RPC::XML - An implementation of XML-RPC

Version: 0.54

WHAT IS IT

The RPC::XML package is an implementation of XML-RPC. The module provides
classes for sample client and server implementations, a server designed as an
Apache location-handler, and a suite of data-manipulation classes that are
used by them.


USING RPC::XML

There are not any pre-packaged executables in this distribution (except for a
utility tool). Client usage will usually be along the lines of:

    use RPC::XML::Client;
    ...
    my $client = new RPC::XML::Client
        'http://www.oreillynet.com/meerkat/xml-rpc/server.php';
    my $req = RPC::XML::request->new('meerkat.getChannelsBySubstring', 'perl');
    my $res = $client->send_request($req);
    # This returns an object of the RPC::XML::response class. This double-call
    # of value() first gets a RPC::XML::* data object from the response, then
    # the actual data from it:
    my $value = $res->value->value;

Running a simple server is not much more involved:

    use RPC::XML::Server;
    ...
    my $srv = new RPC::XML::Server (host => 'localhost',
                                    port => 9000);
    # You would then use $srv->add_method to add some remotely-callable code
    ...
    $srv->accept_loop; # Stays in an accept/connect loop


BUILDING/INSTALLING

This package is set up to configure and build like a typical Perl extension.
To build:

        perl Makefile.PL
        make && make test

If RPC::XML passes all tests, then:

        make install

You may need super-user access to install.


PROBLEMS/BUG REPORTS

Please send any reports of problems or bugs to rjray@blackperl.com


SEE ALSO

XML-RPC:              http://www.xmlrpc.com/spec
The Artistic License: http://language.perl.com/misc/Artistic.html


CHANGES

Extended the $CLEAN list in Makefile.PL to also delete all *.ppd
files. Also bumped the package version number to 0.54.
                                                                        
Applied a patch from Tim Peoples that does three things: the 301
error code in RPC::XML::Procedure::call now includes signature info
when a signature mismatch occurs. RPC::XML::smart_encode turns undef
values into zero-length RPC::XML::string objects. Lastly, the
RPC::XML::string::as_string method turns undef into null values as
well.
                                                                        
Small change to the XML character-escaping in RPC::XML::string's
as_string method, so that a lookup-table is used. The same table
is now used to escape keys in structs, as well. Added tests to cover
this. This was suggested by Johnathan Kupferer.
                                                                        
Made a small change for the sake of syntax pedantry to t/20_parse.t.
                                                                        
Fix to the error-handling for a failed LWP::UserAgent->request call
in RPC::XML::Client::send_request (thanks to Jasper Cramwinckel).
Also got a small glitch covered in one of the calls to the inflate()
method in Compress::Zlib. Thanks to John Tobing for that one.
                                                                        
Dropped a regex-compare in favor of a string-compare for the special
case of the XML tag being dateTime.iso8601. In some locales, the 'lc'
caused problems. This is near RPC::XML::Parser line 288.
                                                                        
Applied a patch to Apache::RPC::Server (supplied by Tim Peoples) to
support "NoCompression" as a PerlSetVar directive, the function of
which is to disable compression support upon demand.
                                                                        
Fixed two minor typos in the Apache::RPC::Server docs, the names for
two of the PerlSetVar directives.
                                                                        
Added to the docs the fact that struct keys are now escaped. Also put
some coverage in the docs on the two ways of initializing a struct
object.
                                                                        
Applied a patch from Chris Darroch to allow better handling of
arguments in RPC::XML::Server::server_loop. While the HTTP::Daemon
portion was fine with collapsing the arg list into a hash, the
Net::Server portion actually has documented behavior when it sees the
same argument more than once, and collapsing to a hash caused these
extra arguments to be lost.