1 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
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9 <title>XML-RPC for PHP</title>
11 <subtitle>version 3.0.0 beta</subtitle>
14 <date>Sep 5, 2009</date>
18 <firstname>Edd</firstname>
20 <surname>Dumbill</surname>
24 <firstname>Gaetano</firstname>
26 <surname>Giunta</surname>
30 <firstname>Miles</firstname>
32 <surname>Lott</surname>
36 <firstname>Justin R.</firstname>
38 <surname>Miller</surname>
42 <firstname>Andres</firstname>
44 <surname>Salomon</surname>
49 <year>1999,2000,2001</year>
51 <holder>Edd Dumbill, Useful Information Company</holder>
55 <para>All rights reserved.</para>
57 <para>Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
58 modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are
63 <para>Redistributions of source code must retain the above
64 copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following
69 <para>Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above
70 copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following
71 disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided
72 with the distribution.</para>
76 <para>Neither the name of the "XML-RPC for PHP" nor the names of
77 its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products
78 derived from this software without specific prior written
81 </itemizedlist></para>
83 <para>THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND
84 CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING,
85 BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND
86 FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
87 REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL,
88 SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED
89 TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR
90 PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF
91 LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING
92 NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS
93 SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.</para>
97 <chapter id="introduction">
98 <title>Introduction</title>
100 <para>XML-RPC is a format devised by <ulink
101 url="http://www.userland.com/">Userland Software</ulink> for achieving
102 remote procedure call via XML using HTTP as the transport. XML-RPC has its
104 url="http://www.xmlrpc.com/">www.xmlrpc.com</ulink></para>
106 <para>This collection of PHP classes provides a framework for writing
107 XML-RPC clients and servers in PHP.</para>
109 <para>Main goals of the project are ease of use, flexibility and
112 <para>The original author is Edd Dumbill of <ulink
113 url="http://usefulinc.com/">Useful Information Company</ulink>. As of the
114 1.0 stable release, the project was opened to wider involvement and moved
116 url="http://phpxmlrpc.sourceforge.net/">SourceForge</ulink>.</para>
118 <para>A list of XML-RPC implementations for other languages such as Perl
119 and Python can be found on the <ulink
120 url="http://www.xmlrpc.com/">www.xmlrpc.com</ulink> site.</para>
123 <title>Acknowledgements</title>
125 <para>Daniel E. Baumann</para>
127 <para>James Bercegay</para>
129 <para>Leon Blackwell</para>
131 <para>Stephane Bortzmeyer</para>
133 <para>Daniel Convissor</para>
135 <para>Geoffrey T. Dairiki</para>
137 <para>Stefan Esser</para>
139 <para>James Flemer</para>
141 <para>Ernst de Haan</para>
143 <para>Tom Knight</para>
145 <para>Axel Kollmorgen</para>
147 <para>Peter Kocks</para>
149 <para>Daniel Krippner</para>
153 <para>A. Lambert</para>
155 <para>Frederic Lecointre</para>
157 <para>Dan Libby</para>
159 <para>Arnaud Limbourg</para>
161 <para>Ernest MacDougal Campbell III</para>
163 <para>Lukasz Mach</para>
165 <para>Kjartan Mannes</para>
167 <para>Ben Margolin</para>
169 <para>Nicolay Mausz</para>
171 <para>Justin Miller</para>
173 <para>Jan Pfeifer</para>
175 <para>Giancarlo Pinerolo</para>
177 <para>Peter Russel</para>
179 <para>Jean-Jacques Sarton</para>
181 <para>Viliam Simko</para>
183 <para>Idan Sofer</para>
185 <para>Douglas Squirrel</para>
187 <para>Heiko Stübner</para>
189 <para>Anatoly Techtonik</para>
191 <para>Tommaso Trani</para>
193 <para>Eric van der Vlist</para>
195 <para>Christian Wenz</para>
197 <para>Jim Winstead</para>
199 <para>Przemyslaw Wroblewski</para>
201 <para>Bruno Zanetti Melotti</para>
206 <title>What's new</title>
208 <para><emphasis>Note:</emphasis> not all items the following list have
209 (yet) been fully documented, and some might not be present in any other
210 chapter in the manual. To find a more detailed description of new
211 functions and methods please take a look at the source code of the
212 library, which is quite thoroughly commented in javadoc-like form.</para>
215 <title>3.0.0 beta</title>
217 <para>This is the first release of the library to only support PHP 5.
218 Some legacy code has been removed, and support for features such as
219 exceptions and dateTime objects introduced.</para>
221 <para>The "beta" tag is meant to indicate the fact that the refactoring
222 has been more widespread than in precedent releases and that more
223 changes are likely to be introduced with time - the library is still
224 considered to be production quality.</para>
228 <para>improved: removed all usage of php functions deprecated in
229 php 5.3, usage of assign-by-ref when creating new objects
234 <para>improved: add support for the <ex:nil/> tag used by
235 the apache library, both in input and output</para>
239 <para>improved: add support for <classname>dateTime</classname>
240 objects in both in <function>php_xmlrpc_encode</function> and as
241 parameter for constructor of
242 <classname>xmlrpcval</classname></para>
246 <para>improved: add support for timestamps as parameter for
247 constructor of <classname>xmlrpcval</classname></para>
251 <para>improved: add option 'dates_as_objects' to
252 <function>php_xmlrpc_decode</function> to return
253 <classname>dateTime</classname> objects for xmlrpc
258 <para>improved: add new method
259 <methodname>SetCurlOptions</methodname> to
260 <classname>xmrlpc_client</classname> to allow extra flexibility in
261 tweaking http config, such as explicitly binding to an ip
266 <para>improved: add new method
267 <methodname>SetUserAgent</methodname> to
268 <classname>xmrlpc_client</classname> to to allow having different
269 user-agent http headers</para>
273 <para>improved: add a new member variable in server class to allow
274 fine-tuning of the encoding of returned values when the server is
275 in 'phpvals' mode</para>
279 <para>improved: allow servers in 'xmlrpcvals' mode to also
280 register plain php functions by defining them in the dispatch map
281 with an added option</para>
285 <para>improved: catch exceptions thrown during execution of php
286 functions exposed as methods by the server</para>
290 <para>fixed: bad encoding if same object is encoded twice using
291 php_xmlrpc_encode</para>
293 </itemizedlist></para>
299 <para><emphasis>Note:</emphasis> this might the last release of the
300 library that will support PHP 4. Future releases (if any) should target
301 php 5.0 as minimum supported version.</para>
305 <para>fixed: encoding of utf-8 characters outside of the BMP
310 <para>fixed: character set declarations surrounded by double
311 quotes were not recognized in http headers</para>
315 <para>fixed: be more tolerant in detection of charset in http
320 <para>fixed: fix detection of zlib.output_compression</para>
324 <para>fixed: use feof() to test if socket connections are to be
325 closed instead of the number of bytes read (rare bug when
326 communicating with some servers)</para>
330 <para>fixed: format floating point values using the correct
331 decimal separator even when php locale is set to one that uses
336 <para>fixed: improve robustness of the debugger when parsing weird
337 results from non-compliant servers</para>
341 <para>php warning when receiving 'false' in a bool value</para>
345 <para>improved: allow the add_to_map server method to add docs for
346 single params too</para>
350 <para>improved: added the possibility to wrap for exposure as
351 xmlrpc methods plain php class methods, object methods and even
354 </itemizedlist></para>
362 <para>fixed: work aroung bug in php 5.2.2 which broke support of
363 HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA</para>
367 <para>fixed: is_dir parameter of setCaCertificate() method is
372 <para>fixed: a php warning in xmlrpc_client creator method</para>
376 <para>fixed: parsing of '1e+1' as valid float</para>
380 <para>fixed: allow errorlevel 3 to work when prev. error handler was
381 a static method</para>
385 <para>fixed: usage of client::setcookie() for multiple cookies in
390 <para>improved: support for CP1252 charset is not part or the
391 library but almost possible</para>
395 <para>improved: more info when curl is enabled and debug mode is
406 <para>fixed: debugger errors on php installs with magic_quotes_gpc
411 <para>fixed: support for https connections via proxy</para>
415 <para>fixed: wrap_xmlrpc_method() generated code failed to properly
416 encode php objects</para>
420 <para>improved: slightly faster encoding of data which is internally
425 <para>improved: debugger always generates a 'null' id for jsonrpc if
430 <para>new: debugger can take advantage of a graphical value builder
431 (it has to be downloaded separately, as part of jsxmlrpc package.
432 See Appendix D for more details)</para>
436 <para>new: support for the <NIL/> xmlrpc extension. see below
437 for more details</para>
441 <para>new: server support for the system.getCapabilities xmlrpc
446 <para>new: <function><link
447 linkend="wrap_xmlrpc_method">wrap_xmlrpc_method()</link></function>
448 accepts two new options: debug and return_on_fault</para>
458 <para>The <function>wrap_php_function</function> and
459 <function>wrap_xmlrpc_method</function> functions have been moved
460 out of the base library file <filename>xmlrpc.inc</filename> into
461 a file of their own: <filename>xmlrpc_wrappers.inc</filename>. You
462 will have to include() / require() it in your scripts if you have
463 been using those functions. For increased security, the automatic
464 rebuilding of php object instances out of received xmlrpc structs
465 in <function>wrap_xmlrpc_method()</function> has been disabled
466 (but it can be optionally re-enabled). Both
467 <function>wrap_php_function()</function> and
468 <function>wrap_xmlrpc_method()</function> functions accept many
469 more options to fine tune their behaviour, including one to return
470 the php code to be saved and later used as standalone php
475 <para>The constructor of xmlrpcval() values has seen some internal
476 changes, and it will not throw a php warning anymore when invoked
477 using an unknown xmlrpc type: the error will only be written to
478 php error log. Also <code>new xmlrpcval('true', 'boolean')</code>
479 is not supported anymore</para>
483 <para>The new function
484 <function>php_xmlrpc_decode_xml()</function> will take the xml
485 representation of either an xmlrpc request, response or single
486 value and return the corresponding php-xmlrpc object
491 <para>A new function <function>wrap_xmlrpc_server()</function>has
492 been added, to wrap all (or some) of the methods exposed by a
493 remote xmlrpc server into a php class</para>
497 <para>A new file has been added:
498 <filename>verify_compat.php</filename>, to help users diagnose the
499 level of compliance of their php installation with the
504 <para>Restored compatibility with php 4.0.5 (for those poor souls
505 still stuck on it)</para>
509 <para>Method <methodname>xmlrpc_server->service()</methodname>
510 now returns a value: either the response payload or xmlrpcresp
511 object instance</para>
516 <methodname>xmlrpc_server->add_to_map()</methodname> now
517 accepts xmlrpc methods with no param definitions</para>
521 <para>Documentation for single parameters of exposed methods can
522 be added to the dispatch map (and turned into html docs in
523 conjunction with a future release of the 'extras' package)</para>
527 <para>Full response payload is saved into xmlrpcresp object for
528 further debugging</para>
532 <para>The debugger can now generate code that wraps a remote
533 method into a php function (works for jsonrpc, too); it also has
534 better support for being activated via a single GET call (e.g. for
535 integration into other tools)</para>
539 <para>Stricter parsing of incoming xmlrpc messages: two more
540 invalid cases are now detected (double <literal>data</literal>
541 element inside <literal>array</literal> and
542 <literal>struct</literal>/<literal>array</literal> after scalar
543 inside <literal>value</literal> element)</para>
547 <para>More logging of errors in a lot of situations</para>
551 <para>Javadoc documentation of lib files (almost) complete</para>
555 <para>Many performance tweaks and code cleanups, plus the usual
556 crop of bugs fixed (see NEWS file for complete list of
561 <para>Lib internals have been modified to provide better support
562 for grafting extra functionality on top of it. Stay tuned for
563 future releases of the EXTRAS package (or go read Appendix
566 </itemizedlist></para>
570 <title>2.0 final</title>
574 <para>Added to the client class the possibility to use Digest and
575 NTLM authentication methods (when using the CURL library) for
576 connecting to servers and NTLM for connecting to proxies</para>
580 <para>Added to the client class the possibility to specify
581 alternate certificate files/directories for authenticating the
582 peer with when using HTTPS communication</para>
586 <para>Reviewed all examples and added a new demo file, containing
587 a proxy to forward xmlrpc requests to other servers (useful e.g.
588 for ajax coding)</para>
592 <para>The debugger has been upgraded to reflect the new client
597 <para>All known bugs have been squashed, and the lib is more
598 tolerant than ever of commonly-found mistakes</para>
600 </itemizedlist></para>
604 <title>2.0 Release candidate 3</title>
608 <para>Added to server class the property
609 <property>functions_parameters_type</property>, that allows the
610 server to register plain php functions as xmlrpc methods (i.e.
611 functions that do not take an xmlrpcmsg object as unique
616 <para>let server and client objects serialize calls using a
617 specified character set encoding for the produced xml instead of
618 US-ASCII (ISO-8859-1 and UTF-8 supported)</para>
622 <para>let php_xmlrpc_decode accept xmlrpcmsg objects as valid
627 <para>'class::method' syntax is now accepted in the server
632 <para><function>xmlrpc_clent::SetDebug()</function> accepts
633 integer values instead of a boolean value, with debugging level 2
634 adding to the information printed to screen the complete client
637 </itemizedlist></para>
641 <title>2.0 Release candidate 2</title>
645 <para>Added a new property of the client object:
646 <code>xmlrpc_client->return_type</code>, indicating whether
647 calls to the send() method will return xmlrpcresp objects whose
648 value() is an xmlrpcval object, a php value (automatically
649 decoded) or the raw xml received from the server.</para>
653 <para>Added in the extras dir. two new library file:
654 <filename>jsonrpc.inc</filename> and
655 <filename>jsonrpcs.inc</filename> containing new classes that
656 implement support for the json-rpc protocol (alpha quality
661 <para>Added a new client method: <code>setKey($key,
662 $keypass)</code> to be used in HTTPS connections</para>
666 <para>Added a new file containing some benchmarks in the testsuite
669 </itemizedlist></para>
673 <title>2.0 Release candidate 1</title>
677 <para>Support for HTTP proxies (new method:
678 <code>xmlrpc_client::setProxy()</code>)</para>
682 <para>Support HTTP compression of both requests and responses.
683 Clients can specify what kind of compression they accept for
684 responses between deflate/gzip/any, and whether to compress the
685 requests. Servers by default compress responses to clients that
686 explicitly declare support for compression (new methods:
687 <code>xmlrpc_client::setAcceptedCompression()</code>,
688 <code>xmlrpc_client::setRequestCompression()</code>). Note that the
689 ZLIB php extension needs to be enabled in PHP to support
694 <para>Implement HTTP 1.1 connections, but only if CURL is enabled
695 (added an extra parameter to
696 <code>xmlrpc_client::xmlrpc_client</code> to set the desired HTTP
697 protocol at creation time and a new supported value for the last
698 parameter of <code>xmlrpc_client::send</code>, which now can be
699 safely omitted if it has been specified at creation time)</para>
701 <para>With PHP versions greater than 4.3.8 keep-alives are enabled
702 by default for HTTP 1.1 connections. This should yield faster
703 execution times when making multiple calls in sequence to the same
704 xml-rpc server from a single client.</para>
708 <para>Introduce support for cookies. Cookies to be sent to the
709 server with a request can be set using
710 <code>xmlrpc_client::setCookie()</code>, while cookies received from
711 the server are found in <code>xmlrpcresp::cookies()</code>. It is
712 left to the user to check for validity of received cookies and
713 decide whether they apply to successive calls or not.</para>
717 <para>Better support for detecting different character set encodings
718 of xml-rpc requests and responses: both client and server objects
719 will correctly detect the charset encoding of received xml, and use
720 an appropriate xml parser.</para>
722 <para>Supported encodings are US-ASCII, UTF-8 and ISO-8859-1.</para>
726 <para>Added one new xmlrpcmsg constructor syntax, allowing usage of
727 a single string with the complete URL of the target server</para>
731 <para>Convert xml-rpc boolean values into native php values instead
736 <para>Force the <code>php_xmlrpc_encode</code> function to properly
737 encode numerically indexed php arrays into xml-rpc arrays
738 (numerically indexed php arrays always start with a key of 0 and
739 increment keys by values of 1)</para>
743 <para>Prevent the <code>php_xmlrpc_encode</code> function from
744 further re-encoding any objects of class <code>xmlrpcval</code> that
745 are passed to it. This allows to call the function with arguments
746 consisting of mixed php values / xmlrpcval objects.</para>
750 <para>Allow a server to NOT respond to system.* method calls
751 (setting the <code>$server->allow_system_funcs</code>
756 <para>Implement a new xmlrpcval method to determine if a value of
757 type struct has a member of a given name without having to loop
758 trough all members: <code>xmlrpcval::structMemExists()</code></para>
762 <para>Expand methods <code>xmlrpcval::addArray</code>,
763 <code>addScalar</code> and <code>addStruct</code> allowing extra php
764 values to be added to xmlrpcval objects already formed.</para>
768 <para>Let the <code>xmlrpc_client::send</code> method accept an XML
769 string for sending instead of an xmlrpcmsg object, to facilitate
770 debugging and integration with the php native xmlrpc
775 <para>Extend the <code>php_xmlrpc_encode</code> and
776 <code>php_xmlrpc_decode</code> functions to allow serialization and
777 rebuilding of PHP objects. To successfully rebuild a serialized
778 object, the object class must be defined in the deserializing end of
779 the transfer. Note that object members of type resource will be
780 deserialized as NULL values.</para>
782 <para>Note that his has been implemented adding a "php_class"
783 attribute to xml representation of xmlrpcval of STRUCT type, which,
784 strictly speaking, breaks the xml-rpc spec. Other xmlrpc
785 implementations are supposed to ignore such an attribute (unless
786 they implement a brain-dead custom xml parser...), so it should be
787 safe enabling it in heterogeneous environments. The activation of
788 this feature is done by usage of an option passed as second
789 parameter to both <code>php_xmlrpc_encode</code> and
790 <code>php_xmlrpc_decode</code>.</para>
794 <para>Extend the <code>php_xmlrpc_encode</code> function to allow
795 automatic serialization of iso8601-conforming php strings as
796 datetime.iso8601 xmlrpcvals, by usage of an optional
801 <para>Added an automatic stub code generator for converting xmlrpc
802 methods to php functions and vice-versa.</para>
804 <para>This is done via two new functions:
805 <code>wrap_php_function</code> and <code>wrap_xmlrpc_method</code>,
806 and has many caveats, with php being a typeless language and
809 <para>With PHP versions lesser than 5.0.3 wrapping of php functions
810 into xmlrpc methods is not supported yet.</para>
814 <para>Allow object methods to be used in server dispatch map</para>
818 <para>Added a complete debugger solution, in the
819 <filename>debugger</filename> folder</para>
823 <para>Added configurable server-side debug messages, controlled by
824 the new method <code>xmlrpc_server::SetDebug()</code>. At level 0,
825 no debug messages are sent to the client; level 1 is the same as the
826 old behaviour; at level 2 a lot more info is echoed back to the
827 client, regarding the received call; at level 3 all warnings raised
828 during server processing are trapped (this prevents breaking the xml
829 to be echoed back to the client) and added to the debug info sent
830 back to the client</para>
834 <para>New XML parsing code, yields smaller memory footprint and
835 faster execution times, not to mention complete elimination of the
836 dreaded <filename>eval()</filename> construct, so prone to code
837 injection exploits</para>
841 <para>Rewritten most of the error messages, making text more
848 <chapter id="requirements">
849 <title>System Requirements</title>
851 <para>The library has been designed with goals of scalability and backward
852 compatibility. As such, it supports a wide range of PHP installs. Note
853 that not all features of the lib are available in every
854 configuration.</para>
856 <para>The <emphasis>minimum supported</emphasis> PHP version is
859 <para>Automatic generation of xml-rpc methods from php functions is only
860 supported with PHP version 5.0.3 and later (note that the lib will
861 generate some warnings with PHP 5 in strict error reporting mode).</para>
863 <para>If you wish to use SSL or HTTP 1.1 to communicate with remote
864 servers, you need the "curl" extension compiled into your PHP
867 <para>The "xmlrpc" native extension is not required to be compiled into
868 your PHP installation, but if it is, there will be no interference with
869 the operation of this library.</para>
872 <chapter id="manifest">
873 <title>Files in the distribution</title>
877 <glossterm>lib/xmlrpc.inc</glossterm>
880 <para>the XML-RPC classes. <function>include()</function> this in
881 your PHP files to use the classes.</para>
886 <glossterm>lib/xmlrpcs.inc</glossterm>
889 <para>the XML-RPC server class. <function>include()</function> this
890 in addition to xmlrpc.inc to get server functionality</para>
895 <glossterm>lib/xmlrpc_wrappers.inc</glossterm>
898 <para>helper functions to "automagically" convert plain php
899 functions to xmlrpc services and vice versa</para>
904 <glossterm>demo/server/proxy.php</glossterm>
907 <para>a sample server implementing xmlrpc proxy
908 functionality.</para>
913 <glossterm>demo/server/server.php</glossterm>
916 <para>a sample server hosting various demo functions, as well as a
917 full suite of functions used for interoperability testing. It is
918 used by testsuite.php (see below) for unit testing the library, and
919 is not to be copied literally into your production servers</para>
924 <glossterm>demo/client/client.php, demo/client/agesort.php,
925 demo/client/which.php</glossterm>
928 <para>client code to exercise some of the functions in server.php,
929 including the <function>interopEchoTests.whichToolkit</function>
935 <glossterm>demo/client/wrap.php</glossterm>
938 <para>client code to illustrate 'wrapping' of remote methods into
939 php functions.</para>
944 <glossterm>demo/client/introspect.php</glossterm>
947 <para>client code to illustrate usage of introspection capabilities
948 offered by server.php.</para>
953 <glossterm>demo/client/mail.php</glossterm>
956 <para>client code to illustrate usage of an xmlrpc-to-email gateway
957 using Dave Winer's XML-RPC server at userland.com.</para>
962 <glossterm>demo/client/zopetest.php</glossterm>
965 <para>example client code that queries an xmlrpc server built in
971 <glossterm>demo/vardemo.php</glossterm>
974 <para>examples of how to construct xmlrpcval types</para>
979 <glossterm>demo/demo1.txt, demo/demo2.txt, demo/demo3.txt</glossterm>
982 <para>XML-RPC responses captured in a file for testing purposes (you
983 can use these to test the
984 <function>xmlrpcmsg->parseResponse()</function> method).</para>
989 <glossterm>demo/server/discuss.php,
990 demo/client/comment.php</glossterm>
993 <para>Software used in the PHP chapter of <xref
994 linkend="jellyfish" /> to provide a comment server and allow the
995 attachment of comments to stories from Meerkat's data store.</para>
1000 <glossterm>test/testsuite.php, test/parse_args.php</glossterm>
1003 <para>A unit test suite for this software package. If you do
1004 development on this software, please consider submitting tests for
1010 <glossterm>test/benchmark.php</glossterm>
1013 <para>A (very limited) benchmarking suite for this software package.
1014 If you do development on this software, please consider submitting
1015 benchmarks for this suite.</para>
1020 <glossterm>test/phpunit.php, test/PHPUnit/*.php</glossterm>
1023 <para>An (incomplete) version PEAR's unit test framework for PHP.
1024 The complete package can be found at <ulink
1025 url="http://pear.php.net/package/PHPUnit">http://pear.php.net/package/PHPUnit</ulink></para>
1030 <glossterm>test/verify_compat.php</glossterm>
1033 <para>Script designed to help the user to verify the level of
1034 compatibility of the library with the current php install</para>
1039 <glossterm>extras/test.pl, extras/test.py</glossterm>
1042 <para>Perl and Python programs to exercise server.php to test that
1043 some of the methods work.</para>
1048 <glossterm>extras/workspace.testPhpServer.fttb</glossterm>
1051 <para>Frontier scripts to exercise the demo server. Thanks to Dave
1052 Winer for permission to include these. See <ulink
1053 url="http://www.xmlrpc.com/discuss/msgReader$853">Dave's
1054 announcement of these.</ulink></para>
1059 <glossterm>extras/rsakey.pem</glossterm>
1062 <para>A test certificate key for the SSL support, which can be used
1063 to generate dummy certificates. It has the passphrase "test."</para>
1070 <title>Known bugs and limitations</title>
1072 <para>This started out as a bare framework. Many "nice" bits haven't been
1073 put in yet. Specifically, very little type validation or coercion has been
1074 put in. PHP being a loosely-typed language, this is going to have to be
1075 done explicitly (in other words: you can call a lot of library functions
1076 passing them arguments of the wrong type and receive an error message only
1077 much further down the code, where it will be difficult to
1080 <para>dateTime.iso8601 is supported opaquely. It can't be done natively as
1081 the XML-RPC specification explicitly forbids passing of timezone
1082 specifiers in ISO8601 format dates. You can, however, use the <xref
1083 linkend="iso8601encode" /> and <xref linkend="iso8601decode" /> functions
1084 to do the encoding and decoding for you.</para>
1086 <para>Very little HTTP response checking is performed (e.g. HTTP redirects
1087 are not followed and the Content-Length HTTP header, mandated by the
1088 xml-rpc spec, is not validated); cookie support still involves quite a bit
1089 of coding on the part of the user.</para>
1091 <para>If a specific character set encoding other than US-ASCII, ISO-8859-1
1092 or UTF-8 is received in the HTTP header or XML prologue of xml-rpc request
1093 or response messages then it will be ignored for the moment, and the
1094 content will be parsed as if it had been encoded using the charset defined
1095 by <xref linkend="xmlrpc-defencoding" /></para>
1097 <para>Support for receiving from servers version 1 cookies (i.e.
1098 conforming to RFC 2965) is quite incomplete, and might cause unforeseen
1102 <chapter id="support">
1103 <title>Support</title>
1106 <title>Online Support</title>
1108 <para>XML-RPC for PHP is offered "as-is" without any warranty or
1109 commitment to support. However, informal advice and help is available
1110 via the XML-RPC for PHP website and mailing list and from
1115 <para>The <emphasis>XML-RPC for PHP</emphasis> development is hosted
1117 url="http://phpxmlrpc.sourceforge.net">phpxmlrpc.sourceforge.net</ulink>.
1118 Bugs, feature requests and patches can be posted to the <ulink
1119 url="http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpxmlrpc">project's
1120 website</ulink>.</para>
1124 <para>The <emphasis>PHP XML-RPC interest mailing list</emphasis> is
1125 run by the author. More details <ulink
1126 url="http://lists.gnomehack.com/mailman/listinfo/phpxmlrpc">can be
1127 found here</ulink>.</para>
1131 <para>For more general XML-RPC questions, there is a Yahoo! Groups
1132 <ulink url="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xml-rpc/">XML-RPC mailing
1133 list</ulink>.</para>
1138 url="http://www.xmlrpc.com/discuss">XML-RPC.com</ulink> discussion
1139 group is a useful place to get help with using XML-RPC. This group
1140 is also gatewayed into the Yahoo! Groups mailing list.</para>
1145 <sect1 id="jellyfish" xreflabel="The Jellyfish Book">
1146 <title>The Jellyfish Book</title>
1148 <para><graphic align="right" depth="190" fileref="progxmlrpc.s.gif"
1149 format="GIF" width="145" />Together with Simon St.Laurent and Joe
1150 Johnston, Edd Dumbill wrote a book on XML-RPC for O'Reilly and
1151 Associates on XML-RPC. It features a rather fetching jellyfish on the
1154 <para>Complete details of the book are <ulink
1155 url="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/progxmlrpc/">available from
1156 O'Reilly's web site.</ulink></para>
1158 <para>Edd is responsible for the chapter on PHP, which includes a worked
1159 example of creating a forum server, and hooking it up the O'Reilly's
1160 <ulink url="http://meerkat.oreillynet.com/">Meerkat</ulink> service in
1161 order to allow commenting on news stories from around the Web.</para>
1163 <para>If you've benefited from the effort that has been put into writing
1164 this software, then please consider buying the book!</para>
1168 <chapter id="apidocs">
1169 <title>Class documentation</title>
1171 <sect1 id="xmlrpcval" xreflabel="xmlrpcval">
1172 <title>xmlrpcval</title>
1174 <para>This is where a lot of the hard work gets done. This class enables
1175 the creation and encapsulation of values for XML-RPC.</para>
1177 <para>Ensure you've read the XML-RPC spec at <ulink
1178 url="http://www.xmlrpc.com/stories/storyReader$7">http://www.xmlrpc.com/stories/storyReader$7</ulink>
1179 before reading on as it will make things clearer.</para>
1181 <para>The <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> class can store arbitrarily
1182 complicated values using the following types: <literal>i4 int boolean
1183 string double dateTime.iso8601 base64 array struct</literal>
1184 <literal>null</literal>. You should refer to the <ulink
1185 url="http://www.xmlrpc.com/spec">spec</ulink> for more information on
1186 what each of these types mean.</para>
1189 <title>Notes on types</title>
1194 <para>The type <classname>i4</classname> is accepted as a synonym
1195 for <classname>int</classname> when creating xmlrpcval objects. The
1196 xml parsing code will always convert <classname>i4</classname> to
1197 <classname>int</classname>: <classname>int</classname> is regarded
1198 by this implementation as the canonical name for this type.</para>
1202 <title>base64</title>
1204 <para>Base 64 encoding is performed transparently to the caller when
1205 using this type. Decoding is also transparent. Therefore you ought
1206 to consider it as a "binary" data type, for use when you want to
1207 pass data that is not 7-bit clean.</para>
1211 <title>boolean</title>
1213 <para>The php values <literal>true</literal> and
1214 <literal>1</literal> map to <literal>true</literal>. All other
1215 values (including the empty string) are converted to
1216 <literal>false</literal>.</para>
1220 <title>string</title>
1222 <para>Characters <, >, ', ", &, are encoded using their
1223 entity reference as &lt; &gt; &apos; &quot; and
1224 &amp; All other characters outside of the ASCII range are
1225 encoded using their character reference representation (e.g.
1226 &#200 for é). The XML-RPC spec recommends only encoding
1227 <literal>< &</literal> but this implementation goes further,
1228 for reasons explained by <ulink
1229 url="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml#syntax">the XML 1.0
1230 recommendation</ulink>. In particular, using character reference
1231 representation has the advantage of producing XML that is valid
1232 independently of the charset encoding assumed.</para>
1238 <para>There is no support for encoding <literal>null</literal>
1239 values in the XML-RPC spec, but at least a couple of extensions (and
1240 many toolkits) do support it. Before using <literal>null</literal>
1241 values in your messages, make sure that the responding party accepts
1242 them, and uses the same encoding convention (see ...).</para>
1246 <sect2 id="xmlrpcval-creation" xreflabel="xmlrpcval constructors">
1247 <title>Creation</title>
1249 <para>The constructor is the normal way to create an
1250 <classname>xmlrpcval</classname>. The constructor can take these
1255 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type>new
1256 <function>xmlrpcval</function></funcdef>
1262 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type>new
1263 <function>xmlrpcval</function></funcdef>
1265 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$stringVal</parameter></paramdef>
1269 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type>new
1270 <function>xmlrpcval</function></funcdef>
1272 <paramdef><type>mixed</type><parameter>$scalarVal</parameter></paramdef>
1274 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$scalartyp</parameter></paramdef>
1278 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type>new
1279 <function>xmlrpcval</function></funcdef>
1281 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$arrayVal</parameter></paramdef>
1283 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$arraytyp</parameter></paramdef>
1287 <para>The first constructor creates an empty value, which must be
1288 altered using the methods <function>addScalar</function>,
1289 <function>addArray</function> or <function>addStruct</function> before
1290 it can be used.</para>
1292 <para>The second constructor creates a simple string value.</para>
1294 <para>The third constructor is used to create a scalar value. The
1295 second parameter must be a name of an XML-RPC type. Valid types are:
1296 "<literal>int</literal>", "<literal>boolean</literal>",
1297 "<literal>string</literal>", "<literal>double</literal>",
1298 "<literal>dateTime.iso8601</literal>", "<literal>base64</literal>" or
1301 <para>Examples:</para>
1303 <programlisting language="php">
1304 $myInt = new xmlrpcvalue(1267, "int");
1305 $myString = new xmlrpcvalue("Hello, World!", "string");
1306 $myBool = new xmlrpcvalue(1, "boolean");
1307 $myString2 = new xmlrpcvalue(1.24, "string"); // note: this will serialize a php float value as xmlrpc string
1310 <para>The fourth constructor form can be used to compose complex
1311 XML-RPC values. The first argument is either a simple array in the
1312 case of an XML-RPC <classname>array</classname> or an associative
1313 array in the case of a <classname>struct</classname>. The elements of
1314 the array <emphasis>must be <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> objects
1315 themselves</emphasis>.</para>
1317 <para>The second parameter must be either "<literal>array</literal>"
1318 or "<literal>struct</literal>".</para>
1320 <para>Examples:</para>
1322 <programlisting language="php">
1323 $myArray = new xmlrpcval(
1325 new xmlrpcval("Tom"),
1326 new xmlrpcval("Dick"),
1327 new xmlrpcval("Harry")
1332 $myStruct = new xmlrpcval(
1334 "name" => new xmlrpcval("Tom", "string"),
1335 "age" => new xmlrpcval(34, "int"),
1336 "address" => new xmlrpcval(
1338 "street" => new xmlrpcval("Fifht Ave", "string"),
1339 "city" => new xmlrpcval("NY", "string")
1346 <para>See the file <literal>vardemo.php</literal> in this distribution
1347 for more examples.</para>
1350 <sect2 id="xmlrpcval-methods" xreflabel="xmlrpcval methods">
1351 <title>Methods</title>
1354 <title>addScalar</title>
1358 <funcdef><type>int</type><function>addScalar</function></funcdef>
1360 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$stringVal</parameter></paramdef>
1364 <funcdef><type>int</type><function>addScalar</function></funcdef>
1366 <paramdef><type>mixed</type><parameter>$scalarVal</parameter></paramdef>
1368 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$scalartyp</parameter></paramdef>
1372 <para>If <parameter>$val</parameter> is an empty
1373 <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> this method makes it a scalar
1374 value, and sets that value.</para>
1376 <para>If <parameter>$val</parameter> is already a scalar value, then
1377 no more scalars can be added and <literal>0</literal> is
1380 <para>If <parameter>$val</parameter> is an xmlrpcval of type array,
1381 the php value <parameter>$scalarval</parameter> is added as its last
1384 <para>If all went OK, <literal>1</literal> is returned, otherwise
1385 <literal>0</literal>.</para>
1389 <title>addArray</title>
1393 <funcdef><type>int</type><function>addArray</function></funcdef>
1395 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$arrayVal</parameter></paramdef>
1399 <para>The argument is a simple (numerically indexed) array. The
1400 elements of the array <emphasis>must be
1401 <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> objects
1402 themselves</emphasis>.</para>
1404 <para>Turns an empty <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> into an
1405 <classname>array</classname> with contents as specified by
1406 <parameter>$arrayVal</parameter>.</para>
1408 <para>If <parameter>$val</parameter> is an xmlrpcval of type array,
1409 the elements of <parameter>$arrayVal</parameter> are appended to the
1410 existing ones.</para>
1412 <para>See the fourth constructor form for more information.</para>
1414 <para>If all went OK, <literal>1</literal> is returned, otherwise
1415 <literal>0</literal>.</para>
1419 <title>addStruct</title>
1423 <funcdef><type>int</type><function>addStruct</function></funcdef>
1425 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$assocArrayVal</parameter></paramdef>
1429 <para>The argument is an associative array. The elements of the
1430 array <emphasis>must be <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> objects
1431 themselves</emphasis>.</para>
1433 <para>Turns an empty <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> into a
1434 <classname>struct</classname> with contents as specified by
1435 <parameter>$assocArrayVal</parameter>.</para>
1437 <para>If <parameter>$val</parameter> is an xmlrpcval of type struct,
1438 the elements of <parameter>$arrayVal</parameter> are merged with the
1439 existing ones.</para>
1441 <para>See the fourth constructor form for more information.</para>
1443 <para>If all went OK, <literal>1</literal> is returned, otherwise
1444 <literal>0</literal>.</para>
1448 <title>kindOf</title>
1452 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>kindOf</function></funcdef>
1458 <para>Returns a string containing "struct", "array" or "scalar"
1459 describing the base type of the value. If it returns "undef" it
1460 means that the value hasn't been initialised.</para>
1464 <title>serialize</title>
1468 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>serialize</function></funcdef>
1474 <para>Returns a string containing the XML-RPC representation of this
1479 <title>scalarVal</title>
1483 <funcdef><type>mixed</type><function>scalarVal</function></funcdef>
1489 <para>If <function>$val->kindOf() == "scalar"</function>, this
1490 method returns the actual PHP-language value of the scalar (base 64
1491 decoding is automatically handled here).</para>
1495 <title>scalarTyp</title>
1499 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>scalarTyp</function></funcdef>
1505 <para>If <function>$val->kindOf() == "scalar"</function>, this
1506 method returns a string denoting the type of the scalar. As
1507 mentioned before, <literal>i4</literal> is always coerced to
1508 <literal>int</literal>.</para>
1512 <title>arrayMem</title>
1516 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><function>arrayMem</function></funcdef>
1518 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$n</parameter></paramdef>
1522 <para>If <function>$val->kindOf() == "array"</function>, returns
1523 the <parameter>$n</parameter>th element in the array represented by
1524 the value <parameter>$val</parameter>. The value returned is an
1525 <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> object.</para>
1527 <para><programlisting language="php">
1528 // iterating over values of an array object
1529 for ($i = 0; $i < $val->arraySize(); $i++)
1531 $v = $val->arrayMem($i);
1532 echo "Element $i of the array is of type ".$v->kindOf();
1534 </programlisting></para>
1538 <title>arraySize</title>
1542 <funcdef><type>int</type><function>arraySize</function></funcdef>
1548 <para>If <parameter>$val</parameter> is an
1549 <classname>array</classname>, returns the number of elements in that
1554 <title>structMem</title>
1558 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><function>structMem</function></funcdef>
1560 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$memberName</parameter></paramdef>
1564 <para>If <function>$val->kindOf() == "struct"</function>, returns
1565 the element called <parameter>$memberName</parameter> from the
1566 struct represented by the value <parameter>$val</parameter>. The
1567 value returned is an <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> object.</para>
1571 <title>structEach</title>
1575 <funcdef><type>array</type><function>structEach</function></funcdef>
1581 <para>Returns the next (key, value) pair from the struct, when
1582 <parameter>$val</parameter> is a struct.
1583 <parameter>$value</parameter> is an xmlrpcval itself. See also <xref
1584 linkend="structreset" />.</para>
1586 <para><programlisting language="php">
1587 // iterating over all values of a struct object
1588 $val->structreset();
1589 while (list($key, $v) = $val->structEach())
1591 echo "Element $key of the struct is of type ".$v->kindOf();
1593 </programlisting></para>
1596 <sect3 id="structreset" xreflabel="structreset()">
1597 <title>structReset</title>
1601 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>structReset</function></funcdef>
1607 <para>Resets the internal pointer for
1608 <function>structEach()</function> to the beginning of the struct,
1609 where <parameter>$val</parameter> is a struct.</para>
1612 <sect3 id="structmemexists" xreflabel="structmemexists()">
1613 <title>structMemExists</title>
1617 <funcdef><type>bool</type><function>structMemExsists</function></funcdef>
1619 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$memberName</parameter></paramdef>
1623 <para>Returns <constant>TRUE</constant> or
1624 <constant>FALSE</constant> depending on whether a member of the
1625 given name exists in the struct.</para>
1630 <sect1 id="xmlrpcmsg" xreflabel="xmlrpcmsg">
1631 <title>xmlrpcmsg</title>
1633 <para>This class provides a representation for a request to an XML-RPC
1634 server. A client sends an <classname>xmlrpcmsg</classname> to a server,
1635 and receives back an <classname>xmlrpcresp</classname> (see <xref
1636 linkend="xmlrpc-client-send" />).</para>
1639 <title>Creation</title>
1641 <para>The constructor takes the following forms:</para>
1645 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcmsg</type>new
1646 <function>xmlrpcmsg</function></funcdef>
1648 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$methodName</parameter></paramdef>
1650 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$parameterArray</parameter><initializer>null</initializer></paramdef>
1654 <para>Where <parameter>methodName</parameter> is a string indicating
1655 the name of the method you wish to invoke, and
1656 <parameter>parameterArray</parameter> is a simple php
1657 <classname>Array</classname> of <classname>xmlrpcval</classname>
1658 objects. Here's an example message to the <emphasis>US state
1659 name</emphasis> server:</para>
1661 <programlisting language="php">
1662 $msg = new xmlrpcmsg("examples.getStateName", array(new xmlrpcval(23, "int")));
1665 <para>This example requests the name of state number 23. For more
1666 information on <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> objects, see <xref
1667 linkend="xmlrpcval" />.</para>
1669 <para>Note that the <parameter>parameterArray</parameter> parameter is
1670 optional and can be omitted for methods that take no input parameters
1671 or if you plan to add parameters one by one.</para>
1675 <title>Methods</title>
1678 <title>addParam</title>
1682 <funcdef><type>bool</type><function>addParam</function></funcdef>
1684 <paramdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><parameter>$xmlrpcVal</parameter></paramdef>
1688 <para>Adds the <classname>xmlrpcval</classname>
1689 <parameter>xmlrpcVal</parameter> to the parameter list for this
1690 method call. Returns TRUE or FALSE on error.</para>
1694 <title>getNumParams</title>
1698 <funcdef><type>int</type><function>getNumParams</function></funcdef>
1704 <para>Returns the number of parameters attached to this
1709 <title>getParam</title>
1713 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><function>getParam</function></funcdef>
1715 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$n</parameter></paramdef>
1719 <para>Gets the <parameter>n</parameter>th parameter in the message
1720 (with the index zero-based). Use this method in server
1721 implementations to retrieve the values sent by the client.</para>
1725 <title>method</title>
1729 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>method</function></funcdef>
1735 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>method</function></funcdef>
1737 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$methName</parameter></paramdef>
1741 <para>Gets or sets the method contained in the XML-RPC
1746 <title>parseResponse</title>
1750 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcresp</type><function>parseResponse</function></funcdef>
1752 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$xmlString</parameter></paramdef>
1756 <para>Given an incoming XML-RPC server response contained in the
1757 string <parameter>$xmlString</parameter>, this method constructs an
1758 <classname>xmlrpcresp</classname> response object and returns it,
1759 setting error codes as appropriate (see <xref
1760 linkend="xmlrpc-client-send" />).</para>
1762 <para>This method processes any HTTP/MIME headers it finds.</para>
1766 <title>parseResponseFile</title>
1770 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcresp</type><function>parseResponseFile</function></funcdef>
1772 <paramdef><type>file handle
1773 resource</type><parameter>$fileHandle</parameter></paramdef>
1777 <para>Given an incoming XML-RPC server response on the open file
1778 handle <parameter>fileHandle</parameter>, this method reads all the
1779 data it finds and passes it to
1780 <function>parseResponse.</function></para>
1782 <para>This method is useful to construct responses from pre-prepared
1783 files (see files <literal>demo1.txt, demo2.txt, demo3.txt</literal>
1784 in this distribution). It processes any HTTP headers it finds, and
1785 does not close the file handle.</para>
1789 <title>serialize</title>
1793 <funcdef><type>string
1794 </type><function>serialize</function></funcdef>
1800 <para>Returns the an XML string representing the XML-RPC
1806 <sect1 id="xmlrpc-client" xreflabel="xmlrpc_client">
1807 <title>xmlrpc_client</title>
1809 <para>This is the basic class used to represent a client of an XML-RPC
1813 <title>Creation</title>
1815 <para>The constructor accepts one of two possible syntaxes:</para>
1819 <funcdef><type>xmlrpc_client</type>new
1820 <function>xmlrpc_client</function></funcdef>
1822 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$server_url</parameter></paramdef>
1826 <funcdef><type>xmlrpc_client</type>new
1827 <function>xmlrpc_client</function></funcdef>
1829 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$server_path</parameter></paramdef>
1831 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$server_hostname</parameter></paramdef>
1833 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$server_port</parameter><initializer>80</initializer></paramdef>
1835 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$transport</parameter><initializer>'http'</initializer></paramdef>
1839 <para>Here are a couple of usage examples of the first form:</para>
1841 <programlisting language="php">
1842 $client = new xmlrpc_client("http://phpxmlrpc.sourceforge.net/server.php");
1843 $another_client = new xmlrpc_client("https://james:bond@secret.service.com:443/xmlrpcserver?agent=007");
1846 <para>The second syntax does not allow to express a username and
1847 password to be used for basic HTTP authorization as in the second
1848 example above, but instead it allows to choose whether xmlrpc calls
1849 will be made using the HTTP 1.0 or 1.1 protocol.</para>
1851 <para>Here's another example client set up to query Userland's XML-RPC
1852 server at <emphasis>betty.userland.com</emphasis>:</para>
1854 <programlisting language="php">
1855 $client = new xmlrpc_client("/RPC2", "betty.userland.com", 80);
1858 <para>The <parameter>server_port</parameter> parameter is optional,
1859 and if omitted will default to 80 when using HTTP and 443 when using
1860 HTTPS (see the <xref linkend="xmlrpc-client-send" /> method
1863 <para>The <parameter>transport</parameter> parameter is optional, and
1864 if omitted will default to 'http'. Allowed values are either
1865 '<symbol>http'</symbol>, '<symbol>https</symbol>' or
1866 '<symbol>http11'</symbol>. Its value can be overridden with every call
1867 to the <methodname>send</methodname> method. See the
1868 <methodname>send</methodname> method below for more details about the
1869 meaning of the different values.</para>
1873 <title>Methods</title>
1875 <para>This class supports the following methods.</para>
1877 <sect3 id="xmlrpc-client-send" xreflabel="xmlrpc_client->send">
1880 <para>This method takes the forms:</para>
1884 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcresp</type><function>send</function></funcdef>
1886 <paramdef><type>xmlrpcmsg</type><parameter>$xmlrpc_message</parameter></paramdef>
1888 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$timeout</parameter></paramdef>
1890 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$transport</parameter></paramdef>
1894 <funcdef><type>array</type><function>send</function></funcdef>
1896 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$xmlrpc_messages</parameter></paramdef>
1898 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$timeout</parameter></paramdef>
1900 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$transport</parameter></paramdef>
1904 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcresp</type><function>send</function></funcdef>
1906 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$xml_payload</parameter></paramdef>
1908 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$timeout</parameter></paramdef>
1910 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$transport</parameter></paramdef>
1914 <para>Where <parameter>xmlrpc_message</parameter> is an instance of
1915 <classname>xmlrpcmsg</classname> (see <xref linkend="xmlrpcmsg" />),
1916 and <parameter>response</parameter> is an instance of
1917 <classname>xmlrpcresp</classname> (see <xref
1918 linkend="xmlrpcresp" />).</para>
1920 <para><parameter>If xmlrpc_messages</parameter> is an array of
1921 message instances, <code>responses</code> will be an array of
1922 response instances. The client will try to make use of a single
1923 <code>system.multicall</code> xml-rpc method call to forward to the
1924 server all the messages in a single HTTP round trip, unless
1925 <code>$client->no_multicall</code> has been previously set to
1926 <code>TRUE</code> (see the multicall method below), in which case
1927 many consecutive xmlrpc requests will be sent.</para>
1929 <para>The third syntax allows to build by hand (or any other means)
1930 a complete xmlrpc request message, and send it to the server.
1931 <parameter>xml_payload</parameter> should be a string containing the
1932 complete xml representation of the request. It is e.g. useful when,
1933 for maximal speed of execution, the request is serialized into a
1934 string using the native php xmlrpc functions (see <ulink
1935 url="http://www.php.net/xmlrpc">the php manual on
1936 xmlrpc</ulink>).</para>
1938 <para>The <parameter>timeout</parameter> is optional, and will be
1939 set to <literal>0</literal> (wait for platform-specific predefined
1940 timeout) if omitted. This timeout value is passed to
1941 <function>fsockopen()</function>. It is also used for detecting
1942 server timeouts during communication (i.e. if the server does not
1943 send anything to the client for <parameter>timeout</parameter>
1944 seconds, the connection will be closed).</para>
1946 <para>The <parameter>transport</parameter> parameter is optional,
1947 and if omitted will default to the transport set using instance
1948 creator or 'http' if omitted. The only other valid values are
1949 'https', which will use an SSL HTTP connection to connect to the
1950 remote server, and 'http11'. Note that your PHP must have the "curl"
1951 extension compiled in order to use both these features. Note that
1952 when using SSL you should normally set your port number to 443,
1953 unless the SSL server you are contacting runs at any other
1957 <para>PHP 4.0.6 has a bug which prevents SSL working.</para>
1960 <para>In addition to low-level errors, the XML-RPC server you were
1961 querying may return an error in the
1962 <classname>xmlrpcresp</classname> object. See <xref
1963 linkend="xmlrpcresp" /> for details of how to handle these
1967 <sect3 id="multicall" xreflabel="xmlrpc_client->multicall">
1968 <title>multiCall</title>
1970 <para>This method takes the form:</para>
1974 <funcdef><type>array</type><function>multiCall</function></funcdef>
1976 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$messages</parameter></paramdef>
1978 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$timeout</parameter></paramdef>
1980 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$transport</parameter></paramdef>
1982 <paramdef><type>bool</type><parameter>$fallback</parameter></paramdef>
1986 <para>This method is used to boxcar many method calls in a single
1987 xml-rpc request. It will try first to make use of the
1988 <code>system.multicall</code> xml-rpc method call, and fall back to
1989 executing many separate requests if the server returns any
1992 <para><parameter>msgs</parameter> is an array of
1993 <classname>xmlrpcmsg</classname> objects (see <xref
1994 linkend="xmlrpcmsg" />), and <parameter>response</parameter> is an
1995 array of <classname>xmlrpcresp</classname> objects (see <xref
1996 linkend="xmlrpcresp" />).</para>
1998 <para>The <parameter>timeout</parameter> and
1999 <parameter>transport</parameter> parameters are optional, and behave
2000 as in the <methodname>send</methodname> method above.</para>
2002 <para>The <parameter>fallback</parameter> parameter is optional, and
2003 defaults to <constant>TRUE</constant>. When set to
2004 <constant>FALSE</constant> it will prevent the client to try using
2005 many single method calls in case of failure of the first multicall
2006 request. It should be set only when the server is known to support
2007 the multicall extension.</para>
2011 <title>setAcceptedCompression</title>
2015 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setAcceptedCompression</function></funcdef>
2017 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$compressionmethod</parameter></paramdef>
2021 <para>This method defines whether the client will accept compressed
2022 xml payload forming the bodies of the xmlrpc responses received from
2023 servers. Note that enabling reception of compressed responses merely
2024 adds some standard http headers to xmlrpc requests. It is up to the
2025 xmlrpc server to return compressed responses when receiving such
2026 requests. Allowed values for
2027 <parameter>compressionmethod</parameter> are: 'gzip', 'deflate',
2028 'any' or null (with any meaning either gzip or deflate).</para>
2030 <para>This requires the "zlib" extension to be enabled in your php
2031 install. If it is, by default <classname>xmlrpc_client</classname>
2032 instances will enable reception of compressed content.</para>
2036 <title>setCaCertificate</title>
2040 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setCaCertificate</function></funcdef>
2042 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$certificate</parameter></paramdef>
2044 <paramdef><type>bool</type><parameter>$is_dir</parameter></paramdef>
2048 <para>This method sets an optional certificate to be used in
2049 SSL-enabled communication to validate a remote server with (when the
2050 <parameter>server_method</parameter> is set to 'https' in the
2051 client's construction or in the send method and
2052 <methodname>SetSSLVerifypeer</methodname> has been set to
2053 <constant>TRUE</constant>).</para>
2055 <para>The <parameter>certificate</parameter> parameter must be the
2056 filename of a PEM formatted certificate, or a directory containing
2057 multiple certificate files. The <parameter>is_dir</parameter>
2058 parameter defaults to <constant>FALSE</constant>, set it to
2059 <constant>TRUE</constant> to specify that
2060 <parameter>certificate</parameter> indicates a directory instead of
2061 a single file.</para>
2063 <para>This requires the "curl" extension to be compiled into your
2064 installation of PHP. For more details see the man page for the
2065 <function>curl_setopt</function> function.</para>
2069 <title>setCertificate</title>
2073 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setCertificate</function></funcdef>
2075 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$certificate</parameter></paramdef>
2077 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$passphrase</parameter></paramdef>
2081 <para>This method sets the optional certificate and passphrase used
2082 in SSL-enabled communication with a remote server (when the
2083 <parameter>server_method</parameter> is set to 'https' in the
2084 client's construction or in the send method).</para>
2086 <para>The <parameter>certificate</parameter> parameter must be the
2087 filename of a PEM formatted certificate. The
2088 <parameter>passphrase</parameter> parameter must contain the
2089 password required to use the certificate.</para>
2091 <para>This requires the "curl" extension to be compiled into your
2092 installation of PHP. For more details see the man page for the
2093 <function>curl_setopt</function> function.</para>
2095 <para>Note: to retrieve information about the client certificate on
2096 the server side, you will need to look into the environment
2097 variables which are set up by the webserver. Different webservers
2098 will typically set up different variables.</para>
2102 <title>setCookie</title>
2106 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setCookie</function></funcdef>
2108 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$name</parameter></paramdef>
2110 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$value</parameter></paramdef>
2112 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$path</parameter></paramdef>
2114 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$domain</parameter></paramdef>
2116 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$port</parameter></paramdef>
2120 <para>This method sets a cookie that will be sent to the xmlrpc
2121 server along with every further request (useful e.g. for keeping
2122 session info outside of the xml-rpc payload).</para>
2124 <para><parameter>$value</parameter> is optional, and defaults to
2127 <para><parameter>$path, $domain and $port</parameter> are optional,
2128 and will be omitted from the cookie header if unspecified. Note that
2129 setting any of these values will turn the cookie into a 'version 1'
2130 cookie, that might not be fully supported by the server (see RFC2965
2131 for more details).</para>
2135 <title>setCredentials</title>
2139 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setCredentials</function></funcdef>
2141 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$username</parameter></paramdef>
2143 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$password</parameter></paramdef>
2145 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$authtype</parameter></paramdef>
2149 <para>This method sets the username and password for authorizing the
2150 client to a server. With the default (HTTP) transport, this
2151 information is used for HTTP Basic authorization. Note that username
2152 and password can also be set using the class constructor. With HTTP
2153 1.1 and HTTPS transport, NTLM and Digest authentication protocols
2154 are also supported. To enable them use the constants
2155 <constant>CURLAUTH_DIGEST</constant> and
2156 <constant>CURLAUTH_NTLM</constant> as values for the authtype
2161 <title>setCurlOptions</title>
2163 <para><funcsynopsis>
2165 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setCurlOptions</function></funcdef>
2167 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$options</parameter></paramdef>
2169 </funcsynopsis>This method allows to directly set any desired
2170 option to manipulate the usage of the cURL client (when in cURL
2171 mode). It can be used eg. to explicitly bind to an outgoing ip
2172 address when the server is multihomed</para>
2176 <title>setDebug</title>
2180 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setDebug</function></funcdef>
2182 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$debugLvl</parameter></paramdef>
2186 <para><parameter>debugLvl</parameter> is either <literal>0,
2187 1</literal> or 2 depending on whether you require the client to
2188 print debugging information to the browser. The default is not to
2189 output this information (0).</para>
2191 <para>The debugging information at level 1includes the raw data
2192 returned from the XML-RPC server it was querying (including bot HTTP
2193 headers and the full XML payload), and the PHP value the client
2194 attempts to create to represent the value returned by the server. At
2195 level2, the complete payload of the xmlrpc request is also printed,
2196 before being sent t the server.</para>
2198 <para>This option can be very useful when debugging servers as it
2199 allows you to see exactly what the client sends and the server
2204 <title>setKey</title>
2208 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setKey</function></funcdef>
2210 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$key</parameter></paramdef>
2212 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$keypass</parameter></paramdef>
2216 <para>This method sets the optional certificate key and passphrase
2217 used in SSL-enabled communication with a remote server (when the
2218 <parameter>transport</parameter> is set to 'https' in the client's
2219 construction or in the send method).</para>
2221 <para>This requires the "curl" extension to be compiled into your
2222 installation of PHP. For more details see the man page for the
2223 <function>curl_setopt</function> function.</para>
2227 <title>setProxy</title>
2231 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setProxy</function></funcdef>
2233 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$proxyhost</parameter></paramdef>
2235 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$proxyport</parameter></paramdef>
2237 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$proxyusername</parameter></paramdef>
2239 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$proxypassword</parameter></paramdef>
2241 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$authtype</parameter></paramdef>
2245 <para>This method enables calling servers via an HTTP proxy. The
2246 <parameter>proxyusername</parameter>,<parameter>
2247 proxypassword</parameter> and <parameter>authtype</parameter>
2248 parameters are optional. <parameter>Authtype</parameter> defaults to
2249 <constant>CURLAUTH_BASIC</constant> (Basic authentication protocol);
2250 the only other valid value is the constant
2251 <constant>CURLAUTH_NTLM</constant>, and has effect only when the
2252 client uses the HTTP 1.1 protocol.</para>
2254 <para>NB: CURL versions before 7.11.10 cannot use a proxy to
2255 communicate with https servers.</para>
2259 <title>setRequestCompression</title>
2263 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setRequestCompression</function></funcdef>
2265 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$compressionmethod</parameter></paramdef>
2269 <para>This method defines whether the xml payload forming the
2270 request body will be sent to the server in compressed format, as per
2271 the HTTP specification. This is particularly useful for large
2272 request parameters and over slow network connections. Allowed values
2273 for <parameter>compressionmethod</parameter> are: 'gzip', 'deflate',
2274 'any' or null (with any meaning either gzip or deflate). Note that
2275 there is no automatic fallback mechanism in place for errors due to
2276 servers not supporting receiving compressed request bodies, so make
2277 sure that the particular server you are querying does accept
2278 compressed requests before turning it on.</para>
2280 <para>This requires the "zlib" extension to be enabled in your php
2285 <title>setSSLVerifyHost</title>
2289 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setSSLVerifyHost</function></funcdef>
2291 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$i</parameter></paramdef>
2295 <para>This method defines whether connections made to XML-RPC
2296 backends via HTTPS should verify the remote host's SSL certificate's
2297 common name (CN). By default, only the existence of a CN is checked.
2298 <parameter><parameter>$i</parameter></parameter> should be an
2299 integer value; 0 to not check the CN at all, 1 to merely check for
2300 its existence, and 2 to check that the CN on the certificate matches
2301 the hostname that is being connected to.</para>
2305 <title>setSSLVerifyPeer</title>
2309 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setSSLVerifyPeer</function></funcdef>
2311 <paramdef><type>bool</type><parameter>$i</parameter></paramdef>
2315 <para>This method defines whether connections made to XML-RPC
2316 backends via HTTPS should verify the remote host's SSL certificate,
2317 and cause the connection to fail if the cert verification fails.
2318 <parameter><parameter>$i</parameter></parameter> should be a boolean
2319 value. Default value: <constant>TRUE</constant>. To specify custom
2320 SSL certificates to validate the server with, use the
2321 <methodname>setCaCertificate</methodname> method.</para>
2325 <title>setUserAgent</title>
2327 <para><funcsynopsis>
2329 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>Useragent</function></funcdef>
2331 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$useragent</parameter></paramdef>
2333 </funcsynopsis>This method sets a custom user-agent that will be
2334 used by the client in the http headers sent with the request. The
2335 default value is built using the library name and version
2341 <title>Variables</title>
2343 <para>NB: direct manipulation of these variables is only recommended
2344 for advanced users.</para>
2347 <title>no_multicall</title>
2349 <para>This member variable determines whether the multicall() method
2350 will try to take advantage of the system.multicall xmlrpc method to
2351 dispatch to the server an array of requests in a single http
2352 roundtrip or simply execute many consecutive http calls. Defaults to
2353 FALSE, but it will be enabled automatically on the first failure of
2354 execution of system.multicall.</para>
2358 <title>request_charset_encoding</title>
2360 <para>This is the charset encoding that will be used for serializing
2361 request sent by the client.</para>
2363 <para>If defaults to NULL, which means using US-ASCII and encoding
2364 all characters outside of the ASCII range using their xml character
2365 entity representation (this has the benefit that line end characters
2366 will not be mangled in the transfer, a CR-LF will be preserved as
2367 well as a singe LF).</para>
2369 <para>Valid values are 'US-ASCII', 'UTF-8' and 'ISO-8859-1'</para>
2372 <sect3 id="return-type" xreflabel="return_type">
2373 <title>return_type</title>
2375 <para>This member variable determines whether the value returned
2376 inside an xmlrpcresp object as results of calls to the send() and
2377 multicall() methods will be an xmlrpcval object, a plain php value
2378 or a raw xml string. Allowed values are 'xmlrpcvals' (the default),
2379 'phpvals' and 'xml'. To allow the user to differentiate between a
2380 correct and a faulty response, fault responses will be returned as
2381 xmlrpcresp objects in any case. Note that the 'phpvals' setting will
2382 yield faster execution times, but some of the information from the
2383 original response will be lost. It will be e.g. impossible to tell
2384 whether a particular php string value was sent by the server as an
2385 xmlrpc string or base64 value.</para>
2387 <para>Example usage:</para>
2389 <programlisting language="php">
2390 $client = new xmlrpc_client("phpxmlrpc.sourceforge.net/server");
2391 $client->return_type = 'phpvals';
2392 $message = new xmlrpcmsg("examples.getStateName", array(new xmlrpcval(23, "int")));
2393 $resp = $client->send($message);
2394 if ($resp->faultCode()) echo 'KO. Error: '.$resp->faultString(); else echo 'OK: got '.$resp->value();
2397 <para>For more details about usage of the 'xml' value, see Appendix
2403 <sect1 id="xmlrpcresp" xreflabel="xmlrpcresp">
2404 <title>xmlrpcresp</title>
2406 <para>This class is used to contain responses to XML-RPC requests. A
2407 server method handler will construct an
2408 <classname>xmlrpcresp</classname> and pass it as a return value. This
2409 same value will be returned by the result of an invocation of the
2410 <function>send</function> method of the
2411 <classname>xmlrpc_client</classname> class.</para>
2414 <title>Creation</title>
2418 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcresp</type>new
2419 <function>xmlrpcresp</function></funcdef>
2421 <paramdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><parameter>$xmlrpcval</parameter></paramdef>
2425 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcresp</type>new
2426 <function>xmlrpcresp</function></funcdef>
2428 <paramdef><parameter>0</parameter></paramdef>
2430 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$errcode</parameter></paramdef>
2432 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$err_string</parameter></paramdef>
2436 <para>The first syntax is used when execution has happened without
2437 difficulty: <parameter>$xmlrpcval</parameter> is an
2438 <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> value with the result of the method
2439 execution contained in it. Alternatively it can be a string containing
2440 the xml serialization of the single xml-rpc value result of method
2443 <para>The second type of constructor is used in case of failure.
2444 <parameter>errcode</parameter> and <parameter>err_string</parameter>
2445 are used to provide indication of what has gone wrong. See <xref
2446 linkend="xmlrpc-server" /> for more information on passing error
2451 <title>Methods</title>
2454 <title>faultCode</title>
2458 <funcdef><type>int</type><function>faultCode</function></funcdef>
2464 <para>Returns the integer fault code return from the XML-RPC
2465 response. A zero value indicates success, any other value indicates
2466 a failure response.</para>
2470 <title>faultString</title>
2474 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>faultString</function></funcdef>
2480 <para>Returns the human readable explanation of the fault indicated
2481 by <function>$resp->faultCode</function>().</para>
2485 <title>value</title>
2489 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><function>value</function></funcdef>
2495 <para>Returns an <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> object containing
2496 the return value sent by the server. If the response's
2497 <function>faultCode</function> is non-zero then the value returned
2498 by this method should not be used (it may not even be an
2501 <para>Note: if the xmlrpcresp instance in question has been created
2502 by an <classname>xmlrpc_client</classname> object whose
2503 <varname>return_type</varname> was set to 'phpvals', then a plain
2504 php value will be returned instead of an
2505 <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> object. If the
2506 <varname>return_type</varname> was set to 'xml', an xml string will
2507 be returned (see the return_type member var above for more
2512 <title>serialize</title>
2516 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>serialize</function></funcdef>
2522 <para>Returns an XML string representation of the response (xml
2523 prologue not included).</para>
2528 <sect1 id="xmlrpc-server" xreflabel="xmlrpc_server">
2529 <title>xmlrpc_server</title>
2531 <para>The implementation of this class has been kept as simple to use as
2532 possible. The constructor for the server basically does all the work.
2533 Here's a minimal example:</para>
2535 <programlisting language="php">
2536 function foo ($xmlrpcmsg) {
2538 return new xmlrpcresp($some_xmlrpc_val);
2542 function foobar($xmlrpcmsg) {
2544 return new xmlrpcresp($some_xmlrpc_val);
2548 $s = new xmlrpc_server(
2550 "examples.myFunc1" => array("function" => "foo"),
2551 "examples.myFunc2" => array("function" => "bar::foobar"),
2555 <para>This performs everything you need to do with a server. The single
2556 constructor argument is an associative array from xmlrpc method names to
2557 php function names. The incoming request is parsed and dispatched to the
2558 relevant php function, which is responsible for returning a
2559 <classname>xmlrpcresp</classname> object, that will be serialized back
2560 to the caller.</para>
2563 <title>Method handler functions</title>
2565 <para>Both php functions and class methods can be registered as xmlrpc
2566 method handlers.</para>
2568 <para>The synopsis of a method handler function is:</para>
2570 <para><synopsis>xmlrpcresp $resp = function (xmlrpcmsg $msg)</synopsis></para>
2572 <para>No text should be echoed 'to screen' by the handler function, or
2573 it will break the xml response sent back to the client. This applies
2574 also to error and warning messages that PHP prints to screen unless
2575 the appropriate parameters have been set in the php.in file. Another
2576 way to prevent echoing of errors inside the response and facilitate
2577 debugging is to use the server SetDebug method with debug level 3 (see
2578 ...). Exceptions thrown duting execution of handler functions are
2579 caught by default and a XML-RPC error reponse is generated instead.
2580 This behaviour can be finetuned by usage of the
2581 <varname>exception_handling</varname> member variable (see
2584 <para>Note that if you implement a method with a name prefixed by
2585 <code>system.</code> the handler function will be invoked by the
2586 server with two parameters, the first being the server itself and the
2587 second being the <classname>xmlrpcmsg</classname> object.</para>
2589 <para>The same php function can be registered as handler of multiple
2590 xmlrpc methods.</para>
2592 <para>Here is a more detailed example of what the handler function
2593 <function>foo</function> may do:</para>
2595 <programlisting language="php">
2596 function foo ($xmlrpcmsg) {
2597 global $xmlrpcerruser; // import user errcode base value
2599 $meth = $xmlrpcmsg->method(); // retrieve method name
2600 $par = $xmlrpcmsg->getParam(0); // retrieve value of first parameter - assumes at least one param received
2601 $val = $par->scalarval(); // decode value of first parameter - assumes it is a scalar value
2606 // this is an error condition
2607 return new xmlrpcresp(0, $xmlrpcerruser+1, // user error 1
2608 "There's a problem, Captain");
2610 // this is a successful value being returned
2611 return new xmlrpcresp(new xmlrpcval("All's fine!", "string"));
2616 <para>See <filename>server.php</filename> in this distribution for
2617 more examples of how to do this.</para>
2619 <para>Since release 2.0RC3 there is a new, even simpler way of
2620 registering php functions with the server. See section 5.7
2625 <title>The dispatch map</title>
2627 <para>The first argument to the <function>xmlrpc_server</function>
2628 constructor is an array, called the <emphasis>dispatch map</emphasis>.
2629 In this array is the information the server needs to service the
2630 XML-RPC methods you define.</para>
2632 <para>The dispatch map takes the form of an associative array of
2633 associative arrays: the outer array has one entry for each method, the
2634 key being the method name. The corresponding value is another
2635 associative array, which can have the following members:</para>
2639 <para><function><literal>function</literal></function> - this
2640 entry is mandatory. It must be either a name of a function in the
2641 global scope which services the XML-RPC method, or an array
2642 containing an instance of an object and a static method name (for
2643 static class methods the 'class::method' syntax is also
2648 <para><function><literal>signature</literal></function> - this
2649 entry is an array containing the possible signatures (see <xref
2650 linkend="signatures" />) for the method. If this entry is present
2651 then the server will check that the correct number and type of
2652 parameters have been sent for this method before dispatching
2657 <para><function><literal>docstring</literal></function> - this
2658 entry is a string containing documentation for the method. The
2659 documentation may contain HTML markup.</para>
2663 <para><literal>signature_docs</literal> - this entry can be used
2664 to provide documentation for the single parameters. It must match
2665 in structure the 'signature' member. By default, only the
2666 <classname>documenting_xmlrpc_server</classname> class in the
2667 extras package will take advantage of this, since the
2668 "system.methodHelp" protocol does not support documenting method
2669 parameters individually.</para>
2673 <para><literal>parameters_type</literal> - this entry can be used
2674 when the server is working in 'xmlrpcvals' mode (see ...) to
2675 define one or more entries in the dispatch map as being functions
2676 that follow the 'phpvals' calling convention. The only useful
2677 value is currently the string <literal>phpvals</literal>.</para>
2681 <para>Look at the <filename>server.php</filename> example in the
2682 distribution to see what a dispatch map looks like.</para>
2685 <sect2 id="signatures" xreflabel="Signatures">
2686 <title>Method signatures</title>
2688 <para>A signature is a description of a method's return type and its
2689 parameter types. A method may have more than one signature.</para>
2691 <para>Within a server's dispatch map, each method has an array of
2692 possible signatures. Each signature is an array of types. The first
2693 entry is the return type. For instance, the method <programlisting
2694 language="php">string examples.getStateName(int)
2695 </programlisting> has the signature <programlisting language="php">array($xmlrpcString, $xmlrpcInt)
2696 </programlisting> and, assuming that it is the only possible signature for the
2697 method, it might be used like this in server creation: <programlisting
2699 $findstate_sig = array(array($xmlrpcString, $xmlrpcInt));
2701 $findstate_doc = 'When passed an integer between 1 and 51 returns the
2702 name of a US state, where the integer is the index of that state name
2703 in an alphabetic order.';
2705 $s = new xmlrpc_server( array(
2706 "examples.getStateName" => array(
2707 "function" => "findstate",
2708 "signature" => $findstate_sig,
2709 "docstring" => $findstate_doc
2711 </programlisting></para>
2713 <para>Note that method signatures do not allow to check nested
2714 parameters, e.g. the number, names and types of the members of a
2715 struct param cannot be validated.</para>
2717 <para>If a method that you want to expose has a definite number of
2718 parameters, but each of those parameters could reasonably be of
2719 multiple types, the array of acceptable signatures will easily grow
2720 into a combinatorial explosion. To avoid such a situation, the lib
2721 defines the global var <varname>$xmlrpcValue</varname>, which can be
2722 used in method signatures as a placeholder for 'any xmlrpc
2725 <para><programlisting language="php">
2726 $echoback_sig = array(array($xmlrpcValue, $xmlrpcValue));
2728 $findstate_doc = 'Echoes back to the client the received value, regardless of its type';
2730 $s = new xmlrpc_server( array(
2731 "echoBack" => array(
2732 "function" => "echoback",
2733 "signature" => $echoback_sig, // this sig guarantees that the method handler will be called with one and only one parameter
2734 "docstring" => $echoback_doc
2736 </programlisting></para>
2738 <para>Methods <methodname>system.listMethods</methodname>,
2739 <methodname>system.methodHelp</methodname>,
2740 <methodname>system.methodSignature</methodname> and
2741 <methodname>system.multicall</methodname> are already defined by the
2742 server, and should not be reimplemented (see Reserved Methods
2747 <title>Delaying the server response</title>
2749 <para>You may want to construct the server, but for some reason not
2750 fulfill the request immediately (security verification, for instance).
2751 If you omit to pass to the constructor the dispatch map or pass it a
2752 second argument of <literal>0</literal> this will have the desired
2753 effect. You can then use the <function>service()</function> method of
2754 the server class to service the request. For example:</para>
2756 <programlisting language="php">
2757 $s = new xmlrpc_server($myDispMap, 0); // second parameter = 0 prevents automatic servicing of request
2759 // ... some code that does other stuff here
2764 <para>Note that the <methodname>service</methodname> method will print
2765 the complete result payload to screen and send appropriate HTTP
2766 headers back to the client, but also return the response object. This
2767 permits further manipulation of the response, possibly in combination
2768 with output buffering.</para>
2770 <para>To prevent the server from sending HTTP headers back to the
2771 client, you can pass a second parameter with a value of
2772 <literal>TRUE</literal> to the <methodname>service</methodname>
2773 method. In this case, the response payload will be returned instead of
2774 the response object.</para>
2776 <para>Xmlrpc requests retrieved by other means than HTTP POST bodies
2777 can also be processed. For example:</para>
2779 <programlisting language="php">
2780 $s = new xmlrpc_server(); // not passing a dispatch map prevents automatic servicing of request
2782 // ... some code that does other stuff here, including setting dispatch map into server object
2784 $resp = $s->service($xmlrpc_request_body, true); // parse a variable instead of POST body, retrieve response payload
2786 // ... some code that does other stuff with xml response $resp here
2791 <title>Modifying the server behaviour</title>
2793 <para>A couple of methods / class variables are available to modify
2794 the behaviour of the server. The only way to take advantage of their
2795 existence is by usage of a delayed server response (see above)</para>
2798 <title>setDebug()</title>
2800 <para>This function controls weather the server is going to echo
2801 debugging messages back to the client as comments in response body.
2802 Valid values: 0,1,2,3, with 1 being the default. At level 0, no
2803 debug info is returned to the client. At level 2, the complete
2804 client request is added to the response, as part of the xml
2805 comments. At level 3, a new PHP error handler is set when executing
2806 user functions exposed as server methods, and all non-fatal errors
2807 are trapped and added as comments into the response.</para>
2811 <title>allow_system_funcs</title>
2813 <para>Default_value: TRUE. When set to FALSE, disables support for
2814 <methodname>System.xxx</methodname> functions in the server. It
2815 might be useful e.g. if you do not wish the server to respond to
2816 requests to <methodname>System.ListMethods</methodname>.</para>
2820 <title>compress_response</title>
2822 <para>When set to TRUE, enables the server to take advantage of HTTP
2823 compression, otherwise disables it. Responses will be transparently
2824 compressed, but only when an xmlrpc-client declares its support for
2825 compression in the HTTP headers of the request.</para>
2827 <para>Note that the ZLIB php extension must be installed for this to
2828 work. If it is, <varname>compress_response</varname> will default to
2833 <title>exception_handling</title>
2835 <para>This variable controls the behaviour of the server when an
2836 exception is thrown by a method handler php function. Valid values:
2837 0,1,2, with 0 being the default. At level 0, the server catches the
2838 exception and return an 'internal error' xmlrpc response; at 1 it
2839 catches the exceptions and return an xmlrpc response with the error
2840 code and error message corresponding to the exception that was
2841 thron; at 2 = the exception is floated to the upper layers in the
2846 <title>response_charset_encoding</title>
2848 <para>Charset encoding to be used for response (only affects string
2851 <para>If it can, the server will convert the generated response from
2852 internal_encoding to the intended one.</para>
2854 <para>Valid values are: a supported xml encoding (only UTF-8 and
2855 ISO-8859-1 at present, unless mbstring is enabled), null (leave
2856 charset unspecified in response and convert output stream to
2857 US_ASCII), 'default' (use xmlrpc library default as specified in
2858 xmlrpc.inc, convert output stream if needed), or 'auto' (use
2859 client-specified charset encoding or same as request if request
2860 headers do not specify it (unless request is US-ASCII: then use
2861 library default anyway).</para>
2866 <title>Fault reporting</title>
2868 <para>Fault codes for your servers should start at the value indicated
2869 by the global <literal>$xmlrpcerruser</literal> + 1.</para>
2871 <para>Standard errors returned by the server include:</para>
2875 <term><literal>1</literal> <phrase>Unknown method</phrase></term>
2878 <para>Returned if the server was asked to dispatch a method it
2879 didn't know about</para>
2884 <term><literal>2</literal> <phrase>Invalid return
2885 payload</phrase></term>
2888 <para>This error is actually generated by the client, not
2889 server, code, but signifies that a server returned something it
2890 couldn't understand. A more detailed error report is sometimes
2891 added onto the end of the phrase above.</para>
2896 <term><literal>3</literal> <phrase>Incorrect
2897 parameters</phrase></term>
2900 <para>This error is generated when the server has signature(s)
2901 defined for a method, and the parameters passed by the client do
2902 not match any of signatures.</para>
2907 <term><literal>4</literal> <phrase>Can't introspect: method
2908 unknown</phrase></term>
2911 <para>This error is generated by the builtin
2912 <function>system.*</function> methods when any kind of
2913 introspection is attempted on a method undefined by the
2919 <term><literal>5</literal> <phrase>Didn't receive 200 OK from
2920 remote server</phrase></term>
2923 <para>This error is generated by the client when a remote server
2924 doesn't return HTTP/1.1 200 OK in response to a request. A more
2925 detailed error report is added onto the end of the phrase
2931 <term><literal>6</literal> <phrase>No data received from
2932 server</phrase></term>
2935 <para>This error is generated by the client when a remote server
2936 returns HTTP/1.1 200 OK in response to a request, but no
2937 response body follows the HTTP headers.</para>
2942 <term><literal>7</literal> <phrase>No SSL support compiled
2946 <para>This error is generated by the client when trying to send
2947 a request with HTTPS and the CURL extension is not available to
2953 <term><literal>8</literal> <phrase>CURL error</phrase></term>
2956 <para>This error is generated by the client when trying to send
2957 a request with HTTPS and the HTTPS communication fails.</para>
2962 <term><literal>9-14</literal> <phrase>multicall
2963 errors</phrase></term>
2966 <para>These errors are generated by the server when something
2967 fails inside a system.multicall request.</para>
2972 <term><literal>100-</literal> <phrase>XML parse
2973 errors</phrase></term>
2976 <para>Returns 100 plus the XML parser error code for the fault
2977 that occurred. The <function>faultString</function> returned
2978 explains where the parse error was in the incoming XML
2986 <title>'New style' servers</title>
2988 <para>In the same spirit of simplification that inspired the
2989 <varname>xmlrpc_client::return_type</varname> class variable, a new
2990 class variable has been added to the server class:
2991 <varname>functions_parameters_type</varname>. When set to 'phpvals',
2992 the functions registered in the server dispatch map will be called
2993 with plain php values as parameters, instead of a single xmlrpcmsg
2994 instance parameter. The return value of those functions is expected to
2995 be a plain php value, too. An example is worth a thousand
2996 words:<programlisting language="php">
2997 function foo($usr_id, $out_lang='en') {
2998 global $xmlrpcerruser;
3002 if ($someErrorCondition)
3003 return new xmlrpcresp(0, $xmlrpcerruser+1, 'DOH!');
3008 'picture' => new xmlrpcval(file_get_contents($picOfTheGuy), 'base64')
3012 $s = new xmlrpc_server(
3014 "examples.myFunc" => array(
3015 "function" => "bar::foobar",
3016 "signature" => array(
3017 array($xmlrpcString, $xmlrpcInt),
3018 array($xmlrpcString, $xmlrpcInt, $xmlrpcString)
3022 $s->functions_parameters_type = 'phpvals';
3024 </programlisting>There are a few things to keep in mind when using this
3025 simplified syntax:</para>
3027 <para>to return an xmlrpc error, the method handler function must
3028 return an instance of <classname>xmlrpcresp</classname>. The only
3029 other way for the server to know when an error response should be
3030 served to the client is to throw an exception and set the server's
3031 <varname>exception_handling</varname> memeber var to 1;</para>
3033 <para>to return a base64 value, the method handler function must
3034 encode it on its own, creating an instance of an xmlrpcval
3037 <para>the method handler function cannot determine the name of the
3038 xmlrpc method it is serving, unlike standard handler functions that
3039 can retrieve it from the message object;</para>
3041 <para>when receiving nested parameters, the method handler function
3042 has no way to distinguish a php string that was sent as base64 value
3043 from one that was sent as a string value;</para>
3045 <para>this has a direct consequence on the support of
3046 system.multicall: a method whose signature contains datetime or base64
3047 values will not be available to multicall calls;</para>
3049 <para>last but not least, the direct parsing of xml to php values is
3050 much faster than using xmlrpcvals, and allows the library to handle
3051 much bigger messages without allocating all available server memory or
3052 smashing PHP recursive call stack.</para>
3057 <chapter id="globalvars">
3058 <title>Global variables</title>
3060 <para>Many global variables are defined in the xmlrpc.inc file. Some of
3061 those are meant to be used as constants (and modifying their value might
3062 cause unpredictable behaviour), while some others can be modified in your
3063 php scripts to alter the behaviour of the xml-rpc client and
3067 <title>"Constant" variables</title>
3070 <title>$xmlrpcerruser</title>
3072 <para><fieldsynopsis>
3073 <varname>$xmlrpcerruser</varname>
3075 <initializer>800</initializer>
3076 </fieldsynopsis>The minimum value for errors reported by user
3077 implemented XML-RPC servers. Error numbers lower than that are
3078 reserved for library usage.</para>
3082 <title>$xmlrpcI4, $xmlrpcInt, $xmlrpcBoolean, $xmlrpcDouble,
3083 $xmlrpcString, $xmlrpcDateTime, $xmlrpcBase64, $xmlrpcArray,
3084 $xmlrpcStruct, $xmlrpcValue, $xmlrpcNull</title>
3086 <para>For convenience the strings representing the XML-RPC types have
3087 been encoded as global variables:<programlisting language="php">
3090 $xmlrpcBoolean="boolean";
3091 $xmlrpcDouble="double";
3092 $xmlrpcString="string";
3093 $xmlrpcDateTime="dateTime.iso8601";
3094 $xmlrpcBase64="base64";
3095 $xmlrpcArray="array";
3096 $xmlrpcStruct="struct";
3097 $xmlrpcValue="undefined";
3099 </programlisting></para>
3103 <title>$xmlrpcTypes, $xmlrpc_valid_parents, $xmlrpcerr, $xmlrpcstr,
3104 $xmlrpcerrxml, $xmlrpc_backslash, $_xh, $xml_iso88591_Entities,
3105 $xmlEntities, $xmlrpcs_capabilities</title>
3107 <para>Reserved for internal usage.</para>
3112 <title>Variables whose value can be modified</title>
3114 <sect2 id="xmlrpc-defencoding" xreflabel="xmlrpc_defencoding">
3115 <title xreflabel="">xmlrpc_defencoding</title>
3118 <varname>$xmlrpc_defencoding</varname>
3120 <initializer>"UTF8"</initializer>
3123 <para>This variable defines the character set encoding that will be
3124 used by the xml-rpc client and server to decode the received messages,
3125 when a specific charset declaration is not found (in the messages sent
3126 non-ascii chars are always encoded using character references, so that
3127 the produced xml is valid regardless of the charset encoding
3130 <para>Allowed values: <literal>"UTF8"</literal>,
3131 <literal>"ISO-8859-1"</literal>, <literal>"ASCII".</literal></para>
3133 <para>Note that the appropriate RFC actually mandates that XML
3134 received over HTTP without indication of charset encoding be treated
3135 as US-ASCII, but many servers and clients 'in the wild' violate the
3136 standard, and assume the default encoding is UTF-8.</para>
3140 <title>xmlrpc_internalencoding</title>
3142 <para><fieldsynopsis>
3143 <varname>$xmlrpc_internalencoding</varname>
3145 <initializer>"ISO-8859-1"</initializer>
3146 </fieldsynopsis>This variable defines the character set encoding
3147 that the library uses to transparently encode into valid XML the
3148 xml-rpc values created by the user and to re-encode the received
3149 xml-rpc values when it passes them to the PHP application. It only
3150 affects xml-rpc values of string type. It is a separate value from
3151 xmlrpc_defencoding, allowing e.g. to send/receive xml messages encoded
3152 on-the-wire in US-ASCII and process them as UTF-8. It defaults to the
3153 character set used internally by PHP (unless you are running an
3154 MBString-enabled installation), so you should change it only in
3155 special situations, if e.g. the string values exchanged in the xml-rpc
3156 messages are directly inserted into / fetched from a database
3157 configured to return UTF8 encoded strings to PHP. Example
3160 <para><programlisting language="php">
3163 include('xmlrpc.inc');
3164 $xmlrpc_internalencoding = 'UTF-8'; // this has to be set after the inclusion above
3165 $v = new xmlrpcval('κόÏ
\83με'); // This xmlrpc value will be correctly serialized as the greek word 'kosme'
3166 </programlisting></para>
3170 <title>xmlrpcName</title>
3172 <para><fieldsynopsis>
3173 <varname>$xmlrpcName</varname>
3175 <initializer>"XML-RPC for PHP"</initializer>
3176 </fieldsynopsis>The string representation of the name of the XML-RPC
3177 for PHP library. It is used by the client for building the User-Agent
3178 HTTP header that is sent with every request to the server. You can
3179 change its value if you need to customize the User-Agent
3184 <title>xmlrpcVersion</title>
3186 <para><fieldsynopsis>
3187 <varname>$xmlrpcVersion</varname>
3189 <initializer>"2.2"</initializer>
3190 </fieldsynopsis>The string representation of the version number of
3191 the XML-RPC for PHP library in use. It is used by the client for
3192 building the User-Agent HTTP header that is sent with every request to
3193 the server. You can change its value if you need to customize the
3194 User-Agent string.</para>
3198 <title>xmlrpc_null_extension</title>
3200 <para>When set to <constant>TRUE</constant>, the lib will enable
3201 support for the <NIL/> (and <EX:NIL/>) xmlrpc value, as
3202 per the extension to the standard proposed here. This means that
3203 <NIL/> and <EX:NIL/> tags received will be parsed as valid
3204 xmlrpc, and the corresponding xmlrpcvals will return "null" for
3205 <methodname>scalarTyp()</methodname>.</para>
3209 <title>xmlrpc_null_apache_encoding</title>
3211 <para>When set to <literal>TRUE</literal>, php NULL values encoded
3212 into <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> objects get serialized using the
3213 <literal><EX:NIL/></literal> tag instead of
3214 <literal><NIL/></literal>. Please note that both forms are
3215 always accepted as input regardless of the value of this
3221 <chapter id="helpers">
3222 <title>Helper functions</title>
3224 <para>XML-RPC for PHP contains some helper functions which you can use to
3225 make processing of XML-RPC requests easier.</para>
3228 <title>Date functions</title>
3230 <para>The XML-RPC specification has this to say on dates:</para>
3233 <para id="wrap_xmlrpc_method">Don't assume a timezone. It should be
3234 specified by the server in its documentation what assumptions it makes
3235 about timezones.</para>
3238 <para>Unfortunately, this means that date processing isn't
3239 straightforward. Although XML-RPC uses ISO 8601 format dates, it doesn't
3240 use the timezone specifier.</para>
3242 <para>We strongly recommend that in every case where you pass dates in
3243 XML-RPC calls, you use UTC (GMT) as your timezone. Most computer
3244 languages include routines for handling GMT times natively, and you
3245 won't have to translate between timezones.</para>
3247 <para>For more information about dates, see <ulink
3248 url="http://www.uic.edu/year2000/datefmt.html">ISO 8601: The Right
3249 Format for Dates</ulink>, which has a handy link to a PDF of the ISO
3250 8601 specification. Note that XML-RPC uses exactly one of the available
3251 representations: CCYYMMDDTHH:MM:SS.</para>
3253 <sect2 id="iso8601encode" xreflabel="iso8601_encode()">
3254 <title>iso8601_encode</title>
3258 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>iso8601_encode</function></funcdef>
3260 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$time_t</parameter></paramdef>
3263 choice="opt"><type>int</type><parameter>$utc</parameter><initializer>0</initializer></paramdef>
3267 <para>Returns an ISO 8601 formatted date generated from the UNIX
3268 timestamp <parameter>$time_t</parameter>, as returned by the PHP
3269 function <function>time()</function>.</para>
3271 <para>The argument <parameter>$utc</parameter> can be omitted, in
3272 which case it defaults to <literal>0</literal>. If it is set to
3273 <literal>1</literal>, then the function corrects the time passed in
3274 for UTC. Example: if you're in the GMT-6:00 timezone and set
3275 <parameter>$utc</parameter>, you will receive a date representation
3276 six hours ahead of your local time.</para>
3278 <para>The included demo program <filename>vardemo.php</filename>
3279 includes a demonstration of this function.</para>
3282 <sect2 id="iso8601decode" xreflabel="iso8601_decode()">
3283 <title>iso8601_decode</title>
3287 <funcdef><type>int</type><function>iso8601_decode</function></funcdef>
3289 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$isoString</parameter></paramdef>
3291 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$utc</parameter><initializer>0</initializer></paramdef>
3295 <para>Returns a UNIX timestamp from an ISO 8601 encoded time and date
3296 string passed in. If <parameter>$utc</parameter> is
3297 <literal>1</literal> then <parameter>$isoString</parameter> is assumed
3298 to be in the UTC timezone, and thus the result is also UTC: otherwise,
3299 the timezone is assumed to be your local timezone and you receive a
3300 local timestamp.</para>
3304 <sect1 id="arrayuse">
3305 <title>Easy use with nested PHP values</title>
3307 <para>Dan Libby was kind enough to contribute two helper functions that
3308 make it easier to translate to and from PHP values. This makes it easier
3309 to deal with complex structures. At the moment support is limited to
3310 <type>int</type>, <type>double</type>, <type>string</type>,
3311 <type>array</type>, <type>datetime</type> and <type>struct</type>
3312 datatypes; note also that all PHP arrays are encoded as structs, except
3313 arrays whose keys are integer numbers starting with 0 and incremented by
3316 <para>These functions reside in <filename>xmlrpc.inc</filename>.</para>
3318 <sect2 id="phpxmlrpcdecode">
3319 <title>php_xmlrpc_decode</title>
3323 <funcdef><type>mixed</type><function>php_xmlrpc_decode</function></funcdef>
3325 <paramdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><parameter>$xmlrpc_val</parameter></paramdef>
3327 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$options</parameter></paramdef>
3331 <funcdef><type>array</type><function>php_xmlrpc_decode</function></funcdef>
3333 <paramdef><type>xmlrpcmsg</type><parameter>$xmlrpcmsg_val</parameter></paramdef>
3335 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$options</parameter></paramdef>
3339 <para>Returns a native PHP value corresponding to the values found in
3340 the <type>xmlrpcval</type> <parameter>$xmlrpc_val</parameter>,
3341 translated into PHP types. Base-64 and datetime values are
3342 automatically decoded to strings.</para>
3344 <para>In the second form, returns an array containing the parameters
3346 <parameter><classname>xmlrpcmsg</classname>_val</parameter>, decoded
3347 to php types.</para>
3349 <para>The <parameter>options</parameter> parameter is optional. If
3350 specified, it must consist of an array of options to be enabled in the
3351 decoding process. At the moment the only valid option are
3352 <symbol>decode_php_objs</symbol> and
3353 <literal>dates_as_objects</literal>. When the first is set, php
3354 objects that have been converted to xml-rpc structs using the
3355 <function>php_xmlrpc_encode</function> function and a corresponding
3356 encoding option will be converted back into object values instead of
3357 arrays (provided that the class definition is available at
3358 reconstruction time). When the second is set, XML-RPC datetime values
3359 will be converted into native <classname>dateTime</classname> objects
3360 instead of strings.</para>
3362 <para><emphasis><emphasis>WARNING</emphasis>:</emphasis> please take
3363 extreme care before enabling the <symbol>decode_php_objs</symbol>
3364 option: when php objects are rebuilt from the received xml, their
3365 constructor function will be silently invoked. This means that you are
3366 allowing the remote end to trigger execution of uncontrolled PHP code
3367 on your server, opening the door to code injection exploits. Only
3368 enable this option when you have complete trust of the remote
3369 server/client.</para>
3371 <para>Example:<programlisting language="php">
3372 // wrapper to expose an existing php function as xmlrpc method handler
3373 function foo_wrapper($m)
3375 $params = php_xmlrpc_decode($m);
3376 $retval = call_user_func_array('foo', $params);
3377 return new xmlrpcresp(new xmlrpcval($retval)); // foo return value will be serialized as string
3380 $s = new xmlrpc_server(array(
3381 "examples.myFunc1" => array(
3382 "function" => "foo_wrapper",
3383 "signatures" => ...
3385 </programlisting></para>
3388 <sect2 id="phpxmlrpcencode">
3389 <title>php_xmlrpc_encode</title>
3393 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><function>php_xmlrpc_encode</function></funcdef>
3395 <paramdef><type>mixed</type><parameter>$phpval</parameter></paramdef>
3397 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$options</parameter></paramdef>
3401 <para>Returns an <type>xmlrpcval</type> object populated with the PHP
3402 values in <parameter>$phpval</parameter>. Works recursively on arrays
3403 and objects, encoding numerically indexed php arrays into array-type
3404 xmlrpcval objects and non numerically indexed php arrays into
3405 struct-type xmlrpcval objects. Php objects are encoded into
3406 struct-type xmlrpcvals, excepted for php values that are already
3407 instances of the xmlrpcval class or descendants thereof, which will
3408 not be further encoded. Note that there's no support for encoding php
3409 values into base-64 values. Encoding of date-times is optionally
3410 carried on on php strings with the correct format.</para>
3412 <para>The <parameter>options</parameter> parameter is optional. If
3413 specified, it must consist of an array of options to be enabled in the
3414 encoding process. At the moment the only valid options are
3415 <symbol>encode_php_objs</symbol>, <literal>null_extension</literal>
3416 and <symbol>auto_dates</symbol>.</para>
3418 <para>The first will enable the creation of 'particular' xmlrpcval
3419 objects out of php objects, that add a "php_class" xml attribute to
3420 their serialized representation. This attribute allows the function
3421 php_xmlrpc_decode to rebuild the native php objects (provided that the
3422 same class definition exists on both sides of the communication). The
3423 second allows to encode php <literal>NULL</literal> values to the
3424 <literal><NIL/></literal> (or
3425 <literal><EX:NIL/></literal>, see ...) tag. The last encodes any
3426 string that matches the ISO8601 format into an XML-RPC
3429 <para>Example:<programlisting language="php">
3430 // the easy way to build a complex xml-rpc struct, showing nested base64 value and datetime values
3431 $val = php_xmlrpc_encode(array(
3432 'first struct_element: an int' => 666,
3433 'second: an array' => array ('apple', 'orange', 'banana'),
3434 'third: a base64 element' => new xmlrpcval('hello world', 'base64'),
3435 'fourth: a datetime' => '20060107T01:53:00'
3436 ), array('auto_dates'));
3437 </programlisting></para>
3441 <title>php_xmlrpc_decode_xml</title>
3445 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval | xmlrpcresp |
3446 xmlrpcmsg</type><function>php_xmlrpc_decode_xml</function></funcdef>
3448 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$xml</parameter></paramdef>
3450 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$options</parameter></paramdef>
3454 <para>Decodes the xml representation of either an xmlrpc request,
3455 response or single value, returning the corresponding php-xmlrpc
3456 object, or <literal>FALSE</literal> in case of an error.</para>
3458 <para>The <parameter>options</parameter> parameter is optional. If
3459 specified, it must consist of an array of options to be enabled in the
3460 decoding process. At the moment, no option is supported.</para>
3462 <para>Example:<programlisting language="php">
3463 $text = '<value><array><data><value>Hello world</value></data></array></value>';
3464 $val = php_xmlrpc_decode_xml($text);
3465 if ($val) echo 'Found a value of type '.$val->kindOf(); else echo 'Found invalid xml';
3466 </programlisting></para>
3471 <title>Automatic conversion of php functions into xmlrpc methods (and
3474 <para>For the extremely lazy coder, helper functions have been added
3475 that allow to convert a php function into an xmlrpc method, and a
3476 remotely exposed xmlrpc method into a local php function - or a set of
3477 methods into a php class. Note that these comes with many caveat.</para>
3480 <title>wrap_xmlrpc_method</title>
3484 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>wrap_xmlrpc_method</function></funcdef>
3486 <paramdef>$client</paramdef>
3488 <paramdef>$methodname</paramdef>
3490 <paramdef>$extra_options</paramdef>
3494 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>wrap_xmlrpc_method</function></funcdef>
3496 <paramdef>$client</paramdef>
3498 <paramdef>$methodname</paramdef>
3500 <paramdef>$signum</paramdef>
3502 <paramdef>$timeout</paramdef>
3504 <paramdef>$protocol</paramdef>
3506 <paramdef>$funcname</paramdef>
3510 <para>Given an xmlrpc server and a method name, creates a php wrapper
3511 function that will call the remote method and return results using
3512 native php types for both params and results. The generated php
3513 function will return an xmlrpcresp object for failed xmlrpc
3516 <para>The second syntax is deprecated, and is listed here only for
3517 backward compatibility.</para>
3519 <para>The server must support the
3520 <methodname>system.methodSignature</methodname> xmlrpc method call for
3521 this function to work.</para>
3523 <para>The <parameter>client</parameter> param must be a valid
3524 xmlrpc_client object, previously created with the address of the
3525 target xmlrpc server, and to which the preferred communication options
3526 have been set.</para>
3528 <para>The optional parameters can be passed as array key,value pairs
3529 in the <parameter>extra_options</parameter> param.</para>
3531 <para>The <parameter>signum</parameter> optional param has the purpose
3532 of indicating which method signature to use, if the given server
3533 method has multiple signatures (defaults to 0).</para>
3535 <para>The <parameter>timeout</parameter> and
3536 <parameter>protocol</parameter> optional params are the same as in the
3537 <methodname>xmlrpc_client::send()</methodname> method.</para>
3539 <para>If set, the optional <parameter>new_function_name</parameter>
3540 parameter indicates which name should be used for the generated
3541 function. In case it is not set the function name will be
3542 auto-generated.</para>
3544 <para>If the <literal>return_source</literal> optional parameter is
3545 set, the function will return the php source code to build the wrapper
3546 function, instead of evaluating it (useful to save the code and use it
3547 later as stand-alone xmlrpc client).</para>
3549 <para>If the <literal>encode_php_objs</literal> optional parameter is
3550 set, instances of php objects later passed as parameters to the newly
3551 created function will receive a 'special' treatment that allows the
3552 server to rebuild them as php objects instead of simple arrays. Note
3553 that this entails using a "slightly augmented" version of the xmlrpc
3554 protocol (ie. using element attributes), which might not be understood
3555 by xmlrpc servers implemented using other libraries.</para>
3557 <para>If the <literal>decode_php_objs</literal> optional parameter is
3558 set, instances of php objects that have been appropriately encoded by
3559 the server using a coordinate option will be deserialized as php
3560 objects instead of simple arrays (the same class definition should be
3561 present server side and client side).</para>
3563 <para><emphasis>Note that this might pose a security risk</emphasis>,
3564 since in order to rebuild the object instances their constructor
3565 method has to be invoked, and this means that the remote server can
3566 trigger execution of unforeseen php code on the client: not really a
3567 code injection, but almost. Please enable this option only when you
3568 trust the remote server.</para>
3570 <para>In case of an error during generation of the wrapper function,
3571 FALSE is returned, otherwise the name (or source code) of the new
3574 <para>Known limitations: server must support
3575 <methodname>system.methodsignature</methodname> for the wanted xmlrpc
3576 method; for methods that expose multiple signatures, only one can be
3577 picked; for remote calls with nested xmlrpc params, the caller of the
3578 generated php function has to encode on its own the params passed to
3579 the php function if these are structs or arrays whose (sub)members
3580 include values of type base64.</para>
3582 <para>Note: calling the generated php function 'might' be slow: a new
3583 xmlrpc client is created on every invocation and an xmlrpc-connection
3584 opened+closed. An extra 'debug' param is appended to the parameter
3585 list of the generated php function, useful for debugging
3588 <para>Example usage:</para>
3590 <programlisting language="php">
3591 $c = new xmlrpc_client('http://phpxmlrpc.sourceforge.net/server.php');
3593 $function = wrap_xmlrpc_method($client, 'examples.getStateName');
3596 die('Cannot introspect remote method');
3599 $statename = $function($a);
3600 if (is_a($statename, 'xmlrpcresp')) // call failed
3602 echo 'Call failed: '.$statename->faultCode().'. Calling again with debug on';
3603 $function($a, true);
3606 echo "OK, state nr. $stateno is $statename";
3611 <sect2 id="wrap_php_function">
3612 <title>wrap_php_function</title>
3616 <funcdef><type>array</type><function>wrap_php_function</function></funcdef>
3618 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$funcname</parameter></paramdef>
3620 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$wrapper_function_name</parameter></paramdef>
3622 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$extra_options</parameter></paramdef>
3626 <para>Given a user-defined PHP function, create a PHP 'wrapper'
3627 function that can be exposed as xmlrpc method from an xmlrpc_server
3628 object and called from remote clients, and return the appropriate
3629 definition to be added to a server's dispatch map.</para>
3631 <para>The optional <parameter>$wrapper_function_name</parameter>
3632 specifies the name that will be used for the auto-generated
3635 <para>Since php is a typeless language, to infer types of input and
3636 output parameters, it relies on parsing the javadoc-style comment
3637 block associated with the given function. Usage of xmlrpc native types
3638 (such as datetime.dateTime.iso8601 and base64) in the docblock @param
3639 tag is also allowed, if you need the php function to receive/send data
3640 in that particular format (note that base64 encoding/decoding is
3641 transparently carried out by the lib, while datetime vals are passed
3642 around as strings).</para>
3644 <para>Known limitations: requires PHP 5.0.3 +; only works for
3645 user-defined functions, not for PHP internal functions (reflection
3646 does not support retrieving number/type of params for those); the
3647 wrapped php function will not be able to programmatically return an
3648 xmlrpc error response.</para>
3650 <para>If the <literal>return_source</literal> optional parameter is
3651 set, the function will return the php source code to build the wrapper
3652 function, instead of evaluating it (useful to save the code and use it
3653 later in a stand-alone xmlrpc server). It will be in the stored in the
3654 <literal>source</literal> member of the returned array.</para>
3656 <para>If the <literal>suppress_warnings</literal> optional parameter
3657 is set, any runtime warning generated while processing the
3658 user-defined php function will be catched and not be printed in the
3659 generated xml response.</para>
3661 <para>If the <parameter>extra_options</parameter> array contains the
3662 <literal>encode_php_objs</literal> value, wrapped functions returning
3663 php objects will generate "special" xmlrpc responses: when the xmlrpc
3664 decoding of those responses is carried out by this same lib, using the
3665 appropriate param in php_xmlrpc_decode(), the objects will be
3668 <para>In short: php objects can be serialized, too (except for their
3669 resource members), using this function. Other libs might choke on the
3670 very same xml that will be generated in this case (i.e. it has a
3671 nonstandard attribute on struct element tags)</para>
3673 <para>If the <literal>decode_php_objs</literal> optional parameter is
3674 set, instances of php objects that have been appropriately encoded by
3675 the client using a coordinate option will be deserialized and passed
3676 to the user function as php objects instead of simple arrays (the same
3677 class definition should be present server side and client
3680 <para><emphasis>Note that this might pose a security risk</emphasis>,
3681 since in order to rebuild the object instances their constructor
3682 method has to be invoked, and this means that the remote client can
3683 trigger execution of unforeseen php code on the server: not really a
3684 code injection, but almost. Please enable this option only when you
3685 trust the remote clients.</para>
3687 <para>Example usage:</para>
3689 <para><programlisting language="php">/**
3690 * State name from state number decoder. NB: do NOT remove this comment block.
3691 * @param integer $stateno the state number
3692 * @return string the name of the state (or error description)
3694 function findstate($stateno)
3697 if (isset($stateNames[$stateno-1]))
3699 return $stateNames[$stateno-1];
3703 return "I don't have a state for the index '" . $stateno . "'";
3707 // wrap php function, build xmlrpc server
3709 $findstate_sig = wrap_php_function('findstate');
3711 $methods['examples.getStateName'] = $findstate_sig;
3712 $srv = new xmlrpc_server($methods);
3713 </programlisting></para>
3717 <sect1 id="deprecated">
3718 <title>Functions removed from the library</title>
3720 <para>The following two functions have been deprecated in version 1.1 of
3721 the library, and removed in version 2, in order to avoid conflicts with
3722 the EPI xml-rpc library, which also defines two functions with the same
3725 <para>To ease the transition to the new naming scheme and avoid breaking
3726 existing implementations, the following scheme has been adopted:
3729 <para>If EPI-XMLRPC is not active in the current PHP installation,
3730 the constant <literal>XMLRPC_EPI_ENABLED</literal> will be set to
3731 <literal>'0'</literal></para>
3735 <para>If EPI-XMLRPC is active in the current PHP installation, the
3736 constant <literal>XMLRPC_EPI_ENABLED</literal> will be set to
3737 <literal>'1'</literal></para>
3739 </itemizedlist></para>
3741 <para>The following documentation is kept for historical
3744 <sect2 id="xmlrpcdecode">
3745 <title>xmlrpc_decode</title>
3749 <funcdef><type>mixed</type><function>xmlrpc_decode</function></funcdef>
3751 <paramdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><parameter>$xmlrpc_val</parameter></paramdef>
3755 <para>Alias for php_xmlrpc_decode.</para>
3758 <sect2 id="xmlrpcencode">
3759 <title>xmlrpc_encode</title>
3763 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><function>xmlrpc_encode</function></funcdef>
3765 <paramdef><type>mixed</type><parameter>$phpval</parameter></paramdef>
3769 <para>Alias for php_xmlrpc_encode.</para>
3773 <sect1 id="debugging">
3774 <title>Debugging aids</title>
3777 <title>xmlrpc_debugmsg</title>
3781 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>xmlrpc_debugmsg</function></funcdef>
3783 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$debugstring</parameter></paramdef>
3787 <para>Sends the contents of <parameter>$debugstring</parameter> in XML
3788 comments in the server return payload. If a PHP client has debugging
3789 turned on, the user will be able to see server debug
3792 <para>Use this function in your methods so you can pass back
3793 diagnostic information. It is only available from
3794 <filename>xmlrpcs.inc</filename>.</para>
3799 <chapter id="reserved" xreflabel="Reserved methods">
3800 <title>Reserved methods</title>
3802 <para>In order to extend the functionality offered by XML-RPC servers
3803 without impacting on the protocol, reserved methods are supported in this
3806 <para>All methods starting with <function>system.</function> are
3807 considered reserved by the server. PHP for XML-RPC itself provides four
3808 special methods, detailed in this chapter.</para>
3810 <para>Note that all server objects will automatically respond to clients
3811 querying these methods, unless the property
3812 <property>allow_system_funcs</property> has been set to
3813 <constant>false</constant> before calling the
3814 <methodname>service()</methodname> method. This might pose a security risk
3815 if the server is exposed to public access, e.g. on the internet.</para>
3818 <title>system.getCapabilities</title>
3824 <title>system.listMethods</title>
3826 <para>This method may be used to enumerate the methods implemented by
3827 the XML-RPC server.</para>
3829 <para>The <function>system.listMethods</function> method requires no
3830 parameters. It returns an array of strings, each of which is the name of
3831 a method implemented by the server.</para>
3834 <sect1 id="sysmethodsig">
3835 <title>system.methodSignature</title>
3837 <para>This method takes one parameter, the name of a method implemented
3838 by the XML-RPC server.</para>
3840 <para>It returns an array of possible signatures for this method. A
3841 signature is an array of types. The first of these types is the return
3842 type of the method, the rest are parameters.</para>
3844 <para>Multiple signatures (i.e. overloading) are permitted: this is the
3845 reason that an array of signatures are returned by this method.</para>
3847 <para>Signatures themselves are restricted to the top level parameters
3848 expected by a method. For instance if a method expects one array of
3849 structs as a parameter, and it returns a string, its signature is simply
3850 "string, array". If it expects three integers, its signature is "string,
3851 int, int, int".</para>
3853 <para>For parameters that can be of more than one type, the "undefined"
3854 string is supported.</para>
3856 <para>If no signature is defined for the method, a not-array value is
3857 returned. Therefore this is the way to test for a non-signature, if
3858 <parameter>$resp</parameter> below is the response object from a method
3859 call to <function>system.methodSignature</function>:</para>
3861 <programlisting language="php">
3862 $v = $resp->value();
3863 if ($v->kindOf() != "array") {
3864 // then the method did not have a signature defined
3868 <para>See the <filename>introspect.php</filename> demo included in this
3869 distribution for an example of using this method.</para>
3872 <sect1 id="sysmethhelp">
3873 <title>system.methodHelp</title>
3875 <para>This method takes one parameter, the name of a method implemented
3876 by the XML-RPC server.</para>
3878 <para>It returns a documentation string describing the use of that
3879 method. If no such string is available, an empty string is
3882 <para>The documentation string may contain HTML markup.</para>
3886 <title>system.multicall</title>
3888 <para>This method takes one parameter, an array of 'request' struct
3889 types. Each request struct must contain a
3890 <parameter>methodName</parameter> member of type string and a
3891 <parameter>params</parameter> member of type array, and corresponds to
3892 the invocation of the corresponding method.</para>
3894 <para>It returns a response of type array, with each value of the array
3895 being either an error struct (containing the faultCode and faultString
3896 members) or the successful response value of the corresponding single
3901 <chapter id="examples" xreflabel="Examples">
3902 <title>Examples</title>
3904 <para>The best examples are to be found in the sample files included with
3905 the distribution. Some are included here.</para>
3907 <sect1 id="statename">
3908 <title>XML-RPC client: state name query</title>
3910 <para>Code to get the corresponding state name from a number (1-50) from
3911 the demo server available on SourceForge</para>
3913 <programlisting language="php">
3914 $m = new xmlrpcmsg('examples.getStateName',
3915 array(new xmlrpcval($HTTP_POST_VARS["stateno"], "int")));
3916 $c = new xmlrpc_client("/server.php", "phpxmlrpc.sourceforge.net", 80);
3917 $r = $c->send($m);
3918 if (!$r->faultCode()) {
3919 $v = $r->value();
3920 print "State number " . htmlentities($HTTP_POST_VARS["stateno"]) . " is " .
3921 htmlentities($v->scalarval()) . "<BR>";
3922 print "<HR>I got this value back<BR><PRE>" .
3923 htmlentities($r->serialize()) . "</PRE><HR>\n";
3925 print "Fault <BR>";
3926 print "Code: " . htmlentities($r->faultCode()) . "<BR>" .
3927 "Reason: '" . htmlentities($r->faultString()) . "'<BR>";
3933 <title>Executing a multicall call</title>
3935 <para>To be documented...</para>
3940 <title>Frequently Asked Questions</title>
3943 <title>How to send custom XML as payload of a method call</title>
3945 <para>Unfortunately, at the time the XML-RPC spec was designed, support
3946 for namespaces in XML was not as ubiquitous as it is now. As a
3947 consequence, no support was provided in the protocol for embedding XML
3948 elements from other namespaces into an xmlrpc request.</para>
3950 <para>To send an XML "chunk" as payload of a method call or response,
3951 two options are available: either send the complete XML block as a
3952 string xmlrpc value, or as a base64 value. Since the '<' character in
3953 string values is encoded as '&lt;' in the xml payload of the method
3954 call, the XML string will not break the surrounding xmlrpc, unless
3955 characters outside of the assumed character set are used. The second
3956 method has the added benefits of working independently of the charset
3957 encoding used for the xml to be transmitted, and preserving exactly
3958 whitespace, whilst incurring in some extra message length and cpu load
3959 (for carrying out the base64 encoding/decoding).</para>
3963 <title>Is there any limitation on the size of the requests / responses
3964 that can be successfully sent?</title>
3966 <para>Yes. But I have no hard figure to give; it most likely will depend
3967 on the version of PHP in usage and its configuration.</para>
3969 <para>Keep in mind that this library is not optimized for speed nor for
3970 memory usage. Better alternatives exist when there are strict
3971 requirements on throughput or resource usage, such as the php native
3972 xmlrpc extension (see the PHP manual for more information).</para>
3974 <para>Keep in mind also that HTTP is probably not the best choice in
3975 such a situation, and XML is a deadly enemy. CSV formatted data over
3976 socket would be much more efficient.</para>
3978 <para>If you really need to move a massive amount of data around, and
3979 you are crazy enough to do it using phpxmlrpc, your best bet is to
3980 bypass usage of the xmlrpcval objects, at least in the decoding phase,
3981 and have the server (or client) object return to the calling function
3982 directly php values (see <varname>xmlrpc_client::return_type</varname>
3983 and <varname>xmlrpc_server::functions_parameters_type</varname> for more
3988 <title>My server (client) returns an error whenever the client (server)
3989 returns accented characters</title>
3991 <para>To be documented...</para>
3995 <title>How to enable long-lasting method calls</title>
3997 <para>To be documented...</para>
4001 <title>My client returns "XML-RPC Fault #2: Invalid return payload:
4002 enable debugging to examine incoming payload": what should I do?</title>
4004 <para>The response you are seeing is a default error response that the
4005 client object returns to the php application when the server did not
4006 respond to the call with a valid xmlrpc response.</para>
4008 <para>The most likely cause is that you are not using the correct URL
4009 when creating the client object, or you do not have appropriate access
4010 rights to the web page you are requesting, or some other common http
4011 misconfiguration.</para>
4013 <para>To find out what the server is really returning to your client,
4014 you have to enable the debug mode of the client, using
4015 $client->setdebug(1);</para>
4019 <title>How can I save to a file the xml of the xmlrpc responses received
4020 from servers?</title>
4022 <para>If what you need is to save the responses received from the server
4023 as xml, you have two options:</para>
4025 <para>1- use the serialize() method on the response object.</para>
4027 <programlisting language="php">
4028 $resp = $client->send($msg);
4029 if (!$resp->faultCode())
4030 $data_to_be_saved = $resp->serialize();
4033 <para>Note that this will not be 100% accurate, since the xml generated
4034 by the response object can be different from the xml received,
4035 especially if there is some character set conversion involved, or such
4036 (eg. if you receive an empty string tag as <string/>, serialize()
4037 will output <string></string>), or if the server sent back
4038 as response something invalid (in which case the xml generated client
4039 side using serialize() will correspond to the error response generated
4040 internally by the lib).</para>
4042 <para>2 - set the client object to return the raw xml received instead
4043 of the decoded objects:</para>
4045 <programlisting language="php">
4046 $client = new xmlrpc_client($url);
4047 $client->return_type = 'xml';
4048 $resp = $client->send($msg);
4049 if (!$resp->faultCode())
4050 $data_to_be_saved = $resp->value();
4053 <para>Note that using this method the xml response response will not be
4054 parsed at all by the library, only the http communication protocol will
4055 be checked. This means that xmlrpc responses sent by the server that
4056 would have generated an error response on the client (eg. malformed xml,
4057 responses that have faultcode set, etc...) now will not be flagged as
4058 invalid, and you might end up saving not valid xml but random
4063 <title>Can I use the ms windows character set?</title>
4065 <para>If the data your application is using comes from a Microsoft
4066 application, there are some chances that the character set used to
4067 encode it is CP1252 (the same might apply to data received from an
4068 external xmlrpc server/client, but it is quite rare to find xmlrpc
4069 toolkits that encode to CP1252 instead of UTF8). It is a character set
4070 which is "almost" compatible with ISO 8859-1, but for a few extra
4073 <para>PHP-XMLRPC only supports the ISO 8859-1 and UTF8 character sets.
4074 The net result of this situation is that those extra characters will not
4075 be properly encoded, and will be received at the other end of the
4076 XML-RPC tranmission as "garbled data". Unfortunately the library cannot
4077 provide real support for CP1252 because of limitations in the PHP 4 xml
4078 parser. Luckily, we tried our best to support this character set anyway,
4079 and, since version 2.2.1, there is some form of support, left commented
4082 <para>To properly encode outgoing data that is natively in CP1252, you
4083 will have to uncomment all relative code in the file
4084 <filename>xmlrpc.inc</filename> (you can search for the string "1252"),
4085 then set <code>$GLOBALS['xmlrpc_internalencoding']='CP1252';</code>
4086 Please note that all incoming data will then be fed to your application
4087 as UTF-8 to avoid any potentail data loss.</para>
4091 <title>Does the library support using cookies / http sessions?</title>
4093 <para>In short: yes, but a little coding is needed to make it
4096 <para>The code below uses sessions to e.g. let the client store a value
4097 on the server and retrieve it later.</para>
4099 <para><programlisting>
4100 $resp = $client->send(new xmlrpcmsg('registervalue', array(new xmlrpcval('foo'), new xmlrpcval('bar'))));
4101 if (!$resp->faultCode())
4103 $cookies = $resp->cookies();
4104 if (array_key_exists('PHPSESSID', $cookies)) // nb: make sure to use the correct session cookie name
4106 $session_id = $cookies['PHPSESSID']['value'];
4108 // do some other stuff here...
4110 $client->setcookie('PHPSESSID', $session_id);
4111 $val = $client->send(new xmlrpcmsg('getvalue', array(new xmlrpcval('foo')));
4114 </programlisting>Server-side sessions are handled normally like in any other
4115 php application. Please see the php manual for more information about
4118 <para>NB: unlike web browsers, not all xmlrpc clients support usage of
4119 http cookies. If you have troubles with sessions and control only the
4120 server side of the communication, please check with the makers of the
4121 xmlrpc client in use.</para>
4125 <appendix id="integration">
4126 <title>Integration with the PHP xmlrpc extension</title>
4128 <para>To be documented more...</para>
4130 <para>In short: for the fastest execution possible, you can enable the php
4131 native xmlrpc extension, and use it in conjunction with phpxmlrpc. The
4132 following code snippet gives an example of such integration</para>
4134 <programlisting language="php">
4135 /*** client side ***/
4136 $c = new xmlrpc_client('http://phpxmlrpc.sourceforge.net/server.php');
4138 // tell the client to return raw xml as response value
4139 $c->return_type = 'xml';
4141 // let the native xmlrpc extension take care of encoding request parameters
4142 $r = $c->send(xmlrpc_encode_request('examples.getStateName', $_POST['stateno']));
4144 if ($r->faultCode())
4145 // HTTP transport error
4146 echo 'Got error '.$r->faultCode();
4149 // HTTP request OK, but XML returned from server not parsed yet
4150 $v = xmlrpc_decode($r->value());
4151 // check if we got a valid xmlrpc response from server
4153 echo 'Got invalid response';
4155 // check if server sent a fault response
4156 if (xmlrpc_is_fault($v))
4157 echo 'Got xmlrpc fault '.$v['faultCode'];
4159 echo'Got response: '.htmlentities($v);
4164 <appendix id="substitution">
4165 <title>Substitution of the PHP xmlrpc extension</title>
4167 <para>Yet another interesting situation is when you are using a ready-made
4168 php application, that provides support for the XMLRPC protocol via the
4169 native php xmlrpc extension, but the extension is not available on your
4170 php install (e.g. because of shared hosting constraints).</para>
4172 <para>Since version 2.1, the PHP-XMLRPC library provides a compatibility
4173 layer that aims to be 100% compliant with the xmlrpc extension API. This
4174 means that any code written to run on the extension should obtain the
4175 exact same results, albeit using more resources and a longer processing
4176 time, using the PHP-XMLRPC library and the extension compatibility module.
4177 The module is part of the EXTRAS package, available as a separate download
4178 from the sourceforge.net website, since version 0.2</para>
4181 <appendix id="enough">
4182 <title>'Enough of xmlrpcvals!': new style library usage</title>
4184 <para>To be documented...</para>
4186 <para>In the meantime, see docs about xmlrpc_client::return_type and
4187 xmlrpc_server::functions_parameters_types, as well as php_xmlrpc_encode,
4188 php_xmlrpc_decode and php_xmlrpc_decode_xml</para>
4191 <appendix id="debugger">
4192 <title>Usage of the debugger</title>
4194 <para>A webservice debugger is included in the library to help during
4195 development and testing.</para>
4197 <para>The interface should be self-explicative enough to need little
4198 documentation.</para>
4200 <para><graphic align="center" fileref="debugger.gif"
4201 format="GIF" /></para>
4203 <para>The most useful feature of the debugger is without doubt the "Show
4204 debug info" option. It allows to have a screen dump of the complete http
4205 communication between client and server, including the http headers as
4206 well as the request and response payloads, and is invaluable when
4207 troubleshooting problems with charset encoding, authentication or http
4210 <para>The debugger can take advantage of the JSONRPC library extension, to
4211 allow debugging of JSON-RPC webservices, and of the JS-XMLRPC library
4212 visual editor to allow easy mouse-driven construction of the payload for
4213 remote methods. Both components have to be downloaded separately from the
4214 sourceforge.net web pages and copied to the debugger directory to enable
4215 the extra functionality:</para>
4217 <para><itemizedlist>
4219 <para>to enable jsonrpc functionality, download the PHP-XMLRPC
4220 EXTRAS package, and copy the file <filename>jsonrpc.inc</filename>
4221 either to the same directory as the debugger or somewhere in your
4222 php include path</para>
4224 </itemizedlist><itemizedlist>
4226 <para>to enable the visual value editing dialog, download the
4227 JS-XMLRPC library, and copy somewhere in the web root files
4228 <filename>visualeditor.php</filename>,
4229 <filename>visualeditor.css</filename> and the folders
4230 <filename>yui</filename> and <filename>img</filename>. Then edit the
4231 debugger file <filename>controller.php</filename> and set
4232 appropriately the variable <varname>$editorpath</varname>.</para>
4234 </itemizedlist></para>
4237 <!-- Keep this comment at the end of the file
4242 sgml-minimize-attributes:nil
4243 sgml-always-quote-attributes:t
4246 sgml-parent-document:nil
4247 sgml-exposed-tags:nil
4248 sgml-local-catalogs:nil
4249 sgml-local-ecat-files:nil
4250 sgml-namecase-general:t
4251 sgml-general-insert-case:lower