, $s* variable naming (which looks like you are trying to infer variable type in name). Your variables should have meaningful and specific names which convey their meaning. Also, if you use a good IDE, you won't need this.
• Your spacing around assgniment operators, flow control structures, etc. is wildly inconsisten, making your code hard to read. If you are strating in PHP, I would recommend getting to know the PSR-1 and PSR-2 coding standards as well as other PSR recommendations which are most widely accetped ways of writing code in the profession PHP development community. A good IDE will be able to help you enforce these styles.
• Don't split your define across two lines unnecessarily like you are.

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Why not perform logout immediately after your API call response is returned, rather than wait until after displaying results?

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This code is very happy path oriented. What happens if API doesn't respond? What if it responds with an error code? What if it returns empty result set?