1 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
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9 <title>XML-RPC for PHP</title>
11 <subtitle>version 3.0.1</subtitle>
14 <date>April 19, 2015</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>; later, to <ulink
117 url="https://github.com/">Github</ulink></para>
119 <para>A list of XML-RPC implementations for other languages such as Perl
120 and Python can be found on the <ulink
121 url="http://www.xmlrpc.com/">www.xmlrpc.com</ulink> site.</para>
124 <title>Acknowledgements</title>
126 <para>Daniel E. Baumann</para>
128 <para>James Bercegay</para>
130 <para>Leon Blackwell</para>
132 <para>Stephane Bortzmeyer</para>
134 <para>Daniel Convissor</para>
136 <para>Geoffrey T. Dairiki</para>
138 <para>Stefan Esser</para>
140 <para>James Flemer</para>
142 <para>Ernst de Haan</para>
144 <para>Tom Knight</para>
146 <para>Axel Kollmorgen</para>
148 <para>Peter Kocks</para>
150 <para>Daniel Krippner</para>
154 <para>A. Lambert</para>
156 <para>Frederic Lecointre</para>
158 <para>Dan Libby</para>
160 <para>Arnaud Limbourg</para>
162 <para>Ernest MacDougal Campbell III</para>
164 <para>Lukasz Mach</para>
166 <para>Kjartan Mannes</para>
168 <para>Ben Margolin</para>
170 <para>Nicolay Mausz</para>
172 <para>Justin Miller</para>
174 <para>Jan Pfeifer</para>
176 <para>Giancarlo Pinerolo</para>
178 <para>Peter Russel</para>
180 <para>Jean-Jacques Sarton</para>
182 <para>Viliam Simko</para>
184 <para>Idan Sofer</para>
186 <para>Douglas Squirrel</para>
188 <para>Heiko Stübner</para>
190 <para>Anatoly Techtonik</para>
192 <para>Tommaso Trani</para>
194 <para>Eric van der Vlist</para>
196 <para>Christian Wenz</para>
198 <para>Jim Winstead</para>
200 <para>Przemyslaw Wroblewski</para>
202 <para>Bruno Zanetti Melotti</para>
207 <title>What's new</title>
209 <para><emphasis>Note:</emphasis> not all items the following list have
210 (yet) been fully documented, and some might not be present in any other
211 chapter in the manual. To find a more detailed description of new
212 functions and methods please take a look at the source code of the
213 library, which is quite thoroughly commented in javadoc-like form.</para>
220 <para>fixed: the library does not decode correctly LATIN-1 requests/responses if the character set is not set in the xml prolog</para>
224 <para>fixed: the debugger sends incorrect requests when the payload includes LATIN-1 characters</para>
228 <para>fixed: the client can not call remote methods which use LATIN-1 or UTF8 characters in their names</para>
231 </itemizedlist></para>
237 <para><emphasis>Note:</emphasis> this is the last release of the library that will support PHP 5.1 and up.
238 Future releases will target php 5.3 as minimum supported version.</para>
242 <para>when using curl and keepalive, reset curl handle if we did not get back an http 200 response (eg a 302)</para>
246 <para>omit port on http 'Host' header if it is 80</para>
250 <para>test suite allows interrogating https servers ignoring their certs</para>
254 <para>method setAcceptedCompression was failing to disable reception of compressed responses if the
255 client supported them</para>
258 </itemizedlist></para>
262 <title>3.0.0 beta</title>
264 <para>This is the first release of the library to only support PHP 5.
265 Some legacy code has been removed, and support for features such as
266 exceptions and dateTime objects introduced.</para>
268 <para>The "beta" tag is meant to indicate the fact that the refactoring
269 has been more widespread than in precedent releases and that more
270 changes are likely to be introduced with time - the library is still
271 considered to be production quality.</para>
275 <para>improved: removed all usage of php functions deprecated in
276 php 5.3, usage of assign-by-ref when creating new objects
281 <para>improved: add support for the <ex:nil/> tag used by
282 the apache library, both in input and output</para>
286 <para>improved: add support for <classname>dateTime</classname>
287 objects in both in <function>php_xmlrpc_encode</function> and as
288 parameter for constructor of
289 <classname>xmlrpcval</classname></para>
293 <para>improved: add support for timestamps as parameter for
294 constructor of <classname>xmlrpcval</classname></para>
298 <para>improved: add option 'dates_as_objects' to
299 <function>php_xmlrpc_decode</function> to return
300 <classname>dateTime</classname> objects for xmlrpc
305 <para>improved: add new method
306 <methodname>SetCurlOptions</methodname> to
307 <classname>xmrlpc_client</classname> to allow extra flexibility in
308 tweaking http config, such as explicitly binding to an ip
313 <para>improved: add new method
314 <methodname>SetUserAgent</methodname> to
315 <classname>xmrlpc_client</classname> to to allow having different
316 user-agent http headers</para>
320 <para>improved: add a new member variable in server class to allow
321 fine-tuning of the encoding of returned values when the server is
322 in 'phpvals' mode</para>
326 <para>improved: allow servers in 'xmlrpcvals' mode to also
327 register plain php functions by defining them in the dispatch map
328 with an added option</para>
332 <para>improved: catch exceptions thrown during execution of php
333 functions exposed as methods by the server</para>
337 <para>fixed: bad encoding if same object is encoded twice using
338 php_xmlrpc_encode</para>
340 </itemizedlist></para>
346 <para><emphasis>Note:</emphasis> this might the last release of the
347 library that will support PHP 4. Future releases (if any) should target
348 php 5.0 as minimum supported version.</para>
352 <para>fixed: encoding of utf-8 characters outside of the BMP
357 <para>fixed: character set declarations surrounded by double
358 quotes were not recognized in http headers</para>
362 <para>fixed: be more tolerant in detection of charset in http
367 <para>fixed: fix detection of zlib.output_compression</para>
371 <para>fixed: use feof() to test if socket connections are to be
372 closed instead of the number of bytes read (rare bug when
373 communicating with some servers)</para>
377 <para>fixed: format floating point values using the correct
378 decimal separator even when php locale is set to one that uses
383 <para>fixed: improve robustness of the debugger when parsing weird
384 results from non-compliant servers</para>
388 <para>php warning when receiving 'false' in a bool value</para>
392 <para>improved: allow the add_to_map server method to add docs for
393 single params too</para>
397 <para>improved: added the possibility to wrap for exposure as
398 xmlrpc methods plain php class methods, object methods and even
401 </itemizedlist></para>
409 <para>fixed: work aroung bug in php 5.2.2 which broke support of
410 HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA</para>
414 <para>fixed: is_dir parameter of setCaCertificate() method is
419 <para>fixed: a php warning in xmlrpc_client creator method</para>
423 <para>fixed: parsing of '1e+1' as valid float</para>
427 <para>fixed: allow errorlevel 3 to work when prev. error handler was
428 a static method</para>
432 <para>fixed: usage of client::setcookie() for multiple cookies in
437 <para>improved: support for CP1252 charset is not part or the
438 library but almost possible</para>
442 <para>improved: more info when curl is enabled and debug mode is
453 <para>fixed: debugger errors on php installs with magic_quotes_gpc
458 <para>fixed: support for https connections via proxy</para>
462 <para>fixed: wrap_xmlrpc_method() generated code failed to properly
463 encode php objects</para>
467 <para>improved: slightly faster encoding of data which is internally
472 <para>improved: debugger always generates a 'null' id for jsonrpc if
477 <para>new: debugger can take advantage of a graphical value builder
478 (it has to be downloaded separately, as part of jsxmlrpc package.
479 See Appendix D for more details)</para>
483 <para>new: support for the <NIL/> xmlrpc extension. see below
484 for more details</para>
488 <para>new: server support for the system.getCapabilities xmlrpc
493 <para>new: <function><link
494 linkend="wrap_xmlrpc_method">wrap_xmlrpc_method()</link></function>
495 accepts two new options: debug and return_on_fault</para>
505 <para>The <function>wrap_php_function</function> and
506 <function>wrap_xmlrpc_method</function> functions have been moved
507 out of the base library file <filename>xmlrpc.inc</filename> into
508 a file of their own: <filename>xmlrpc_wrappers.inc</filename>. You
509 will have to include() / require() it in your scripts if you have
510 been using those functions. For increased security, the automatic
511 rebuilding of php object instances out of received xmlrpc structs
512 in <function>wrap_xmlrpc_method()</function> has been disabled
513 (but it can be optionally re-enabled). Both
514 <function>wrap_php_function()</function> and
515 <function>wrap_xmlrpc_method()</function> functions accept many
516 more options to fine tune their behaviour, including one to return
517 the php code to be saved and later used as standalone php
522 <para>The constructor of xmlrpcval() values has seen some internal
523 changes, and it will not throw a php warning anymore when invoked
524 using an unknown xmlrpc type: the error will only be written to
525 php error log. Also <code>new xmlrpcval('true', 'boolean')</code>
526 is not supported anymore</para>
530 <para>The new function
531 <function>php_xmlrpc_decode_xml()</function> will take the xml
532 representation of either an xmlrpc request, response or single
533 value and return the corresponding php-xmlrpc object
538 <para>A new function <function>wrap_xmlrpc_server()</function>has
539 been added, to wrap all (or some) of the methods exposed by a
540 remote xmlrpc server into a php class</para>
544 <para>A new file has been added:
545 <filename>verify_compat.php</filename>, to help users diagnose the
546 level of compliance of their php installation with the
551 <para>Restored compatibility with php 4.0.5 (for those poor souls
552 still stuck on it)</para>
556 <para>Method <methodname>xmlrpc_server->service()</methodname>
557 now returns a value: either the response payload or xmlrpcresp
558 object instance</para>
563 <methodname>xmlrpc_server->add_to_map()</methodname> now
564 accepts xmlrpc methods with no param definitions</para>
568 <para>Documentation for single parameters of exposed methods can
569 be added to the dispatch map (and turned into html docs in
570 conjunction with a future release of the 'extras' package)</para>
574 <para>Full response payload is saved into xmlrpcresp object for
575 further debugging</para>
579 <para>The debugger can now generate code that wraps a remote
580 method into a php function (works for jsonrpc, too); it also has
581 better support for being activated via a single GET call (e.g. for
582 integration into other tools)</para>
586 <para>Stricter parsing of incoming xmlrpc messages: two more
587 invalid cases are now detected (double <literal>data</literal>
588 element inside <literal>array</literal> and
589 <literal>struct</literal>/<literal>array</literal> after scalar
590 inside <literal>value</literal> element)</para>
594 <para>More logging of errors in a lot of situations</para>
598 <para>Javadoc documentation of lib files (almost) complete</para>
602 <para>Many performance tweaks and code cleanups, plus the usual
603 crop of bugs fixed (see NEWS file for complete list of
608 <para>Lib internals have been modified to provide better support
609 for grafting extra functionality on top of it. Stay tuned for
610 future releases of the EXTRAS package (or go read Appendix
613 </itemizedlist></para>
617 <title>2.0 final</title>
621 <para>Added to the client class the possibility to use Digest and
622 NTLM authentication methods (when using the CURL library) for
623 connecting to servers and NTLM for connecting to proxies</para>
627 <para>Added to the client class the possibility to specify
628 alternate certificate files/directories for authenticating the
629 peer with when using HTTPS communication</para>
633 <para>Reviewed all examples and added a new demo file, containing
634 a proxy to forward xmlrpc requests to other servers (useful e.g.
635 for ajax coding)</para>
639 <para>The debugger has been upgraded to reflect the new client
644 <para>All known bugs have been squashed, and the lib is more
645 tolerant than ever of commonly-found mistakes</para>
647 </itemizedlist></para>
651 <title>2.0 Release candidate 3</title>
655 <para>Added to server class the property
656 <property>functions_parameters_type</property>, that allows the
657 server to register plain php functions as xmlrpc methods (i.e.
658 functions that do not take an xmlrpcmsg object as unique
663 <para>let server and client objects serialize calls using a
664 specified character set encoding for the produced xml instead of
665 US-ASCII (ISO-8859-1 and UTF-8 supported)</para>
669 <para>let php_xmlrpc_decode accept xmlrpcmsg objects as valid
674 <para>'class::method' syntax is now accepted in the server
679 <para><function>xmlrpc_clent::SetDebug()</function> accepts
680 integer values instead of a boolean value, with debugging level 2
681 adding to the information printed to screen the complete client
684 </itemizedlist></para>
688 <title>2.0 Release candidate 2</title>
692 <para>Added a new property of the client object:
693 <code>xmlrpc_client->return_type</code>, indicating whether
694 calls to the send() method will return xmlrpcresp objects whose
695 value() is an xmlrpcval object, a php value (automatically
696 decoded) or the raw xml received from the server.</para>
700 <para>Added in the extras dir. two new library file:
701 <filename>jsonrpc.inc</filename> and
702 <filename>jsonrpcs.inc</filename> containing new classes that
703 implement support for the json-rpc protocol (alpha quality
708 <para>Added a new client method: <code>setKey($key,
709 $keypass)</code> to be used in HTTPS connections</para>
713 <para>Added a new file containing some benchmarks in the testsuite
716 </itemizedlist></para>
720 <title>2.0 Release candidate 1</title>
724 <para>Support for HTTP proxies (new method:
725 <code>xmlrpc_client::setProxy()</code>)</para>
729 <para>Support HTTP compression of both requests and responses.
730 Clients can specify what kind of compression they accept for
731 responses between deflate/gzip/any, and whether to compress the
732 requests. Servers by default compress responses to clients that
733 explicitly declare support for compression (new methods:
734 <code>xmlrpc_client::setAcceptedCompression()</code>,
735 <code>xmlrpc_client::setRequestCompression()</code>). Note that the
736 ZLIB php extension needs to be enabled in PHP to support
741 <para>Implement HTTP 1.1 connections, but only if CURL is enabled
742 (added an extra parameter to
743 <code>xmlrpc_client::xmlrpc_client</code> to set the desired HTTP
744 protocol at creation time and a new supported value for the last
745 parameter of <code>xmlrpc_client::send</code>, which now can be
746 safely omitted if it has been specified at creation time)</para>
748 <para>With PHP versions greater than 4.3.8 keep-alives are enabled
749 by default for HTTP 1.1 connections. This should yield faster
750 execution times when making multiple calls in sequence to the same
751 xml-rpc server from a single client.</para>
755 <para>Introduce support for cookies. Cookies to be sent to the
756 server with a request can be set using
757 <code>xmlrpc_client::setCookie()</code>, while cookies received from
758 the server are found in <code>xmlrpcresp::cookies()</code>. It is
759 left to the user to check for validity of received cookies and
760 decide whether they apply to successive calls or not.</para>
764 <para>Better support for detecting different character set encodings
765 of xml-rpc requests and responses: both client and server objects
766 will correctly detect the charset encoding of received xml, and use
767 an appropriate xml parser.</para>
769 <para>Supported encodings are US-ASCII, UTF-8 and ISO-8859-1.</para>
773 <para>Added one new xmlrpcmsg constructor syntax, allowing usage of
774 a single string with the complete URL of the target server</para>
778 <para>Convert xml-rpc boolean values into native php values instead
783 <para>Force the <code>php_xmlrpc_encode</code> function to properly
784 encode numerically indexed php arrays into xml-rpc arrays
785 (numerically indexed php arrays always start with a key of 0 and
786 increment keys by values of 1)</para>
790 <para>Prevent the <code>php_xmlrpc_encode</code> function from
791 further re-encoding any objects of class <code>xmlrpcval</code> that
792 are passed to it. This allows to call the function with arguments
793 consisting of mixed php values / xmlrpcval objects.</para>
797 <para>Allow a server to NOT respond to system.* method calls
798 (setting the <code>$server->allow_system_funcs</code>
803 <para>Implement a new xmlrpcval method to determine if a value of
804 type struct has a member of a given name without having to loop
805 trough all members: <code>xmlrpcval::structMemExists()</code></para>
809 <para>Expand methods <code>xmlrpcval::addArray</code>,
810 <code>addScalar</code> and <code>addStruct</code> allowing extra php
811 values to be added to xmlrpcval objects already formed.</para>
815 <para>Let the <code>xmlrpc_client::send</code> method accept an XML
816 string for sending instead of an xmlrpcmsg object, to facilitate
817 debugging and integration with the php native xmlrpc
822 <para>Extend the <code>php_xmlrpc_encode</code> and
823 <code>php_xmlrpc_decode</code> functions to allow serialization and
824 rebuilding of PHP objects. To successfully rebuild a serialized
825 object, the object class must be defined in the deserializing end of
826 the transfer. Note that object members of type resource will be
827 deserialized as NULL values.</para>
829 <para>Note that his has been implemented adding a "php_class"
830 attribute to xml representation of xmlrpcval of STRUCT type, which,
831 strictly speaking, breaks the xml-rpc spec. Other xmlrpc
832 implementations are supposed to ignore such an attribute (unless
833 they implement a brain-dead custom xml parser...), so it should be
834 safe enabling it in heterogeneous environments. The activation of
835 this feature is done by usage of an option passed as second
836 parameter to both <code>php_xmlrpc_encode</code> and
837 <code>php_xmlrpc_decode</code>.</para>
841 <para>Extend the <code>php_xmlrpc_encode</code> function to allow
842 automatic serialization of iso8601-conforming php strings as
843 datetime.iso8601 xmlrpcvals, by usage of an optional
848 <para>Added an automatic stub code generator for converting xmlrpc
849 methods to php functions and vice-versa.</para>
851 <para>This is done via two new functions:
852 <code>wrap_php_function</code> and <code>wrap_xmlrpc_method</code>,
853 and has many caveats, with php being a typeless language and
856 <para>With PHP versions lesser than 5.0.3 wrapping of php functions
857 into xmlrpc methods is not supported yet.</para>
861 <para>Allow object methods to be used in server dispatch map</para>
865 <para>Added a complete debugger solution, in the
866 <filename>debugger</filename> folder</para>
870 <para>Added configurable server-side debug messages, controlled by
871 the new method <code>xmlrpc_server::SetDebug()</code>. At level 0,
872 no debug messages are sent to the client; level 1 is the same as the
873 old behaviour; at level 2 a lot more info is echoed back to the
874 client, regarding the received call; at level 3 all warnings raised
875 during server processing are trapped (this prevents breaking the xml
876 to be echoed back to the client) and added to the debug info sent
877 back to the client</para>
881 <para>New XML parsing code, yields smaller memory footprint and
882 faster execution times, not to mention complete elimination of the
883 dreaded <filename>eval()</filename> construct, so prone to code
884 injection exploits</para>
888 <para>Rewritten most of the error messages, making text more
895 <chapter id="requirements">
896 <title>System Requirements</title>
898 <para>The library has been designed with goals of scalability and backward
899 compatibility. As such, it supports a wide range of PHP installs. Note
900 that not all features of the lib are available in every
901 configuration.</para>
903 <para>The <emphasis>minimum supported</emphasis> PHP version is
906 <para>If you wish to use SSL or HTTP 1.1 to communicate with remote
907 servers, you need the "curl" extension compiled into your PHP
910 <para>The "xmlrpc" native extension is not required to be compiled into
911 your PHP installation, but if it is, there will be no interference with
912 the operation of this library.</para>
915 <chapter id="manifest">
916 <title>Files in the distribution</title>
920 <glossterm>lib/xmlrpc.inc</glossterm>
923 <para>the XML-RPC classes. <function>include()</function> this in
924 your PHP files to use the classes.</para>
929 <glossterm>lib/xmlrpcs.inc</glossterm>
932 <para>the XML-RPC server class. <function>include()</function> this
933 in addition to xmlrpc.inc to get server functionality</para>
938 <glossterm>lib/xmlrpc_wrappers.inc</glossterm>
941 <para>helper functions to "automagically" convert plain php
942 functions to xmlrpc services and vice versa</para>
947 <glossterm>demo/server/proxy.php</glossterm>
950 <para>a sample server implementing xmlrpc proxy
951 functionality.</para>
956 <glossterm>demo/server/server.php</glossterm>
959 <para>a sample server hosting various demo functions, as well as a
960 full suite of functions used for interoperability testing. It is
961 used by testsuite.php (see below) for unit testing the library, and
962 is not to be copied literally into your production servers</para>
967 <glossterm>demo/client/client.php, demo/client/agesort.php,
968 demo/client/which.php</glossterm>
971 <para>client code to exercise some of the functions in server.php,
972 including the <function>interopEchoTests.whichToolkit</function>
978 <glossterm>demo/client/wrap.php</glossterm>
981 <para>client code to illustrate 'wrapping' of remote methods into
982 php functions.</para>
987 <glossterm>demo/client/introspect.php</glossterm>
990 <para>client code to illustrate usage of introspection capabilities
991 offered by server.php.</para>
996 <glossterm>demo/client/mail.php</glossterm>
999 <para>client code to illustrate usage of an xmlrpc-to-email gateway
1000 using Dave Winer's XML-RPC server at userland.com.</para>
1005 <glossterm>demo/client/zopetest.php</glossterm>
1008 <para>example client code that queries an xmlrpc server built in
1014 <glossterm>demo/vardemo.php</glossterm>
1017 <para>examples of how to construct xmlrpcval types</para>
1022 <glossterm>demo/demo1.txt, demo/demo2.txt, demo/demo3.txt</glossterm>
1025 <para>XML-RPC responses captured in a file for testing purposes (you
1026 can use these to test the
1027 <function>xmlrpcmsg->parseResponse()</function> method).</para>
1032 <glossterm>demo/server/discuss.php,
1033 demo/client/comment.php</glossterm>
1036 <para>Software used in the PHP chapter of <xref
1037 linkend="jellyfish" /> to provide a comment server and allow the
1038 attachment of comments to stories from Meerkat's data store.</para>
1043 <glossterm>test/testsuite.php, test/parse_args.php</glossterm>
1046 <para>A unit test suite for this software package. If you do
1047 development on this software, please consider submitting tests for
1053 <glossterm>test/benchmark.php</glossterm>
1056 <para>A (very limited) benchmarking suite for this software package.
1057 If you do development on this software, please consider submitting
1058 benchmarks for this suite.</para>
1063 <glossterm>test/phpunit.php, test/PHPUnit/*.php</glossterm>
1066 <para>An (incomplete) version PEAR's unit test framework for PHP.
1067 The complete package can be found at <ulink
1068 url="http://pear.php.net/package/PHPUnit">http://pear.php.net/package/PHPUnit</ulink></para>
1073 <glossterm>test/verify_compat.php</glossterm>
1076 <para>Script designed to help the user to verify the level of
1077 compatibility of the library with the current php install</para>
1082 <glossterm>extras/test.pl, extras/test.py</glossterm>
1085 <para>Perl and Python programs to exercise server.php to test that
1086 some of the methods work.</para>
1091 <glossterm>extras/workspace.testPhpServer.fttb</glossterm>
1094 <para>Frontier scripts to exercise the demo server. Thanks to Dave
1095 Winer for permission to include these. See <ulink
1096 url="http://www.xmlrpc.com/discuss/msgReader$853">Dave's
1097 announcement of these.</ulink></para>
1102 <glossterm>extras/rsakey.pem</glossterm>
1105 <para>A test certificate key for the SSL support, which can be used
1106 to generate dummy certificates. It has the passphrase "test."</para>
1113 <title>Known bugs and limitations</title>
1115 <para>This started out as a bare framework. Many "nice" bits haven't been
1116 put in yet. Specifically, very little type validation or coercion has been
1117 put in. PHP being a loosely-typed language, this is going to have to be
1118 done explicitly (in other words: you can call a lot of library functions
1119 passing them arguments of the wrong type and receive an error message only
1120 much further down the code, where it will be difficult to
1123 <para>dateTime.iso8601 is supported opaquely. It can't be done natively as
1124 the XML-RPC specification explicitly forbids passing of timezone
1125 specifiers in ISO8601 format dates. You can, however, use the <xref
1126 linkend="iso8601encode" /> and <xref linkend="iso8601decode" /> functions
1127 to do the encoding and decoding for you.</para>
1129 <para>Very little HTTP response checking is performed (e.g. HTTP redirects
1130 are not followed and the Content-Length HTTP header, mandated by the
1131 xml-rpc spec, is not validated); cookie support still involves quite a bit
1132 of coding on the part of the user.</para>
1134 <para>If a specific character set encoding other than US-ASCII, ISO-8859-1
1135 or UTF-8 is received in the HTTP header or XML prologue of xml-rpc request
1136 or response messages then it will be ignored for the moment, and the
1137 content will be parsed as if it had been encoded using the charset defined
1138 by <xref linkend="xmlrpc-defencoding" /></para>
1140 <para>Support for receiving from servers version 1 cookies (i.e.
1141 conforming to RFC 2965) is quite incomplete, and might cause unforeseen
1145 <chapter id="support">
1146 <title>Support</title>
1149 <title>Online Support</title>
1151 <para>XML-RPC for PHP is offered "as-is" without any warranty or
1152 commitment to support. However, informal advice and help is available
1153 via the XML-RPC for PHP website and mailing list and from
1158 <para>The <emphasis>XML-RPC for PHP</emphasis> development is hosted
1160 url="https://github.com/gggeek/phpxmlrpc">github.com/gggeek/phpxmlrpc</ulink>.
1161 Bugs, feature requests and patches can be posted to the <ulink
1162 url="https://github.com/gggeek/phpxmlrpc/issues">project's
1163 website</ulink>.</para>
1167 <para>The <emphasis>PHP XML-RPC interest mailing list</emphasis> is
1168 run by the author. More details <ulink
1169 url="http://lists.gnomehack.com/mailman/listinfo/phpxmlrpc">can be
1170 found here</ulink>.</para>
1174 <para>For more general XML-RPC questions, there is a Yahoo! Groups
1175 <ulink url="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xml-rpc/">XML-RPC mailing
1176 list</ulink>.</para>
1181 url="http://www.xmlrpc.com/discuss">XML-RPC.com</ulink> discussion
1182 group is a useful place to get help with using XML-RPC. This group
1183 is also gatewayed into the Yahoo! Groups mailing list.</para>
1188 <sect1 id="jellyfish" xreflabel="The Jellyfish Book">
1189 <title>The Jellyfish Book</title>
1191 <para><graphic align="right" depth="190" fileref="progxmlrpc.s.gif"
1192 format="GIF" width="145" />Together with Simon St.Laurent and Joe
1193 Johnston, Edd Dumbill wrote a book on XML-RPC for O'Reilly and
1194 Associates on XML-RPC. It features a rather fetching jellyfish on the
1197 <para>Complete details of the book are <ulink
1198 url="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/progxmlrpc/">available from
1199 O'Reilly's web site.</ulink></para>
1201 <para>Edd is responsible for the chapter on PHP, which includes a worked
1202 example of creating a forum server, and hooking it up the O'Reilly's
1203 <ulink url="http://meerkat.oreillynet.com/">Meerkat</ulink> service in
1204 order to allow commenting on news stories from around the Web.</para>
1206 <para>If you've benefited from the effort that has been put into writing
1207 this software, then please consider buying the book!</para>
1211 <chapter id="apidocs">
1212 <title>Class documentation</title>
1214 <sect1 id="xmlrpcval" xreflabel="xmlrpcval">
1215 <title>xmlrpcval</title>
1217 <para>This is where a lot of the hard work gets done. This class enables
1218 the creation and encapsulation of values for XML-RPC.</para>
1220 <para>Ensure you've read the XML-RPC spec at <ulink
1221 url="http://www.xmlrpc.com/stories/storyReader$7">http://www.xmlrpc.com/stories/storyReader$7</ulink>
1222 before reading on as it will make things clearer.</para>
1224 <para>The <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> class can store arbitrarily
1225 complicated values using the following types: <literal>i4 int boolean
1226 string double dateTime.iso8601 base64 array struct</literal>
1227 <literal>null</literal>. You should refer to the <ulink
1228 url="http://www.xmlrpc.com/spec">spec</ulink> for more information on
1229 what each of these types mean.</para>
1232 <title>Notes on types</title>
1237 <para>The type <classname>i4</classname> is accepted as a synonym
1238 for <classname>int</classname> when creating xmlrpcval objects. The
1239 xml parsing code will always convert <classname>i4</classname> to
1240 <classname>int</classname>: <classname>int</classname> is regarded
1241 by this implementation as the canonical name for this type.</para>
1245 <title>base64</title>
1247 <para>Base 64 encoding is performed transparently to the caller when
1248 using this type. Decoding is also transparent. Therefore you ought
1249 to consider it as a "binary" data type, for use when you want to
1250 pass data that is not 7-bit clean.</para>
1254 <title>boolean</title>
1256 <para>The php values <literal>true</literal> and
1257 <literal>1</literal> map to <literal>true</literal>. All other
1258 values (including the empty string) are converted to
1259 <literal>false</literal>.</para>
1263 <title>string</title>
1265 <para>Characters <, >, ', ", &, are encoded using their
1266 entity reference as &lt; &gt; &apos; &quot; and
1267 &amp; All other characters outside of the ASCII range are
1268 encoded using their character reference representation (e.g.
1269 &#200 for é). The XML-RPC spec recommends only encoding
1270 <literal>< &</literal> but this implementation goes further,
1271 for reasons explained by <ulink
1272 url="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml#syntax">the XML 1.0
1273 recommendation</ulink>. In particular, using character reference
1274 representation has the advantage of producing XML that is valid
1275 independently of the charset encoding assumed.</para>
1281 <para>There is no support for encoding <literal>null</literal>
1282 values in the XML-RPC spec, but at least a couple of extensions (and
1283 many toolkits) do support it. Before using <literal>null</literal>
1284 values in your messages, make sure that the responding party accepts
1285 them, and uses the same encoding convention (see ...).</para>
1289 <sect2 id="xmlrpcval-creation" xreflabel="xmlrpcval constructors">
1290 <title>Creation</title>
1292 <para>The constructor is the normal way to create an
1293 <classname>xmlrpcval</classname>. The constructor can take these
1298 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type>new
1299 <function>xmlrpcval</function></funcdef>
1305 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type>new
1306 <function>xmlrpcval</function></funcdef>
1308 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$stringVal</parameter></paramdef>
1312 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type>new
1313 <function>xmlrpcval</function></funcdef>
1315 <paramdef><type>mixed</type><parameter>$scalarVal</parameter></paramdef>
1317 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$scalartyp</parameter></paramdef>
1321 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type>new
1322 <function>xmlrpcval</function></funcdef>
1324 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$arrayVal</parameter></paramdef>
1326 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$arraytyp</parameter></paramdef>
1330 <para>The first constructor creates an empty value, which must be
1331 altered using the methods <function>addScalar</function>,
1332 <function>addArray</function> or <function>addStruct</function> before
1333 it can be used.</para>
1335 <para>The second constructor creates a simple string value.</para>
1337 <para>The third constructor is used to create a scalar value. The
1338 second parameter must be a name of an XML-RPC type. Valid types are:
1339 "<literal>int</literal>", "<literal>boolean</literal>",
1340 "<literal>string</literal>", "<literal>double</literal>",
1341 "<literal>dateTime.iso8601</literal>", "<literal>base64</literal>" or
1344 <para>Examples:</para>
1346 <programlisting language="php">
1347 $myInt = new xmlrpcvalue(1267, "int");
1348 $myString = new xmlrpcvalue("Hello, World!", "string");
1349 $myBool = new xmlrpcvalue(1, "boolean");
1350 $myString2 = new xmlrpcvalue(1.24, "string"); // note: this will serialize a php float value as xmlrpc string
1353 <para>The fourth constructor form can be used to compose complex
1354 XML-RPC values. The first argument is either a simple array in the
1355 case of an XML-RPC <classname>array</classname> or an associative
1356 array in the case of a <classname>struct</classname>. The elements of
1357 the array <emphasis>must be <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> objects
1358 themselves</emphasis>.</para>
1360 <para>The second parameter must be either "<literal>array</literal>"
1361 or "<literal>struct</literal>".</para>
1363 <para>Examples:</para>
1365 <programlisting language="php">
1366 $myArray = new xmlrpcval(
1368 new xmlrpcval("Tom"),
1369 new xmlrpcval("Dick"),
1370 new xmlrpcval("Harry")
1375 $myStruct = new xmlrpcval(
1377 "name" => new xmlrpcval("Tom", "string"),
1378 "age" => new xmlrpcval(34, "int"),
1379 "address" => new xmlrpcval(
1381 "street" => new xmlrpcval("Fifht Ave", "string"),
1382 "city" => new xmlrpcval("NY", "string")
1389 <para>See the file <literal>vardemo.php</literal> in this distribution
1390 for more examples.</para>
1393 <sect2 id="xmlrpcval-methods" xreflabel="xmlrpcval methods">
1394 <title>Methods</title>
1397 <title>addScalar</title>
1401 <funcdef><type>int</type><function>addScalar</function></funcdef>
1403 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$stringVal</parameter></paramdef>
1407 <funcdef><type>int</type><function>addScalar</function></funcdef>
1409 <paramdef><type>mixed</type><parameter>$scalarVal</parameter></paramdef>
1411 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$scalartyp</parameter></paramdef>
1415 <para>If <parameter>$val</parameter> is an empty
1416 <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> this method makes it a scalar
1417 value, and sets that value.</para>
1419 <para>If <parameter>$val</parameter> is already a scalar value, then
1420 no more scalars can be added and <literal>0</literal> is
1423 <para>If <parameter>$val</parameter> is an xmlrpcval of type array,
1424 the php value <parameter>$scalarval</parameter> is added as its last
1427 <para>If all went OK, <literal>1</literal> is returned, otherwise
1428 <literal>0</literal>.</para>
1432 <title>addArray</title>
1436 <funcdef><type>int</type><function>addArray</function></funcdef>
1438 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$arrayVal</parameter></paramdef>
1442 <para>The argument is a simple (numerically indexed) array. The
1443 elements of the array <emphasis>must be
1444 <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> objects
1445 themselves</emphasis>.</para>
1447 <para>Turns an empty <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> into an
1448 <classname>array</classname> with contents as specified by
1449 <parameter>$arrayVal</parameter>.</para>
1451 <para>If <parameter>$val</parameter> is an xmlrpcval of type array,
1452 the elements of <parameter>$arrayVal</parameter> are appended to the
1453 existing ones.</para>
1455 <para>See the fourth constructor form for more information.</para>
1457 <para>If all went OK, <literal>1</literal> is returned, otherwise
1458 <literal>0</literal>.</para>
1462 <title>addStruct</title>
1466 <funcdef><type>int</type><function>addStruct</function></funcdef>
1468 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$assocArrayVal</parameter></paramdef>
1472 <para>The argument is an associative array. The elements of the
1473 array <emphasis>must be <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> objects
1474 themselves</emphasis>.</para>
1476 <para>Turns an empty <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> into a
1477 <classname>struct</classname> with contents as specified by
1478 <parameter>$assocArrayVal</parameter>.</para>
1480 <para>If <parameter>$val</parameter> is an xmlrpcval of type struct,
1481 the elements of <parameter>$arrayVal</parameter> are merged with the
1482 existing ones.</para>
1484 <para>See the fourth constructor form for more information.</para>
1486 <para>If all went OK, <literal>1</literal> is returned, otherwise
1487 <literal>0</literal>.</para>
1491 <title>kindOf</title>
1495 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>kindOf</function></funcdef>
1501 <para>Returns a string containing "struct", "array" or "scalar"
1502 describing the base type of the value. If it returns "undef" it
1503 means that the value hasn't been initialised.</para>
1507 <title>serialize</title>
1511 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>serialize</function></funcdef>
1517 <para>Returns a string containing the XML-RPC representation of this
1522 <title>scalarVal</title>
1526 <funcdef><type>mixed</type><function>scalarVal</function></funcdef>
1532 <para>If <function>$val->kindOf() == "scalar"</function>, this
1533 method returns the actual PHP-language value of the scalar (base 64
1534 decoding is automatically handled here).</para>
1538 <title>scalarTyp</title>
1542 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>scalarTyp</function></funcdef>
1548 <para>If <function>$val->kindOf() == "scalar"</function>, this
1549 method returns a string denoting the type of the scalar. As
1550 mentioned before, <literal>i4</literal> is always coerced to
1551 <literal>int</literal>.</para>
1555 <title>arrayMem</title>
1559 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><function>arrayMem</function></funcdef>
1561 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$n</parameter></paramdef>
1565 <para>If <function>$val->kindOf() == "array"</function>, returns
1566 the <parameter>$n</parameter>th element in the array represented by
1567 the value <parameter>$val</parameter>. The value returned is an
1568 <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> object.</para>
1570 <para><programlisting language="php">
1571 // iterating over values of an array object
1572 for ($i = 0; $i < $val->arraySize(); $i++)
1574 $v = $val->arrayMem($i);
1575 echo "Element $i of the array is of type ".$v->kindOf();
1577 </programlisting></para>
1581 <title>arraySize</title>
1585 <funcdef><type>int</type><function>arraySize</function></funcdef>
1591 <para>If <parameter>$val</parameter> is an
1592 <classname>array</classname>, returns the number of elements in that
1597 <title>structMem</title>
1601 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><function>structMem</function></funcdef>
1603 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$memberName</parameter></paramdef>
1607 <para>If <function>$val->kindOf() == "struct"</function>, returns
1608 the element called <parameter>$memberName</parameter> from the
1609 struct represented by the value <parameter>$val</parameter>. The
1610 value returned is an <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> object.</para>
1614 <title>structEach</title>
1618 <funcdef><type>array</type><function>structEach</function></funcdef>
1624 <para>Returns the next (key, value) pair from the struct, when
1625 <parameter>$val</parameter> is a struct.
1626 <parameter>$value</parameter> is an xmlrpcval itself. See also <xref
1627 linkend="structreset" />.</para>
1629 <para><programlisting language="php">
1630 // iterating over all values of a struct object
1631 $val->structreset();
1632 while (list($key, $v) = $val->structEach())
1634 echo "Element $key of the struct is of type ".$v->kindOf();
1636 </programlisting></para>
1639 <sect3 id="structreset" xreflabel="structreset()">
1640 <title>structReset</title>
1644 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>structReset</function></funcdef>
1650 <para>Resets the internal pointer for
1651 <function>structEach()</function> to the beginning of the struct,
1652 where <parameter>$val</parameter> is a struct.</para>
1655 <sect3 id="structmemexists" xreflabel="structmemexists()">
1656 <title>structMemExists</title>
1660 <funcdef><type>bool</type><function>structMemExsists</function></funcdef>
1662 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$memberName</parameter></paramdef>
1666 <para>Returns <constant>TRUE</constant> or
1667 <constant>FALSE</constant> depending on whether a member of the
1668 given name exists in the struct.</para>
1673 <sect1 id="xmlrpcmsg" xreflabel="xmlrpcmsg">
1674 <title>xmlrpcmsg</title>
1676 <para>This class provides a representation for a request to an XML-RPC
1677 server. A client sends an <classname>xmlrpcmsg</classname> to a server,
1678 and receives back an <classname>xmlrpcresp</classname> (see <xref
1679 linkend="xmlrpc-client-send" />).</para>
1682 <title>Creation</title>
1684 <para>The constructor takes the following forms:</para>
1688 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcmsg</type>new
1689 <function>xmlrpcmsg</function></funcdef>
1691 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$methodName</parameter></paramdef>
1693 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$parameterArray</parameter><initializer>null</initializer></paramdef>
1697 <para>Where <parameter>methodName</parameter> is a string indicating
1698 the name of the method you wish to invoke, and
1699 <parameter>parameterArray</parameter> is a simple php
1700 <classname>Array</classname> of <classname>xmlrpcval</classname>
1701 objects. Here's an example message to the <emphasis>US state
1702 name</emphasis> server:</para>
1704 <programlisting language="php">
1705 $msg = new xmlrpcmsg("examples.getStateName", array(new xmlrpcval(23, "int")));
1708 <para>This example requests the name of state number 23. For more
1709 information on <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> objects, see <xref
1710 linkend="xmlrpcval" />.</para>
1712 <para>Note that the <parameter>parameterArray</parameter> parameter is
1713 optional and can be omitted for methods that take no input parameters
1714 or if you plan to add parameters one by one.</para>
1718 <title>Methods</title>
1721 <title>addParam</title>
1725 <funcdef><type>bool</type><function>addParam</function></funcdef>
1727 <paramdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><parameter>$xmlrpcVal</parameter></paramdef>
1731 <para>Adds the <classname>xmlrpcval</classname>
1732 <parameter>xmlrpcVal</parameter> to the parameter list for this
1733 method call. Returns TRUE or FALSE on error.</para>
1737 <title>getNumParams</title>
1741 <funcdef><type>int</type><function>getNumParams</function></funcdef>
1747 <para>Returns the number of parameters attached to this
1752 <title>getParam</title>
1756 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><function>getParam</function></funcdef>
1758 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$n</parameter></paramdef>
1762 <para>Gets the <parameter>n</parameter>th parameter in the message
1763 (with the index zero-based). Use this method in server
1764 implementations to retrieve the values sent by the client.</para>
1768 <title>method</title>
1772 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>method</function></funcdef>
1778 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>method</function></funcdef>
1780 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$methName</parameter></paramdef>
1784 <para>Gets or sets the method contained in the XML-RPC
1789 <title>parseResponse</title>
1793 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcresp</type><function>parseResponse</function></funcdef>
1795 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$xmlString</parameter></paramdef>
1799 <para>Given an incoming XML-RPC server response contained in the
1800 string <parameter>$xmlString</parameter>, this method constructs an
1801 <classname>xmlrpcresp</classname> response object and returns it,
1802 setting error codes as appropriate (see <xref
1803 linkend="xmlrpc-client-send" />).</para>
1805 <para>This method processes any HTTP/MIME headers it finds.</para>
1809 <title>parseResponseFile</title>
1813 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcresp</type><function>parseResponseFile</function></funcdef>
1815 <paramdef><type>file handle
1816 resource</type><parameter>$fileHandle</parameter></paramdef>
1820 <para>Given an incoming XML-RPC server response on the open file
1821 handle <parameter>fileHandle</parameter>, this method reads all the
1822 data it finds and passes it to
1823 <function>parseResponse.</function></para>
1825 <para>This method is useful to construct responses from pre-prepared
1826 files (see files <literal>demo1.txt, demo2.txt, demo3.txt</literal>
1827 in this distribution). It processes any HTTP headers it finds, and
1828 does not close the file handle.</para>
1832 <title>serialize</title>
1836 <funcdef><type>string
1837 </type><function>serialize</function></funcdef>
1843 <para>Returns the an XML string representing the XML-RPC
1849 <sect1 id="xmlrpc-client" xreflabel="xmlrpc_client">
1850 <title>xmlrpc_client</title>
1852 <para>This is the basic class used to represent a client of an XML-RPC
1856 <title>Creation</title>
1858 <para>The constructor accepts one of two possible syntaxes:</para>
1862 <funcdef><type>xmlrpc_client</type>new
1863 <function>xmlrpc_client</function></funcdef>
1865 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$server_url</parameter></paramdef>
1869 <funcdef><type>xmlrpc_client</type>new
1870 <function>xmlrpc_client</function></funcdef>
1872 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$server_path</parameter></paramdef>
1874 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$server_hostname</parameter></paramdef>
1876 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$server_port</parameter><initializer>80</initializer></paramdef>
1878 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$transport</parameter><initializer>'http'</initializer></paramdef>
1882 <para>Here are a couple of usage examples of the first form:</para>
1884 <programlisting language="php">
1885 $client = new xmlrpc_client("http://phpxmlrpc.sourceforge.net/server.php");
1886 $another_client = new xmlrpc_client("https://james:bond@secret.service.com:443/xmlrpcserver?agent=007");
1889 <para>The second syntax does not allow to express a username and
1890 password to be used for basic HTTP authorization as in the second
1891 example above, but instead it allows to choose whether xmlrpc calls
1892 will be made using the HTTP 1.0 or 1.1 protocol.</para>
1894 <para>Here's another example client set up to query Userland's XML-RPC
1895 server at <emphasis>betty.userland.com</emphasis>:</para>
1897 <programlisting language="php">
1898 $client = new xmlrpc_client("/RPC2", "betty.userland.com", 80);
1901 <para>The <parameter>server_port</parameter> parameter is optional,
1902 and if omitted will default to 80 when using HTTP and 443 when using
1903 HTTPS (see the <xref linkend="xmlrpc-client-send" /> method
1906 <para>The <parameter>transport</parameter> parameter is optional, and
1907 if omitted will default to 'http'. Allowed values are either
1908 '<symbol>http'</symbol>, '<symbol>https</symbol>' or
1909 '<symbol>http11'</symbol>. Its value can be overridden with every call
1910 to the <methodname>send</methodname> method. See the
1911 <methodname>send</methodname> method below for more details about the
1912 meaning of the different values.</para>
1916 <title>Methods</title>
1918 <para>This class supports the following methods.</para>
1920 <sect3 id="xmlrpc-client-send" xreflabel="xmlrpc_client->send">
1923 <para>This method takes the forms:</para>
1927 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcresp</type><function>send</function></funcdef>
1929 <paramdef><type>xmlrpcmsg</type><parameter>$xmlrpc_message</parameter></paramdef>
1931 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$timeout</parameter></paramdef>
1933 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$transport</parameter></paramdef>
1937 <funcdef><type>array</type><function>send</function></funcdef>
1939 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$xmlrpc_messages</parameter></paramdef>
1941 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$timeout</parameter></paramdef>
1943 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$transport</parameter></paramdef>
1947 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcresp</type><function>send</function></funcdef>
1949 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$xml_payload</parameter></paramdef>
1951 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$timeout</parameter></paramdef>
1953 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$transport</parameter></paramdef>
1957 <para>Where <parameter>xmlrpc_message</parameter> is an instance of
1958 <classname>xmlrpcmsg</classname> (see <xref linkend="xmlrpcmsg" />),
1959 and <parameter>response</parameter> is an instance of
1960 <classname>xmlrpcresp</classname> (see <xref
1961 linkend="xmlrpcresp" />).</para>
1963 <para><parameter>If xmlrpc_messages</parameter> is an array of
1964 message instances, <code>responses</code> will be an array of
1965 response instances. The client will try to make use of a single
1966 <code>system.multicall</code> xml-rpc method call to forward to the
1967 server all the messages in a single HTTP round trip, unless
1968 <code>$client->no_multicall</code> has been previously set to
1969 <code>TRUE</code> (see the multicall method below), in which case
1970 many consecutive xmlrpc requests will be sent.</para>
1972 <para>The third syntax allows to build by hand (or any other means)
1973 a complete xmlrpc request message, and send it to the server.
1974 <parameter>xml_payload</parameter> should be a string containing the
1975 complete xml representation of the request. It is e.g. useful when,
1976 for maximal speed of execution, the request is serialized into a
1977 string using the native php xmlrpc functions (see <ulink
1978 url="http://www.php.net/xmlrpc">the php manual on
1979 xmlrpc</ulink>).</para>
1981 <para>The <parameter>timeout</parameter> is optional, and will be
1982 set to <literal>0</literal> (wait for platform-specific predefined
1983 timeout) if omitted. This timeout value is passed to
1984 <function>fsockopen()</function>. It is also used for detecting
1985 server timeouts during communication (i.e. if the server does not
1986 send anything to the client for <parameter>timeout</parameter>
1987 seconds, the connection will be closed).</para>
1989 <para>The <parameter>transport</parameter> parameter is optional,
1990 and if omitted will default to the transport set using instance
1991 creator or 'http' if omitted. The only other valid values are
1992 'https', which will use an SSL HTTP connection to connect to the
1993 remote server, and 'http11'. Note that your PHP must have the "curl"
1994 extension compiled in order to use both these features. Note that
1995 when using SSL you should normally set your port number to 443,
1996 unless the SSL server you are contacting runs at any other
2000 <para>PHP 4.0.6 has a bug which prevents SSL working.</para>
2003 <para>In addition to low-level errors, the XML-RPC server you were
2004 querying may return an error in the
2005 <classname>xmlrpcresp</classname> object. See <xref
2006 linkend="xmlrpcresp" /> for details of how to handle these
2010 <sect3 id="multicall" xreflabel="xmlrpc_client->multicall">
2011 <title>multiCall</title>
2013 <para>This method takes the form:</para>
2017 <funcdef><type>array</type><function>multiCall</function></funcdef>
2019 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$messages</parameter></paramdef>
2021 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$timeout</parameter></paramdef>
2023 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$transport</parameter></paramdef>
2025 <paramdef><type>bool</type><parameter>$fallback</parameter></paramdef>
2029 <para>This method is used to boxcar many method calls in a single
2030 xml-rpc request. It will try first to make use of the
2031 <code>system.multicall</code> xml-rpc method call, and fall back to
2032 executing many separate requests if the server returns any
2035 <para><parameter>msgs</parameter> is an array of
2036 <classname>xmlrpcmsg</classname> objects (see <xref
2037 linkend="xmlrpcmsg" />), and <parameter>response</parameter> is an
2038 array of <classname>xmlrpcresp</classname> objects (see <xref
2039 linkend="xmlrpcresp" />).</para>
2041 <para>The <parameter>timeout</parameter> and
2042 <parameter>transport</parameter> parameters are optional, and behave
2043 as in the <methodname>send</methodname> method above.</para>
2045 <para>The <parameter>fallback</parameter> parameter is optional, and
2046 defaults to <constant>TRUE</constant>. When set to
2047 <constant>FALSE</constant> it will prevent the client to try using
2048 many single method calls in case of failure of the first multicall
2049 request. It should be set only when the server is known to support
2050 the multicall extension.</para>
2054 <title>setAcceptedCompression</title>
2058 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setAcceptedCompression</function></funcdef>
2060 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$compressionmethod</parameter></paramdef>
2064 <para>This method defines whether the client will accept compressed
2065 xml payload forming the bodies of the xmlrpc responses received from
2066 servers. Note that enabling reception of compressed responses merely
2067 adds some standard http headers to xmlrpc requests. It is up to the
2068 xmlrpc server to return compressed responses when receiving such
2069 requests. Allowed values for
2070 <parameter>compressionmethod</parameter> are: 'gzip', 'deflate',
2071 'any' or null (with any meaning either gzip or deflate).</para>
2073 <para>This requires the "zlib" extension to be enabled in your php
2074 install. If it is, by default <classname>xmlrpc_client</classname>
2075 instances will enable reception of compressed content.</para>
2079 <title>setCaCertificate</title>
2083 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setCaCertificate</function></funcdef>
2085 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$certificate</parameter></paramdef>
2087 <paramdef><type>bool</type><parameter>$is_dir</parameter></paramdef>
2091 <para>This method sets an optional certificate to be used in
2092 SSL-enabled communication to validate a remote server with (when the
2093 <parameter>server_method</parameter> is set to 'https' in the
2094 client's construction or in the send method and
2095 <methodname>SetSSLVerifypeer</methodname> has been set to
2096 <constant>TRUE</constant>).</para>
2098 <para>The <parameter>certificate</parameter> parameter must be the
2099 filename of a PEM formatted certificate, or a directory containing
2100 multiple certificate files. The <parameter>is_dir</parameter>
2101 parameter defaults to <constant>FALSE</constant>, set it to
2102 <constant>TRUE</constant> to specify that
2103 <parameter>certificate</parameter> indicates a directory instead of
2104 a single file.</para>
2106 <para>This requires the "curl" extension to be compiled into your
2107 installation of PHP. For more details see the man page for the
2108 <function>curl_setopt</function> function.</para>
2112 <title>setCertificate</title>
2116 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setCertificate</function></funcdef>
2118 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$certificate</parameter></paramdef>
2120 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$passphrase</parameter></paramdef>
2124 <para>This method sets the optional certificate and passphrase used
2125 in SSL-enabled communication with a remote server (when the
2126 <parameter>server_method</parameter> is set to 'https' in the
2127 client's construction or in the send method).</para>
2129 <para>The <parameter>certificate</parameter> parameter must be the
2130 filename of a PEM formatted certificate. The
2131 <parameter>passphrase</parameter> parameter must contain the
2132 password required to use the certificate.</para>
2134 <para>This requires the "curl" extension to be compiled into your
2135 installation of PHP. For more details see the man page for the
2136 <function>curl_setopt</function> function.</para>
2138 <para>Note: to retrieve information about the client certificate on
2139 the server side, you will need to look into the environment
2140 variables which are set up by the webserver. Different webservers
2141 will typically set up different variables.</para>
2145 <title>setCookie</title>
2149 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setCookie</function></funcdef>
2151 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$name</parameter></paramdef>
2153 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$value</parameter></paramdef>
2155 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$path</parameter></paramdef>
2157 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$domain</parameter></paramdef>
2159 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$port</parameter></paramdef>
2163 <para>This method sets a cookie that will be sent to the xmlrpc
2164 server along with every further request (useful e.g. for keeping
2165 session info outside of the xml-rpc payload).</para>
2167 <para><parameter>$value</parameter> is optional, and defaults to
2170 <para><parameter>$path, $domain and $port</parameter> are optional,
2171 and will be omitted from the cookie header if unspecified. Note that
2172 setting any of these values will turn the cookie into a 'version 1'
2173 cookie, that might not be fully supported by the server (see RFC2965
2174 for more details).</para>
2178 <title>setCredentials</title>
2182 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setCredentials</function></funcdef>
2184 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$username</parameter></paramdef>
2186 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$password</parameter></paramdef>
2188 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$authtype</parameter></paramdef>
2192 <para>This method sets the username and password for authorizing the
2193 client to a server. With the default (HTTP) transport, this
2194 information is used for HTTP Basic authorization. Note that username
2195 and password can also be set using the class constructor. With HTTP
2196 1.1 and HTTPS transport, NTLM and Digest authentication protocols
2197 are also supported. To enable them use the constants
2198 <constant>CURLAUTH_DIGEST</constant> and
2199 <constant>CURLAUTH_NTLM</constant> as values for the authtype
2204 <title>setCurlOptions</title>
2206 <para><funcsynopsis>
2208 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setCurlOptions</function></funcdef>
2210 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$options</parameter></paramdef>
2212 </funcsynopsis>This method allows to directly set any desired
2213 option to manipulate the usage of the cURL client (when in cURL
2214 mode). It can be used eg. to explicitly bind to an outgoing ip
2215 address when the server is multihomed</para>
2219 <title>setDebug</title>
2223 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setDebug</function></funcdef>
2225 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$debugLvl</parameter></paramdef>
2229 <para><parameter>debugLvl</parameter> is either <literal>0,
2230 1</literal> or 2 depending on whether you require the client to
2231 print debugging information to the browser. The default is not to
2232 output this information (0).</para>
2234 <para>The debugging information at level 1includes the raw data
2235 returned from the XML-RPC server it was querying (including bot HTTP
2236 headers and the full XML payload), and the PHP value the client
2237 attempts to create to represent the value returned by the server. At
2238 level2, the complete payload of the xmlrpc request is also printed,
2239 before being sent t the server.</para>
2241 <para>This option can be very useful when debugging servers as it
2242 allows you to see exactly what the client sends and the server
2247 <title>setKey</title>
2251 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setKey</function></funcdef>
2253 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$key</parameter></paramdef>
2255 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$keypass</parameter></paramdef>
2259 <para>This method sets the optional certificate key and passphrase
2260 used in SSL-enabled communication with a remote server (when the
2261 <parameter>transport</parameter> is set to 'https' in the client's
2262 construction or in the send method).</para>
2264 <para>This requires the "curl" extension to be compiled into your
2265 installation of PHP. For more details see the man page for the
2266 <function>curl_setopt</function> function.</para>
2270 <title>setProxy</title>
2274 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setProxy</function></funcdef>
2276 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$proxyhost</parameter></paramdef>
2278 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$proxyport</parameter></paramdef>
2280 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$proxyusername</parameter></paramdef>
2282 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$proxypassword</parameter></paramdef>
2284 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$authtype</parameter></paramdef>
2288 <para>This method enables calling servers via an HTTP proxy. The
2289 <parameter>proxyusername</parameter>,<parameter>
2290 proxypassword</parameter> and <parameter>authtype</parameter>
2291 parameters are optional. <parameter>Authtype</parameter> defaults to
2292 <constant>CURLAUTH_BASIC</constant> (Basic authentication protocol);
2293 the only other valid value is the constant
2294 <constant>CURLAUTH_NTLM</constant>, and has effect only when the
2295 client uses the HTTP 1.1 protocol.</para>
2297 <para>NB: CURL versions before 7.11.10 cannot use a proxy to
2298 communicate with https servers.</para>
2302 <title>setRequestCompression</title>
2306 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setRequestCompression</function></funcdef>
2308 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$compressionmethod</parameter></paramdef>
2312 <para>This method defines whether the xml payload forming the
2313 request body will be sent to the server in compressed format, as per
2314 the HTTP specification. This is particularly useful for large
2315 request parameters and over slow network connections. Allowed values
2316 for <parameter>compressionmethod</parameter> are: 'gzip', 'deflate',
2317 'any' or null (with any meaning either gzip or deflate). Note that
2318 there is no automatic fallback mechanism in place for errors due to
2319 servers not supporting receiving compressed request bodies, so make
2320 sure that the particular server you are querying does accept
2321 compressed requests before turning it on.</para>
2323 <para>This requires the "zlib" extension to be enabled in your php
2328 <title>setSSLVerifyHost</title>
2332 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setSSLVerifyHost</function></funcdef>
2334 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$i</parameter></paramdef>
2338 <para>This method defines whether connections made to XML-RPC
2339 backends via HTTPS should verify the remote host's SSL certificate's
2340 common name (CN). By default, only the existence of a CN is checked.
2341 <parameter><parameter>$i</parameter></parameter> should be an
2342 integer value; 0 to not check the CN at all, 1 to merely check for
2343 its existence, and 2 to check that the CN on the certificate matches
2344 the hostname that is being connected to.</para>
2348 <title>setSSLVerifyPeer</title>
2352 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setSSLVerifyPeer</function></funcdef>
2354 <paramdef><type>bool</type><parameter>$i</parameter></paramdef>
2358 <para>This method defines whether connections made to XML-RPC
2359 backends via HTTPS should verify the remote host's SSL certificate,
2360 and cause the connection to fail if the cert verification fails.
2361 <parameter><parameter>$i</parameter></parameter> should be a boolean
2362 value. Default value: <constant>TRUE</constant>. To specify custom
2363 SSL certificates to validate the server with, use the
2364 <methodname>setCaCertificate</methodname> method.</para>
2368 <title>setUserAgent</title>
2370 <para><funcsynopsis>
2372 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>Useragent</function></funcdef>
2374 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$useragent</parameter></paramdef>
2376 </funcsynopsis>This method sets a custom user-agent that will be
2377 used by the client in the http headers sent with the request. The
2378 default value is built using the library name and version
2384 <title>Variables</title>
2386 <para>NB: direct manipulation of these variables is only recommended
2387 for advanced users.</para>
2390 <title>no_multicall</title>
2392 <para>This member variable determines whether the multicall() method
2393 will try to take advantage of the system.multicall xmlrpc method to
2394 dispatch to the server an array of requests in a single http
2395 roundtrip or simply execute many consecutive http calls. Defaults to
2396 FALSE, but it will be enabled automatically on the first failure of
2397 execution of system.multicall.</para>
2401 <title>request_charset_encoding</title>
2403 <para>This is the charset encoding that will be used for serializing
2404 request sent by the client.</para>
2406 <para>If defaults to NULL, which means using US-ASCII and encoding
2407 all characters outside of the ASCII range using their xml character
2408 entity representation (this has the benefit that line end characters
2409 will not be mangled in the transfer, a CR-LF will be preserved as
2410 well as a singe LF).</para>
2412 <para>Valid values are 'US-ASCII', 'UTF-8' and 'ISO-8859-1'</para>
2415 <sect3 id="return-type" xreflabel="return_type">
2416 <title>return_type</title>
2418 <para>This member variable determines whether the value returned
2419 inside an xmlrpcresp object as results of calls to the send() and
2420 multicall() methods will be an xmlrpcval object, a plain php value
2421 or a raw xml string. Allowed values are 'xmlrpcvals' (the default),
2422 'phpvals' and 'xml'. To allow the user to differentiate between a
2423 correct and a faulty response, fault responses will be returned as
2424 xmlrpcresp objects in any case. Note that the 'phpvals' setting will
2425 yield faster execution times, but some of the information from the
2426 original response will be lost. It will be e.g. impossible to tell
2427 whether a particular php string value was sent by the server as an
2428 xmlrpc string or base64 value.</para>
2430 <para>Example usage:</para>
2432 <programlisting language="php">
2433 $client = new xmlrpc_client("phpxmlrpc.sourceforge.net/server.php");
2434 $client->return_type = 'phpvals';
2435 $message = new xmlrpcmsg("examples.getStateName", array(new xmlrpcval(23, "int")));
2436 $resp = $client->send($message);
2437 if ($resp->faultCode()) echo 'KO. Error: '.$resp->faultString(); else echo 'OK: got '.$resp->value();
2440 <para>For more details about usage of the 'xml' value, see Appendix
2446 <sect1 id="xmlrpcresp" xreflabel="xmlrpcresp">
2447 <title>xmlrpcresp</title>
2449 <para>This class is used to contain responses to XML-RPC requests. A
2450 server method handler will construct an
2451 <classname>xmlrpcresp</classname> and pass it as a return value. This
2452 same value will be returned by the result of an invocation of the
2453 <function>send</function> method of the
2454 <classname>xmlrpc_client</classname> class.</para>
2457 <title>Creation</title>
2461 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcresp</type>new
2462 <function>xmlrpcresp</function></funcdef>
2464 <paramdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><parameter>$xmlrpcval</parameter></paramdef>
2468 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcresp</type>new
2469 <function>xmlrpcresp</function></funcdef>
2471 <paramdef><parameter>0</parameter></paramdef>
2473 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$errcode</parameter></paramdef>
2475 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$err_string</parameter></paramdef>
2479 <para>The first syntax is used when execution has happened without
2480 difficulty: <parameter>$xmlrpcval</parameter> is an
2481 <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> value with the result of the method
2482 execution contained in it. Alternatively it can be a string containing
2483 the xml serialization of the single xml-rpc value result of method
2486 <para>The second type of constructor is used in case of failure.
2487 <parameter>errcode</parameter> and <parameter>err_string</parameter>
2488 are used to provide indication of what has gone wrong. See <xref
2489 linkend="xmlrpc-server" /> for more information on passing error
2494 <title>Methods</title>
2497 <title>faultCode</title>
2501 <funcdef><type>int</type><function>faultCode</function></funcdef>
2507 <para>Returns the integer fault code return from the XML-RPC
2508 response. A zero value indicates success, any other value indicates
2509 a failure response.</para>
2513 <title>faultString</title>
2517 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>faultString</function></funcdef>
2523 <para>Returns the human readable explanation of the fault indicated
2524 by <function>$resp->faultCode</function>().</para>
2528 <title>value</title>
2532 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><function>value</function></funcdef>
2538 <para>Returns an <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> object containing
2539 the return value sent by the server. If the response's
2540 <function>faultCode</function> is non-zero then the value returned
2541 by this method should not be used (it may not even be an
2544 <para>Note: if the xmlrpcresp instance in question has been created
2545 by an <classname>xmlrpc_client</classname> object whose
2546 <varname>return_type</varname> was set to 'phpvals', then a plain
2547 php value will be returned instead of an
2548 <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> object. If the
2549 <varname>return_type</varname> was set to 'xml', an xml string will
2550 be returned (see the return_type member var above for more
2555 <title>serialize</title>
2559 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>serialize</function></funcdef>
2565 <para>Returns an XML string representation of the response (xml
2566 prologue not included).</para>
2571 <sect1 id="xmlrpc-server" xreflabel="xmlrpc_server">
2572 <title>xmlrpc_server</title>
2574 <para>The implementation of this class has been kept as simple to use as
2575 possible. The constructor for the server basically does all the work.
2576 Here's a minimal example:</para>
2578 <programlisting language="php">
2579 function foo ($xmlrpcmsg) {
2581 return new xmlrpcresp($some_xmlrpc_val);
2585 function foobar($xmlrpcmsg) {
2587 return new xmlrpcresp($some_xmlrpc_val);
2591 $s = new xmlrpc_server(
2593 "examples.myFunc1" => array("function" => "foo"),
2594 "examples.myFunc2" => array("function" => "bar::foobar"),
2598 <para>This performs everything you need to do with a server. The single
2599 constructor argument is an associative array from xmlrpc method names to
2600 php function names. The incoming request is parsed and dispatched to the
2601 relevant php function, which is responsible for returning a
2602 <classname>xmlrpcresp</classname> object, that will be serialized back
2603 to the caller.</para>
2606 <title>Method handler functions</title>
2608 <para>Both php functions and class methods can be registered as xmlrpc
2609 method handlers.</para>
2611 <para>The synopsis of a method handler function is:</para>
2613 <para><synopsis>xmlrpcresp $resp = function (xmlrpcmsg $msg)</synopsis></para>
2615 <para>No text should be echoed 'to screen' by the handler function, or
2616 it will break the xml response sent back to the client. This applies
2617 also to error and warning messages that PHP prints to screen unless
2618 the appropriate parameters have been set in the php.in file. Another
2619 way to prevent echoing of errors inside the response and facilitate
2620 debugging is to use the server SetDebug method with debug level 3 (see
2621 ...). Exceptions thrown duting execution of handler functions are
2622 caught by default and a XML-RPC error reponse is generated instead.
2623 This behaviour can be finetuned by usage of the
2624 <varname>exception_handling</varname> member variable (see
2627 <para>Note that if you implement a method with a name prefixed by
2628 <code>system.</code> the handler function will be invoked by the
2629 server with two parameters, the first being the server itself and the
2630 second being the <classname>xmlrpcmsg</classname> object.</para>
2632 <para>The same php function can be registered as handler of multiple
2633 xmlrpc methods.</para>
2635 <para>Here is a more detailed example of what the handler function
2636 <function>foo</function> may do:</para>
2638 <programlisting language="php">
2639 function foo ($xmlrpcmsg) {
2640 global $xmlrpcerruser; // import user errcode base value
2642 $meth = $xmlrpcmsg->method(); // retrieve method name
2643 $par = $xmlrpcmsg->getParam(0); // retrieve value of first parameter - assumes at least one param received
2644 $val = $par->scalarval(); // decode value of first parameter - assumes it is a scalar value
2649 // this is an error condition
2650 return new xmlrpcresp(0, $xmlrpcerruser+1, // user error 1
2651 "There's a problem, Captain");
2653 // this is a successful value being returned
2654 return new xmlrpcresp(new xmlrpcval("All's fine!", "string"));
2659 <para>See <filename>server.php</filename> in this distribution for
2660 more examples of how to do this.</para>
2662 <para>Since release 2.0RC3 there is a new, even simpler way of
2663 registering php functions with the server. See section 5.7
2668 <title>The dispatch map</title>
2670 <para>The first argument to the <function>xmlrpc_server</function>
2671 constructor is an array, called the <emphasis>dispatch map</emphasis>.
2672 In this array is the information the server needs to service the
2673 XML-RPC methods you define.</para>
2675 <para>The dispatch map takes the form of an associative array of
2676 associative arrays: the outer array has one entry for each method, the
2677 key being the method name. The corresponding value is another
2678 associative array, which can have the following members:</para>
2682 <para><function><literal>function</literal></function> - this
2683 entry is mandatory. It must be either a name of a function in the
2684 global scope which services the XML-RPC method, or an array
2685 containing an instance of an object and a static method name (for
2686 static class methods the 'class::method' syntax is also
2691 <para><function><literal>signature</literal></function> - this
2692 entry is an array containing the possible signatures (see <xref
2693 linkend="signatures" />) for the method. If this entry is present
2694 then the server will check that the correct number and type of
2695 parameters have been sent for this method before dispatching
2700 <para><function><literal>docstring</literal></function> - this
2701 entry is a string containing documentation for the method. The
2702 documentation may contain HTML markup.</para>
2706 <para><literal>signature_docs</literal> - this entry can be used
2707 to provide documentation for the single parameters. It must match
2708 in structure the 'signature' member. By default, only the
2709 <classname>documenting_xmlrpc_server</classname> class in the
2710 extras package will take advantage of this, since the
2711 "system.methodHelp" protocol does not support documenting method
2712 parameters individually.</para>
2716 <para><literal>parameters_type</literal> - this entry can be used
2717 when the server is working in 'xmlrpcvals' mode (see ...) to
2718 define one or more entries in the dispatch map as being functions
2719 that follow the 'phpvals' calling convention. The only useful
2720 value is currently the string <literal>phpvals</literal>.</para>
2724 <para>Look at the <filename>server.php</filename> example in the
2725 distribution to see what a dispatch map looks like.</para>
2728 <sect2 id="signatures" xreflabel="Signatures">
2729 <title>Method signatures</title>
2731 <para>A signature is a description of a method's return type and its
2732 parameter types. A method may have more than one signature.</para>
2734 <para>Within a server's dispatch map, each method has an array of
2735 possible signatures. Each signature is an array of types. The first
2736 entry is the return type. For instance, the method <programlisting
2737 language="php">string examples.getStateName(int)
2738 </programlisting> has the signature <programlisting language="php">array($xmlrpcString, $xmlrpcInt)
2739 </programlisting> and, assuming that it is the only possible signature for the
2740 method, it might be used like this in server creation: <programlisting
2742 $findstate_sig = array(array($xmlrpcString, $xmlrpcInt));
2744 $findstate_doc = 'When passed an integer between 1 and 51 returns the
2745 name of a US state, where the integer is the index of that state name
2746 in an alphabetic order.';
2748 $s = new xmlrpc_server( array(
2749 "examples.getStateName" => array(
2750 "function" => "findstate",
2751 "signature" => $findstate_sig,
2752 "docstring" => $findstate_doc
2754 </programlisting></para>
2756 <para>Note that method signatures do not allow to check nested
2757 parameters, e.g. the number, names and types of the members of a
2758 struct param cannot be validated.</para>
2760 <para>If a method that you want to expose has a definite number of
2761 parameters, but each of those parameters could reasonably be of
2762 multiple types, the array of acceptable signatures will easily grow
2763 into a combinatorial explosion. To avoid such a situation, the lib
2764 defines the global var <varname>$xmlrpcValue</varname>, which can be
2765 used in method signatures as a placeholder for 'any xmlrpc
2768 <para><programlisting language="php">
2769 $echoback_sig = array(array($xmlrpcValue, $xmlrpcValue));
2771 $findstate_doc = 'Echoes back to the client the received value, regardless of its type';
2773 $s = new xmlrpc_server( array(
2774 "echoBack" => array(
2775 "function" => "echoback",
2776 "signature" => $echoback_sig, // this sig guarantees that the method handler will be called with one and only one parameter
2777 "docstring" => $echoback_doc
2779 </programlisting></para>
2781 <para>Methods <methodname>system.listMethods</methodname>,
2782 <methodname>system.methodHelp</methodname>,
2783 <methodname>system.methodSignature</methodname> and
2784 <methodname>system.multicall</methodname> are already defined by the
2785 server, and should not be reimplemented (see Reserved Methods
2790 <title>Delaying the server response</title>
2792 <para>You may want to construct the server, but for some reason not
2793 fulfill the request immediately (security verification, for instance).
2794 If you omit to pass to the constructor the dispatch map or pass it a
2795 second argument of <literal>0</literal> this will have the desired
2796 effect. You can then use the <function>service()</function> method of
2797 the server class to service the request. For example:</para>
2799 <programlisting language="php">
2800 $s = new xmlrpc_server($myDispMap, 0); // second parameter = 0 prevents automatic servicing of request
2802 // ... some code that does other stuff here
2807 <para>Note that the <methodname>service</methodname> method will print
2808 the complete result payload to screen and send appropriate HTTP
2809 headers back to the client, but also return the response object. This
2810 permits further manipulation of the response, possibly in combination
2811 with output buffering.</para>
2813 <para>To prevent the server from sending HTTP headers back to the
2814 client, you can pass a second parameter with a value of
2815 <literal>TRUE</literal> to the <methodname>service</methodname>
2816 method. In this case, the response payload will be returned instead of
2817 the response object.</para>
2819 <para>Xmlrpc requests retrieved by other means than HTTP POST bodies
2820 can also be processed. For example:</para>
2822 <programlisting language="php">
2823 $s = new xmlrpc_server(); // not passing a dispatch map prevents automatic servicing of request
2825 // ... some code that does other stuff here, including setting dispatch map into server object
2827 $resp = $s->service($xmlrpc_request_body, true); // parse a variable instead of POST body, retrieve response payload
2829 // ... some code that does other stuff with xml response $resp here
2834 <title>Modifying the server behaviour</title>
2836 <para>A couple of methods / class variables are available to modify
2837 the behaviour of the server. The only way to take advantage of their
2838 existence is by usage of a delayed server response (see above)</para>
2841 <title>setDebug()</title>
2843 <para>This function controls weather the server is going to echo
2844 debugging messages back to the client as comments in response body.
2845 Valid values: 0,1,2,3, with 1 being the default. At level 0, no
2846 debug info is returned to the client. At level 2, the complete
2847 client request is added to the response, as part of the xml
2848 comments. At level 3, a new PHP error handler is set when executing
2849 user functions exposed as server methods, and all non-fatal errors
2850 are trapped and added as comments into the response.</para>
2854 <title>allow_system_funcs</title>
2856 <para>Default_value: TRUE. When set to FALSE, disables support for
2857 <methodname>System.xxx</methodname> functions in the server. It
2858 might be useful e.g. if you do not wish the server to respond to
2859 requests to <methodname>System.ListMethods</methodname>.</para>
2863 <title>compress_response</title>
2865 <para>When set to TRUE, enables the server to take advantage of HTTP
2866 compression, otherwise disables it. Responses will be transparently
2867 compressed, but only when an xmlrpc-client declares its support for
2868 compression in the HTTP headers of the request.</para>
2870 <para>Note that the ZLIB php extension must be installed for this to
2871 work. If it is, <varname>compress_response</varname> will default to
2876 <title>exception_handling</title>
2878 <para>This variable controls the behaviour of the server when an
2879 exception is thrown by a method handler php function. Valid values:
2880 0,1,2, with 0 being the default. At level 0, the server catches the
2881 exception and return an 'internal error' xmlrpc response; at 1 it
2882 catches the exceptions and return an xmlrpc response with the error
2883 code and error message corresponding to the exception that was
2884 thron; at 2 = the exception is floated to the upper layers in the
2889 <title>response_charset_encoding</title>
2891 <para>Charset encoding to be used for response (only affects string
2894 <para>If it can, the server will convert the generated response from
2895 internal_encoding to the intended one.</para>
2897 <para>Valid values are: a supported xml encoding (only UTF-8 and
2898 ISO-8859-1 at present, unless mbstring is enabled), null (leave
2899 charset unspecified in response and convert output stream to
2900 US_ASCII), 'default' (use xmlrpc library default as specified in
2901 xmlrpc.inc, convert output stream if needed), or 'auto' (use
2902 client-specified charset encoding or same as request if request
2903 headers do not specify it (unless request is US-ASCII: then use
2904 library default anyway).</para>
2909 <title>Fault reporting</title>
2911 <para>Fault codes for your servers should start at the value indicated
2912 by the global <literal>$xmlrpcerruser</literal> + 1.</para>
2914 <para>Standard errors returned by the server include:</para>
2918 <term><literal>1</literal> <phrase>Unknown method</phrase></term>
2921 <para>Returned if the server was asked to dispatch a method it
2922 didn't know about</para>
2927 <term><literal>2</literal> <phrase>Invalid return
2928 payload</phrase></term>
2931 <para>This error is actually generated by the client, not
2932 server, code, but signifies that a server returned something it
2933 couldn't understand. A more detailed error report is sometimes
2934 added onto the end of the phrase above.</para>
2939 <term><literal>3</literal> <phrase>Incorrect
2940 parameters</phrase></term>
2943 <para>This error is generated when the server has signature(s)
2944 defined for a method, and the parameters passed by the client do
2945 not match any of signatures.</para>
2950 <term><literal>4</literal> <phrase>Can't introspect: method
2951 unknown</phrase></term>
2954 <para>This error is generated by the builtin
2955 <function>system.*</function> methods when any kind of
2956 introspection is attempted on a method undefined by the
2962 <term><literal>5</literal> <phrase>Didn't receive 200 OK from
2963 remote server</phrase></term>
2966 <para>This error is generated by the client when a remote server
2967 doesn't return HTTP/1.1 200 OK in response to a request. A more
2968 detailed error report is added onto the end of the phrase
2974 <term><literal>6</literal> <phrase>No data received from
2975 server</phrase></term>
2978 <para>This error is generated by the client when a remote server
2979 returns HTTP/1.1 200 OK in response to a request, but no
2980 response body follows the HTTP headers.</para>
2985 <term><literal>7</literal> <phrase>No SSL support compiled
2989 <para>This error is generated by the client when trying to send
2990 a request with HTTPS and the CURL extension is not available to
2996 <term><literal>8</literal> <phrase>CURL error</phrase></term>
2999 <para>This error is generated by the client when trying to send
3000 a request with HTTPS and the HTTPS communication fails.</para>
3005 <term><literal>9-14</literal> <phrase>multicall
3006 errors</phrase></term>
3009 <para>These errors are generated by the server when something
3010 fails inside a system.multicall request.</para>
3015 <term><literal>100-</literal> <phrase>XML parse
3016 errors</phrase></term>
3019 <para>Returns 100 plus the XML parser error code for the fault
3020 that occurred. The <function>faultString</function> returned
3021 explains where the parse error was in the incoming XML
3029 <title>'New style' servers</title>
3031 <para>In the same spirit of simplification that inspired the
3032 <varname>xmlrpc_client::return_type</varname> class variable, a new
3033 class variable has been added to the server class:
3034 <varname>functions_parameters_type</varname>. When set to 'phpvals',
3035 the functions registered in the server dispatch map will be called
3036 with plain php values as parameters, instead of a single xmlrpcmsg
3037 instance parameter. The return value of those functions is expected to
3038 be a plain php value, too. An example is worth a thousand
3039 words:<programlisting language="php">
3040 function foo($usr_id, $out_lang='en') {
3041 global $xmlrpcerruser;
3045 if ($someErrorCondition)
3046 return new xmlrpcresp(0, $xmlrpcerruser+1, 'DOH!');
3051 'picture' => new xmlrpcval(file_get_contents($picOfTheGuy), 'base64')
3055 $s = new xmlrpc_server(
3057 "examples.myFunc" => array(
3058 "function" => "bar::foobar",
3059 "signature" => array(
3060 array($xmlrpcString, $xmlrpcInt),
3061 array($xmlrpcString, $xmlrpcInt, $xmlrpcString)
3065 $s->functions_parameters_type = 'phpvals';
3067 </programlisting>There are a few things to keep in mind when using this
3068 simplified syntax:</para>
3070 <para>to return an xmlrpc error, the method handler function must
3071 return an instance of <classname>xmlrpcresp</classname>. The only
3072 other way for the server to know when an error response should be
3073 served to the client is to throw an exception and set the server's
3074 <varname>exception_handling</varname> memeber var to 1;</para>
3076 <para>to return a base64 value, the method handler function must
3077 encode it on its own, creating an instance of an xmlrpcval
3080 <para>the method handler function cannot determine the name of the
3081 xmlrpc method it is serving, unlike standard handler functions that
3082 can retrieve it from the message object;</para>
3084 <para>when receiving nested parameters, the method handler function
3085 has no way to distinguish a php string that was sent as base64 value
3086 from one that was sent as a string value;</para>
3088 <para>this has a direct consequence on the support of
3089 system.multicall: a method whose signature contains datetime or base64
3090 values will not be available to multicall calls;</para>
3092 <para>last but not least, the direct parsing of xml to php values is
3093 much faster than using xmlrpcvals, and allows the library to handle
3094 much bigger messages without allocating all available server memory or
3095 smashing PHP recursive call stack.</para>
3100 <chapter id="globalvars">
3101 <title>Global variables</title>
3103 <para>Many global variables are defined in the xmlrpc.inc file. Some of
3104 those are meant to be used as constants (and modifying their value might
3105 cause unpredictable behaviour), while some others can be modified in your
3106 php scripts to alter the behaviour of the xml-rpc client and
3110 <title>"Constant" variables</title>
3113 <title>$xmlrpcerruser</title>
3115 <para><fieldsynopsis>
3116 <varname>$xmlrpcerruser</varname>
3118 <initializer>800</initializer>
3119 </fieldsynopsis>The minimum value for errors reported by user
3120 implemented XML-RPC servers. Error numbers lower than that are
3121 reserved for library usage.</para>
3125 <title>$xmlrpcI4, $xmlrpcInt, $xmlrpcBoolean, $xmlrpcDouble,
3126 $xmlrpcString, $xmlrpcDateTime, $xmlrpcBase64, $xmlrpcArray,
3127 $xmlrpcStruct, $xmlrpcValue, $xmlrpcNull</title>
3129 <para>For convenience the strings representing the XML-RPC types have
3130 been encoded as global variables:<programlisting language="php">
3133 $xmlrpcBoolean="boolean";
3134 $xmlrpcDouble="double";
3135 $xmlrpcString="string";
3136 $xmlrpcDateTime="dateTime.iso8601";
3137 $xmlrpcBase64="base64";
3138 $xmlrpcArray="array";
3139 $xmlrpcStruct="struct";
3140 $xmlrpcValue="undefined";
3142 </programlisting></para>
3146 <title>$xmlrpcTypes, $xmlrpc_valid_parents, $xmlrpcerr, $xmlrpcstr,
3147 $xmlrpcerrxml, $xmlrpc_backslash, $_xh, $xml_iso88591_Entities,
3148 $xmlEntities, $xmlrpcs_capabilities</title>
3150 <para>Reserved for internal usage.</para>
3155 <title>Variables whose value can be modified</title>
3157 <sect2 id="xmlrpc-defencoding" xreflabel="xmlrpc_defencoding">
3158 <title xreflabel="">xmlrpc_defencoding</title>
3161 <varname>$xmlrpc_defencoding</varname>
3163 <initializer>"UTF8"</initializer>
3166 <para>This variable defines the character set encoding that will be
3167 used by the xml-rpc client and server to decode the received messages,
3168 when a specific charset declaration is not found (in the messages sent
3169 non-ascii chars are always encoded using character references, so that
3170 the produced xml is valid regardless of the charset encoding
3173 <para>Allowed values: <literal>"UTF8"</literal>,
3174 <literal>"ISO-8859-1"</literal>, <literal>"ASCII".</literal></para>
3176 <para>Note that the appropriate RFC actually mandates that XML
3177 received over HTTP without indication of charset encoding be treated
3178 as US-ASCII, but many servers and clients 'in the wild' violate the
3179 standard, and assume the default encoding is UTF-8.</para>
3183 <title>xmlrpc_internalencoding</title>
3185 <para><fieldsynopsis>
3186 <varname>$xmlrpc_internalencoding</varname>
3188 <initializer>"ISO-8859-1"</initializer>
3189 </fieldsynopsis>This variable defines the character set encoding
3190 that the library uses to transparently encode into valid XML the
3191 xml-rpc values created by the user and to re-encode the received
3192 xml-rpc values when it passes them to the PHP application. It only
3193 affects xml-rpc values of string type. It is a separate value from
3194 xmlrpc_defencoding, allowing e.g. to send/receive xml messages encoded
3195 on-the-wire in US-ASCII and process them as UTF-8. It defaults to the
3196 character set used internally by PHP (unless you are running an
3197 MBString-enabled installation), so you should change it only in
3198 special situations, if e.g. the string values exchanged in the xml-rpc
3199 messages are directly inserted into / fetched from a database
3200 configured to return UTF8 encoded strings to PHP. Example
3203 <para><programlisting language="php">
3206 include('xmlrpc.inc');
3207 $xmlrpc_internalencoding = 'UTF-8'; // this has to be set after the inclusion above
3208 $v = new xmlrpcval('κόÏ
\83με'); // This xmlrpc value will be correctly serialized as the greek word 'kosme'
3209 </programlisting></para>
3213 <title>xmlrpcName</title>
3215 <para><fieldsynopsis>
3216 <varname>$xmlrpcName</varname>
3218 <initializer>"XML-RPC for PHP"</initializer>
3219 </fieldsynopsis>The string representation of the name of the XML-RPC
3220 for PHP library. It is used by the client for building the User-Agent
3221 HTTP header that is sent with every request to the server. You can
3222 change its value if you need to customize the User-Agent
3227 <title>xmlrpcVersion</title>
3229 <para><fieldsynopsis>
3230 <varname>$xmlrpcVersion</varname>
3232 <initializer>"2.2"</initializer>
3233 </fieldsynopsis>The string representation of the version number of
3234 the XML-RPC for PHP library in use. It is used by the client for
3235 building the User-Agent HTTP header that is sent with every request to
3236 the server. You can change its value if you need to customize the
3237 User-Agent string.</para>
3241 <title>xmlrpc_null_extension</title>
3243 <para>When set to <constant>TRUE</constant>, the lib will enable
3244 support for the <NIL/> (and <EX:NIL/>) xmlrpc value, as
3245 per the extension to the standard proposed here. This means that
3246 <NIL/> and <EX:NIL/> tags received will be parsed as valid
3247 xmlrpc, and the corresponding xmlrpcvals will return "null" for
3248 <methodname>scalarTyp()</methodname>.</para>
3252 <title>xmlrpc_null_apache_encoding</title>
3254 <para>When set to <literal>TRUE</literal>, php NULL values encoded
3255 into <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> objects get serialized using the
3256 <literal><EX:NIL/></literal> tag instead of
3257 <literal><NIL/></literal>. Please note that both forms are
3258 always accepted as input regardless of the value of this
3264 <chapter id="helpers">
3265 <title>Helper functions</title>
3267 <para>XML-RPC for PHP contains some helper functions which you can use to
3268 make processing of XML-RPC requests easier.</para>
3271 <title>Date functions</title>
3273 <para>The XML-RPC specification has this to say on dates:</para>
3276 <para id="wrap_xmlrpc_method">Don't assume a timezone. It should be
3277 specified by the server in its documentation what assumptions it makes
3278 about timezones.</para>
3281 <para>Unfortunately, this means that date processing isn't
3282 straightforward. Although XML-RPC uses ISO 8601 format dates, it doesn't
3283 use the timezone specifier.</para>
3285 <para>We strongly recommend that in every case where you pass dates in
3286 XML-RPC calls, you use UTC (GMT) as your timezone. Most computer
3287 languages include routines for handling GMT times natively, and you
3288 won't have to translate between timezones.</para>
3290 <para>For more information about dates, see <ulink
3291 url="http://www.uic.edu/year2000/datefmt.html">ISO 8601: The Right
3292 Format for Dates</ulink>, which has a handy link to a PDF of the ISO
3293 8601 specification. Note that XML-RPC uses exactly one of the available
3294 representations: CCYYMMDDTHH:MM:SS.</para>
3296 <sect2 id="iso8601encode" xreflabel="iso8601_encode()">
3297 <title>iso8601_encode</title>
3301 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>iso8601_encode</function></funcdef>
3303 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$time_t</parameter></paramdef>
3306 choice="opt"><type>int</type><parameter>$utc</parameter><initializer>0</initializer></paramdef>
3310 <para>Returns an ISO 8601 formatted date generated from the UNIX
3311 timestamp <parameter>$time_t</parameter>, as returned by the PHP
3312 function <function>time()</function>.</para>
3314 <para>The argument <parameter>$utc</parameter> can be omitted, in
3315 which case it defaults to <literal>0</literal>. If it is set to
3316 <literal>1</literal>, then the function corrects the time passed in
3317 for UTC. Example: if you're in the GMT-6:00 timezone and set
3318 <parameter>$utc</parameter>, you will receive a date representation
3319 six hours ahead of your local time.</para>
3321 <para>The included demo program <filename>vardemo.php</filename>
3322 includes a demonstration of this function.</para>
3325 <sect2 id="iso8601decode" xreflabel="iso8601_decode()">
3326 <title>iso8601_decode</title>
3330 <funcdef><type>int</type><function>iso8601_decode</function></funcdef>
3332 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$isoString</parameter></paramdef>
3334 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$utc</parameter><initializer>0</initializer></paramdef>
3338 <para>Returns a UNIX timestamp from an ISO 8601 encoded time and date
3339 string passed in. If <parameter>$utc</parameter> is
3340 <literal>1</literal> then <parameter>$isoString</parameter> is assumed
3341 to be in the UTC timezone, and thus the result is also UTC: otherwise,
3342 the timezone is assumed to be your local timezone and you receive a
3343 local timestamp.</para>
3347 <sect1 id="arrayuse">
3348 <title>Easy use with nested PHP values</title>
3350 <para>Dan Libby was kind enough to contribute two helper functions that
3351 make it easier to translate to and from PHP values. This makes it easier
3352 to deal with complex structures. At the moment support is limited to
3353 <type>int</type>, <type>double</type>, <type>string</type>,
3354 <type>array</type>, <type>datetime</type> and <type>struct</type>
3355 datatypes; note also that all PHP arrays are encoded as structs, except
3356 arrays whose keys are integer numbers starting with 0 and incremented by
3359 <para>These functions reside in <filename>xmlrpc.inc</filename>.</para>
3361 <sect2 id="phpxmlrpcdecode">
3362 <title>php_xmlrpc_decode</title>
3366 <funcdef><type>mixed</type><function>php_xmlrpc_decode</function></funcdef>
3368 <paramdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><parameter>$xmlrpc_val</parameter></paramdef>
3370 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$options</parameter></paramdef>
3374 <funcdef><type>array</type><function>php_xmlrpc_decode</function></funcdef>
3376 <paramdef><type>xmlrpcmsg</type><parameter>$xmlrpcmsg_val</parameter></paramdef>
3378 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$options</parameter></paramdef>
3382 <para>Returns a native PHP value corresponding to the values found in
3383 the <type>xmlrpcval</type> <parameter>$xmlrpc_val</parameter>,
3384 translated into PHP types. Base-64 and datetime values are
3385 automatically decoded to strings.</para>
3387 <para>In the second form, returns an array containing the parameters
3389 <parameter><classname>xmlrpcmsg</classname>_val</parameter>, decoded
3390 to php types.</para>
3392 <para>The <parameter>options</parameter> parameter is optional. If
3393 specified, it must consist of an array of options to be enabled in the
3394 decoding process. At the moment the only valid option are
3395 <symbol>decode_php_objs</symbol> and
3396 <literal>dates_as_objects</literal>. When the first is set, php
3397 objects that have been converted to xml-rpc structs using the
3398 <function>php_xmlrpc_encode</function> function and a corresponding
3399 encoding option will be converted back into object values instead of
3400 arrays (provided that the class definition is available at
3401 reconstruction time). When the second is set, XML-RPC datetime values
3402 will be converted into native <classname>dateTime</classname> objects
3403 instead of strings.</para>
3405 <para><emphasis><emphasis>WARNING</emphasis>:</emphasis> please take
3406 extreme care before enabling the <symbol>decode_php_objs</symbol>
3407 option: when php objects are rebuilt from the received xml, their
3408 constructor function will be silently invoked. This means that you are
3409 allowing the remote end to trigger execution of uncontrolled PHP code
3410 on your server, opening the door to code injection exploits. Only
3411 enable this option when you have complete trust of the remote
3412 server/client.</para>
3414 <para>Example:<programlisting language="php">
3415 // wrapper to expose an existing php function as xmlrpc method handler
3416 function foo_wrapper($m)
3418 $params = php_xmlrpc_decode($m);
3419 $retval = call_user_func_array('foo', $params);
3420 return new xmlrpcresp(new xmlrpcval($retval)); // foo return value will be serialized as string
3423 $s = new xmlrpc_server(array(
3424 "examples.myFunc1" => array(
3425 "function" => "foo_wrapper",
3426 "signatures" => ...
3428 </programlisting></para>
3431 <sect2 id="phpxmlrpcencode">
3432 <title>php_xmlrpc_encode</title>
3436 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><function>php_xmlrpc_encode</function></funcdef>
3438 <paramdef><type>mixed</type><parameter>$phpval</parameter></paramdef>
3440 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$options</parameter></paramdef>
3444 <para>Returns an <type>xmlrpcval</type> object populated with the PHP
3445 values in <parameter>$phpval</parameter>. Works recursively on arrays
3446 and objects, encoding numerically indexed php arrays into array-type
3447 xmlrpcval objects and non numerically indexed php arrays into
3448 struct-type xmlrpcval objects. Php objects are encoded into
3449 struct-type xmlrpcvals, excepted for php values that are already
3450 instances of the xmlrpcval class or descendants thereof, which will
3451 not be further encoded. Note that there's no support for encoding php
3452 values into base-64 values. Encoding of date-times is optionally
3453 carried on on php strings with the correct format.</para>
3455 <para>The <parameter>options</parameter> parameter is optional. If
3456 specified, it must consist of an array of options to be enabled in the
3457 encoding process. At the moment the only valid options are
3458 <symbol>encode_php_objs</symbol>, <literal>null_extension</literal>
3459 and <symbol>auto_dates</symbol>.</para>
3461 <para>The first will enable the creation of 'particular' xmlrpcval
3462 objects out of php objects, that add a "php_class" xml attribute to
3463 their serialized representation. This attribute allows the function
3464 php_xmlrpc_decode to rebuild the native php objects (provided that the
3465 same class definition exists on both sides of the communication). The
3466 second allows to encode php <literal>NULL</literal> values to the
3467 <literal><NIL/></literal> (or
3468 <literal><EX:NIL/></literal>, see ...) tag. The last encodes any
3469 string that matches the ISO8601 format into an XML-RPC
3472 <para>Example:<programlisting language="php">
3473 // the easy way to build a complex xml-rpc struct, showing nested base64 value and datetime values
3474 $val = php_xmlrpc_encode(array(
3475 'first struct_element: an int' => 666,
3476 'second: an array' => array ('apple', 'orange', 'banana'),
3477 'third: a base64 element' => new xmlrpcval('hello world', 'base64'),
3478 'fourth: a datetime' => '20060107T01:53:00'
3479 ), array('auto_dates'));
3480 </programlisting></para>
3484 <title>php_xmlrpc_decode_xml</title>
3488 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval | xmlrpcresp |
3489 xmlrpcmsg</type><function>php_xmlrpc_decode_xml</function></funcdef>
3491 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$xml</parameter></paramdef>
3493 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$options</parameter></paramdef>
3497 <para>Decodes the xml representation of either an xmlrpc request,
3498 response or single value, returning the corresponding php-xmlrpc
3499 object, or <literal>FALSE</literal> in case of an error.</para>
3501 <para>The <parameter>options</parameter> parameter is optional. If
3502 specified, it must consist of an array of options to be enabled in the
3503 decoding process. At the moment, no option is supported.</para>
3505 <para>Example:<programlisting language="php">
3506 $text = '<value><array><data><value>Hello world</value></data></array></value>';
3507 $val = php_xmlrpc_decode_xml($text);
3508 if ($val) echo 'Found a value of type '.$val->kindOf(); else echo 'Found invalid xml';
3509 </programlisting></para>
3514 <title>Automatic conversion of php functions into xmlrpc methods (and
3517 <para>For the extremely lazy coder, helper functions have been added
3518 that allow to convert a php function into an xmlrpc method, and a
3519 remotely exposed xmlrpc method into a local php function - or a set of
3520 methods into a php class. Note that these comes with many caveat.</para>
3523 <title>wrap_xmlrpc_method</title>
3527 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>wrap_xmlrpc_method</function></funcdef>
3529 <paramdef>$client</paramdef>
3531 <paramdef>$methodname</paramdef>
3533 <paramdef>$extra_options</paramdef>
3537 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>wrap_xmlrpc_method</function></funcdef>
3539 <paramdef>$client</paramdef>
3541 <paramdef>$methodname</paramdef>
3543 <paramdef>$signum</paramdef>
3545 <paramdef>$timeout</paramdef>
3547 <paramdef>$protocol</paramdef>
3549 <paramdef>$funcname</paramdef>
3553 <para>Given an xmlrpc server and a method name, creates a php wrapper
3554 function that will call the remote method and return results using
3555 native php types for both params and results. The generated php
3556 function will return an xmlrpcresp object for failed xmlrpc
3559 <para>The second syntax is deprecated, and is listed here only for
3560 backward compatibility.</para>
3562 <para>The server must support the
3563 <methodname>system.methodSignature</methodname> xmlrpc method call for
3564 this function to work.</para>
3566 <para>The <parameter>client</parameter> param must be a valid
3567 xmlrpc_client object, previously created with the address of the
3568 target xmlrpc server, and to which the preferred communication options
3569 have been set.</para>
3571 <para>The optional parameters can be passed as array key,value pairs
3572 in the <parameter>extra_options</parameter> param.</para>
3574 <para>The <parameter>signum</parameter> optional param has the purpose
3575 of indicating which method signature to use, if the given server
3576 method has multiple signatures (defaults to 0).</para>
3578 <para>The <parameter>timeout</parameter> and
3579 <parameter>protocol</parameter> optional params are the same as in the
3580 <methodname>xmlrpc_client::send()</methodname> method.</para>
3582 <para>If set, the optional <parameter>new_function_name</parameter>
3583 parameter indicates which name should be used for the generated
3584 function. In case it is not set the function name will be
3585 auto-generated.</para>
3587 <para>If the <literal>return_source</literal> optional parameter is
3588 set, the function will return the php source code to build the wrapper
3589 function, instead of evaluating it (useful to save the code and use it
3590 later as stand-alone xmlrpc client).</para>
3592 <para>If the <literal>encode_php_objs</literal> optional parameter is
3593 set, instances of php objects later passed as parameters to the newly
3594 created function will receive a 'special' treatment that allows the
3595 server to rebuild them as php objects instead of simple arrays. Note
3596 that this entails using a "slightly augmented" version of the xmlrpc
3597 protocol (ie. using element attributes), which might not be understood
3598 by xmlrpc servers implemented using other libraries.</para>
3600 <para>If the <literal>decode_php_objs</literal> optional parameter is
3601 set, instances of php objects that have been appropriately encoded by
3602 the server using a coordinate option will be deserialized as php
3603 objects instead of simple arrays (the same class definition should be
3604 present server side and client side).</para>
3606 <para><emphasis>Note that this might pose a security risk</emphasis>,
3607 since in order to rebuild the object instances their constructor
3608 method has to be invoked, and this means that the remote server can
3609 trigger execution of unforeseen php code on the client: not really a
3610 code injection, but almost. Please enable this option only when you
3611 trust the remote server.</para>
3613 <para>In case of an error during generation of the wrapper function,
3614 FALSE is returned, otherwise the name (or source code) of the new
3617 <para>Known limitations: server must support
3618 <methodname>system.methodsignature</methodname> for the wanted xmlrpc
3619 method; for methods that expose multiple signatures, only one can be
3620 picked; for remote calls with nested xmlrpc params, the caller of the
3621 generated php function has to encode on its own the params passed to
3622 the php function if these are structs or arrays whose (sub)members
3623 include values of type base64.</para>
3625 <para>Note: calling the generated php function 'might' be slow: a new
3626 xmlrpc client is created on every invocation and an xmlrpc-connection
3627 opened+closed. An extra 'debug' param is appended to the parameter
3628 list of the generated php function, useful for debugging
3631 <para>Example usage:</para>
3633 <programlisting language="php">
3634 $c = new xmlrpc_client('http://phpxmlrpc.sourceforge.net/server.php');
3636 $function = wrap_xmlrpc_method($client, 'examples.getStateName');
3639 die('Cannot introspect remote method');
3642 $statename = $function($a);
3643 if (is_a($statename, 'xmlrpcresp')) // call failed
3645 echo 'Call failed: '.$statename->faultCode().'. Calling again with debug on';
3646 $function($a, true);
3649 echo "OK, state nr. $stateno is $statename";
3654 <sect2 id="wrap_php_function">
3655 <title>wrap_php_function</title>
3659 <funcdef><type>array</type><function>wrap_php_function</function></funcdef>
3661 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$funcname</parameter></paramdef>
3663 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$wrapper_function_name</parameter></paramdef>
3665 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$extra_options</parameter></paramdef>
3669 <para>Given a user-defined PHP function, create a PHP 'wrapper'
3670 function that can be exposed as xmlrpc method from an xmlrpc_server
3671 object and called from remote clients, and return the appropriate
3672 definition to be added to a server's dispatch map.</para>
3674 <para>The optional <parameter>$wrapper_function_name</parameter>
3675 specifies the name that will be used for the auto-generated
3678 <para>Since php is a typeless language, to infer types of input and
3679 output parameters, it relies on parsing the javadoc-style comment
3680 block associated with the given function. Usage of xmlrpc native types
3681 (such as datetime.dateTime.iso8601 and base64) in the docblock @param
3682 tag is also allowed, if you need the php function to receive/send data
3683 in that particular format (note that base64 encoding/decoding is
3684 transparently carried out by the lib, while datetime vals are passed
3685 around as strings).</para>
3687 <para>Known limitations: only works for
3688 user-defined functions, not for PHP internal functions (reflection
3689 does not support retrieving number/type of params for those); the
3690 wrapped php function will not be able to programmatically return an
3691 xmlrpc error response.</para>
3693 <para>If the <literal>return_source</literal> optional parameter is
3694 set, the function will return the php source code to build the wrapper
3695 function, instead of evaluating it (useful to save the code and use it
3696 later in a stand-alone xmlrpc server). It will be in the stored in the
3697 <literal>source</literal> member of the returned array.</para>
3699 <para>If the <literal>suppress_warnings</literal> optional parameter
3700 is set, any runtime warning generated while processing the
3701 user-defined php function will be catched and not be printed in the
3702 generated xml response.</para>
3704 <para>If the <parameter>extra_options</parameter> array contains the
3705 <literal>encode_php_objs</literal> value, wrapped functions returning
3706 php objects will generate "special" xmlrpc responses: when the xmlrpc
3707 decoding of those responses is carried out by this same lib, using the
3708 appropriate param in php_xmlrpc_decode(), the objects will be
3711 <para>In short: php objects can be serialized, too (except for their
3712 resource members), using this function. Other libs might choke on the
3713 very same xml that will be generated in this case (i.e. it has a
3714 nonstandard attribute on struct element tags)</para>
3716 <para>If the <literal>decode_php_objs</literal> optional parameter is
3717 set, instances of php objects that have been appropriately encoded by
3718 the client using a coordinate option will be deserialized and passed
3719 to the user function as php objects instead of simple arrays (the same
3720 class definition should be present server side and client
3723 <para><emphasis>Note that this might pose a security risk</emphasis>,
3724 since in order to rebuild the object instances their constructor
3725 method has to be invoked, and this means that the remote client can
3726 trigger execution of unforeseen php code on the server: not really a
3727 code injection, but almost. Please enable this option only when you
3728 trust the remote clients.</para>
3730 <para>Example usage:</para>
3732 <para><programlisting language="php">/**
3733 * State name from state number decoder. NB: do NOT remove this comment block.
3734 * @param integer $stateno the state number
3735 * @return string the name of the state (or error description)
3737 function findstate($stateno)
3740 if (isset($stateNames[$stateno-1]))
3742 return $stateNames[$stateno-1];
3746 return "I don't have a state for the index '" . $stateno . "'";
3750 // wrap php function, build xmlrpc server
3752 $findstate_sig = wrap_php_function('findstate');
3754 $methods['examples.getStateName'] = $findstate_sig;
3755 $srv = new xmlrpc_server($methods);
3756 </programlisting></para>
3760 <sect1 id="deprecated">
3761 <title>Functions removed from the library</title>
3763 <para>The following two functions have been deprecated in version 1.1 of
3764 the library, and removed in version 2, in order to avoid conflicts with
3765 the EPI xml-rpc library, which also defines two functions with the same
3768 <para>To ease the transition to the new naming scheme and avoid breaking
3769 existing implementations, the following scheme has been adopted:
3772 <para>If EPI-XMLRPC is not active in the current PHP installation,
3773 the constant <literal>XMLRPC_EPI_ENABLED</literal> will be set to
3774 <literal>'0'</literal></para>
3778 <para>If EPI-XMLRPC is active in the current PHP installation, the
3779 constant <literal>XMLRPC_EPI_ENABLED</literal> will be set to
3780 <literal>'1'</literal></para>
3782 </itemizedlist></para>
3784 <para>The following documentation is kept for historical
3787 <sect2 id="xmlrpcdecode">
3788 <title>xmlrpc_decode</title>
3792 <funcdef><type>mixed</type><function>xmlrpc_decode</function></funcdef>
3794 <paramdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><parameter>$xmlrpc_val</parameter></paramdef>
3798 <para>Alias for php_xmlrpc_decode.</para>
3801 <sect2 id="xmlrpcencode">
3802 <title>xmlrpc_encode</title>
3806 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><function>xmlrpc_encode</function></funcdef>
3808 <paramdef><type>mixed</type><parameter>$phpval</parameter></paramdef>
3812 <para>Alias for php_xmlrpc_encode.</para>
3816 <sect1 id="debugging">
3817 <title>Debugging aids</title>
3820 <title>xmlrpc_debugmsg</title>
3824 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>xmlrpc_debugmsg</function></funcdef>
3826 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$debugstring</parameter></paramdef>
3830 <para>Sends the contents of <parameter>$debugstring</parameter> in XML
3831 comments in the server return payload. If a PHP client has debugging
3832 turned on, the user will be able to see server debug
3835 <para>Use this function in your methods so you can pass back
3836 diagnostic information. It is only available from
3837 <filename>xmlrpcs.inc</filename>.</para>
3842 <chapter id="reserved" xreflabel="Reserved methods">
3843 <title>Reserved methods</title>
3845 <para>In order to extend the functionality offered by XML-RPC servers
3846 without impacting on the protocol, reserved methods are supported in this
3849 <para>All methods starting with <function>system.</function> are
3850 considered reserved by the server. PHP for XML-RPC itself provides four
3851 special methods, detailed in this chapter.</para>
3853 <para>Note that all server objects will automatically respond to clients
3854 querying these methods, unless the property
3855 <property>allow_system_funcs</property> has been set to
3856 <constant>false</constant> before calling the
3857 <methodname>service()</methodname> method. This might pose a security risk
3858 if the server is exposed to public access, e.g. on the internet.</para>
3861 <title>system.getCapabilities</title>
3867 <title>system.listMethods</title>
3869 <para>This method may be used to enumerate the methods implemented by
3870 the XML-RPC server.</para>
3872 <para>The <function>system.listMethods</function> method requires no
3873 parameters. It returns an array of strings, each of which is the name of
3874 a method implemented by the server.</para>
3877 <sect1 id="sysmethodsig">
3878 <title>system.methodSignature</title>
3880 <para>This method takes one parameter, the name of a method implemented
3881 by the XML-RPC server.</para>
3883 <para>It returns an array of possible signatures for this method. A
3884 signature is an array of types. The first of these types is the return
3885 type of the method, the rest are parameters.</para>
3887 <para>Multiple signatures (i.e. overloading) are permitted: this is the
3888 reason that an array of signatures are returned by this method.</para>
3890 <para>Signatures themselves are restricted to the top level parameters
3891 expected by a method. For instance if a method expects one array of
3892 structs as a parameter, and it returns a string, its signature is simply
3893 "string, array". If it expects three integers, its signature is "string,
3894 int, int, int".</para>
3896 <para>For parameters that can be of more than one type, the "undefined"
3897 string is supported.</para>
3899 <para>If no signature is defined for the method, a not-array value is
3900 returned. Therefore this is the way to test for a non-signature, if
3901 <parameter>$resp</parameter> below is the response object from a method
3902 call to <function>system.methodSignature</function>:</para>
3904 <programlisting language="php">
3905 $v = $resp->value();
3906 if ($v->kindOf() != "array") {
3907 // then the method did not have a signature defined
3911 <para>See the <filename>introspect.php</filename> demo included in this
3912 distribution for an example of using this method.</para>
3915 <sect1 id="sysmethhelp">
3916 <title>system.methodHelp</title>
3918 <para>This method takes one parameter, the name of a method implemented
3919 by the XML-RPC server.</para>
3921 <para>It returns a documentation string describing the use of that
3922 method. If no such string is available, an empty string is
3925 <para>The documentation string may contain HTML markup.</para>
3929 <title>system.multicall</title>
3931 <para>This method takes one parameter, an array of 'request' struct
3932 types. Each request struct must contain a
3933 <parameter>methodName</parameter> member of type string and a
3934 <parameter>params</parameter> member of type array, and corresponds to
3935 the invocation of the corresponding method.</para>
3937 <para>It returns a response of type array, with each value of the array
3938 being either an error struct (containing the faultCode and faultString
3939 members) or the successful response value of the corresponding single
3944 <chapter id="examples" xreflabel="Examples">
3945 <title>Examples</title>
3947 <para>The best examples are to be found in the sample files included with
3948 the distribution. Some are included here.</para>
3950 <sect1 id="statename">
3951 <title>XML-RPC client: state name query</title>
3953 <para>Code to get the corresponding state name from a number (1-50) from
3954 the demo server available on SourceForge</para>
3956 <programlisting language="php">
3957 $m = new xmlrpcmsg('examples.getStateName',
3958 array(new xmlrpcval($HTTP_POST_VARS["stateno"], "int")));
3959 $c = new xmlrpc_client("/server.php", "phpxmlrpc.sourceforge.net", 80);
3960 $r = $c->send($m);
3961 if (!$r->faultCode()) {
3962 $v = $r->value();
3963 print "State number " . htmlentities($HTTP_POST_VARS["stateno"]) . " is " .
3964 htmlentities($v->scalarval()) . "<BR>";
3965 print "<HR>I got this value back<BR><PRE>" .
3966 htmlentities($r->serialize()) . "</PRE><HR>\n";
3968 print "Fault <BR>";
3969 print "Code: " . htmlentities($r->faultCode()) . "<BR>" .
3970 "Reason: '" . htmlentities($r->faultString()) . "'<BR>";
3976 <title>Executing a multicall call</title>
3978 <para>To be documented...</para>
3983 <title>Frequently Asked Questions</title>
3986 <title>How to send custom XML as payload of a method call</title>
3988 <para>Unfortunately, at the time the XML-RPC spec was designed, support
3989 for namespaces in XML was not as ubiquitous as it is now. As a
3990 consequence, no support was provided in the protocol for embedding XML
3991 elements from other namespaces into an xmlrpc request.</para>
3993 <para>To send an XML "chunk" as payload of a method call or response,
3994 two options are available: either send the complete XML block as a
3995 string xmlrpc value, or as a base64 value. Since the '<' character in
3996 string values is encoded as '&lt;' in the xml payload of the method
3997 call, the XML string will not break the surrounding xmlrpc, unless
3998 characters outside of the assumed character set are used. The second
3999 method has the added benefits of working independently of the charset
4000 encoding used for the xml to be transmitted, and preserving exactly
4001 whitespace, whilst incurring in some extra message length and cpu load
4002 (for carrying out the base64 encoding/decoding).</para>
4006 <title>Is there any limitation on the size of the requests / responses
4007 that can be successfully sent?</title>
4009 <para>Yes. But I have no hard figure to give; it most likely will depend
4010 on the version of PHP in usage and its configuration.</para>
4012 <para>Keep in mind that this library is not optimized for speed nor for
4013 memory usage. Better alternatives exist when there are strict
4014 requirements on throughput or resource usage, such as the php native
4015 xmlrpc extension (see the PHP manual for more information).</para>
4017 <para>Keep in mind also that HTTP is probably not the best choice in
4018 such a situation, and XML is a deadly enemy. CSV formatted data over
4019 socket would be much more efficient.</para>
4021 <para>If you really need to move a massive amount of data around, and
4022 you are crazy enough to do it using phpxmlrpc, your best bet is to
4023 bypass usage of the xmlrpcval objects, at least in the decoding phase,
4024 and have the server (or client) object return to the calling function
4025 directly php values (see <varname>xmlrpc_client::return_type</varname>
4026 and <varname>xmlrpc_server::functions_parameters_type</varname> for more
4031 <title>My server (client) returns an error whenever the client (server)
4032 returns accented characters</title>
4034 <para>To be documented...</para>
4038 <title>How to enable long-lasting method calls</title>
4040 <para>To be documented...</para>
4044 <title>My client returns "XML-RPC Fault #2: Invalid return payload:
4045 enable debugging to examine incoming payload": what should I do?</title>
4047 <para>The response you are seeing is a default error response that the
4048 client object returns to the php application when the server did not
4049 respond to the call with a valid xmlrpc response.</para>
4051 <para>The most likely cause is that you are not using the correct URL
4052 when creating the client object, or you do not have appropriate access
4053 rights to the web page you are requesting, or some other common http
4054 misconfiguration.</para>
4056 <para>To find out what the server is really returning to your client,
4057 you have to enable the debug mode of the client, using
4058 $client->setdebug(1);</para>
4062 <title>How can I save to a file the xml of the xmlrpc responses received
4063 from servers?</title>
4065 <para>If what you need is to save the responses received from the server
4066 as xml, you have two options:</para>
4068 <para>1- use the serialize() method on the response object.</para>
4070 <programlisting language="php">
4071 $resp = $client->send($msg);
4072 if (!$resp->faultCode())
4073 $data_to_be_saved = $resp->serialize();
4076 <para>Note that this will not be 100% accurate, since the xml generated
4077 by the response object can be different from the xml received,
4078 especially if there is some character set conversion involved, or such
4079 (eg. if you receive an empty string tag as <string/>, serialize()
4080 will output <string></string>), or if the server sent back
4081 as response something invalid (in which case the xml generated client
4082 side using serialize() will correspond to the error response generated
4083 internally by the lib).</para>
4085 <para>2 - set the client object to return the raw xml received instead
4086 of the decoded objects:</para>
4088 <programlisting language="php">
4089 $client = new xmlrpc_client($url);
4090 $client->return_type = 'xml';
4091 $resp = $client->send($msg);
4092 if (!$resp->faultCode())
4093 $data_to_be_saved = $resp->value();
4096 <para>Note that using this method the xml response response will not be
4097 parsed at all by the library, only the http communication protocol will
4098 be checked. This means that xmlrpc responses sent by the server that
4099 would have generated an error response on the client (eg. malformed xml,
4100 responses that have faultcode set, etc...) now will not be flagged as
4101 invalid, and you might end up saving not valid xml but random
4106 <title>Can I use the ms windows character set?</title>
4108 <para>If the data your application is using comes from a Microsoft
4109 application, there are some chances that the character set used to
4110 encode it is CP1252 (the same might apply to data received from an
4111 external xmlrpc server/client, but it is quite rare to find xmlrpc
4112 toolkits that encode to CP1252 instead of UTF8). It is a character set
4113 which is "almost" compatible with ISO 8859-1, but for a few extra
4116 <para>PHP-XMLRPC only supports the ISO 8859-1 and UTF8 character sets.
4117 The net result of this situation is that those extra characters will not
4118 be properly encoded, and will be received at the other end of the
4119 XML-RPC transmission as "garbled data". Unfortunately the library cannot
4120 provide real support for CP1252 because of limitations in the PHP 4 xml
4121 parser. Luckily, we tried our best to support this character set anyway,
4122 and, since version 2.2.1, there is some form of support, left commented
4125 <para>To properly encode outgoing data that is natively in CP1252, you
4126 will have to uncomment all relative code in the file
4127 <filename>xmlrpc.inc</filename> (you can search for the string "1252"),
4128 then set <code>$GLOBALS['xmlrpc_internalencoding']='CP1252';</code>
4129 Please note that all incoming data will then be fed to your application
4130 as UTF-8 to avoid any potential data loss.</para>
4134 <title>Does the library support using cookies / http sessions?</title>
4136 <para>In short: yes, but a little coding is needed to make it
4139 <para>The code below uses sessions to e.g. let the client store a value
4140 on the server and retrieve it later.</para>
4142 <para><programlisting>
4143 $resp = $client->send(new xmlrpcmsg('registervalue', array(new xmlrpcval('foo'), new xmlrpcval('bar'))));
4144 if (!$resp->faultCode())
4146 $cookies = $resp->cookies();
4147 if (array_key_exists('PHPSESSID', $cookies)) // nb: make sure to use the correct session cookie name
4149 $session_id = $cookies['PHPSESSID']['value'];
4151 // do some other stuff here...
4153 $client->setcookie('PHPSESSID', $session_id);
4154 $val = $client->send(new xmlrpcmsg('getvalue', array(new xmlrpcval('foo')));
4157 </programlisting>Server-side sessions are handled normally like in any other
4158 php application. Please see the php manual for more information about
4161 <para>NB: unlike web browsers, not all xmlrpc clients support usage of
4162 http cookies. If you have troubles with sessions and control only the
4163 server side of the communication, please check with the makers of the
4164 xmlrpc client in use.</para>
4168 <appendix id="integration">
4169 <title>Integration with the PHP xmlrpc extension</title>
4171 <para>To be documented more...</para>
4173 <para>In short: for the fastest execution possible, you can enable the php
4174 native xmlrpc extension, and use it in conjunction with phpxmlrpc. The
4175 following code snippet gives an example of such integration</para>
4177 <programlisting language="php">
4178 /*** client side ***/
4179 $c = new xmlrpc_client('http://phpxmlrpc.sourceforge.net/server.php');
4181 // tell the client to return raw xml as response value
4182 $c->return_type = 'xml';
4184 // let the native xmlrpc extension take care of encoding request parameters
4185 $r = $c->send(xmlrpc_encode_request('examples.getStateName', $_POST['stateno']));
4187 if ($r->faultCode())
4188 // HTTP transport error
4189 echo 'Got error '.$r->faultCode();
4192 // HTTP request OK, but XML returned from server not parsed yet
4193 $v = xmlrpc_decode($r->value());
4194 // check if we got a valid xmlrpc response from server
4196 echo 'Got invalid response';
4198 // check if server sent a fault response
4199 if (xmlrpc_is_fault($v))
4200 echo 'Got xmlrpc fault '.$v['faultCode'];
4202 echo'Got response: '.htmlentities($v);
4207 <appendix id="substitution">
4208 <title>Substitution of the PHP xmlrpc extension</title>
4210 <para>Yet another interesting situation is when you are using a ready-made
4211 php application, that provides support for the XMLRPC protocol via the
4212 native php xmlrpc extension, but the extension is not available on your
4213 php install (e.g. because of shared hosting constraints).</para>
4215 <para>Since version 2.1, the PHP-XMLRPC library provides a compatibility
4216 layer that aims to be 100% compliant with the xmlrpc extension API. This
4217 means that any code written to run on the extension should obtain the
4218 exact same results, albeit using more resources and a longer processing
4219 time, using the PHP-XMLRPC library and the extension compatibility module.
4220 The module is part of the EXTRAS package, available as a separate download
4221 from the sourceforge.net website, since version 0.2</para>
4224 <appendix id="enough">
4225 <title>'Enough of xmlrpcvals!': new style library usage</title>
4227 <para>To be documented...</para>
4229 <para>In the meantime, see docs about xmlrpc_client::return_type and
4230 xmlrpc_server::functions_parameters_types, as well as php_xmlrpc_encode,
4231 php_xmlrpc_decode and php_xmlrpc_decode_xml</para>
4234 <appendix id="debugger">
4235 <title>Usage of the debugger</title>
4237 <para>A webservice debugger is included in the library to help during
4238 development and testing.</para>
4240 <para>The interface should be self-explicative enough to need little
4241 documentation.</para>
4243 <para><graphic align="center" fileref="debugger.gif"
4244 format="GIF" /></para>
4246 <para>The most useful feature of the debugger is without doubt the "Show
4247 debug info" option. It allows to have a screen dump of the complete http
4248 communication between client and server, including the http headers as
4249 well as the request and response payloads, and is invaluable when
4250 troubleshooting problems with charset encoding, authentication or http
4253 <para>The debugger can take advantage of the JSONRPC library extension, to
4254 allow debugging of JSON-RPC webservices, and of the JS-XMLRPC library
4255 visual editor to allow easy mouse-driven construction of the payload for
4256 remote methods. Both components have to be downloaded separately from the
4257 sourceforge.net web pages and copied to the debugger directory to enable
4258 the extra functionality:</para>
4260 <para><itemizedlist>
4262 <para>to enable jsonrpc functionality, download the PHP-XMLRPC
4263 EXTRAS package, and copy the file <filename>jsonrpc.inc</filename>
4264 either to the same directory as the debugger or somewhere in your
4265 php include path</para>
4267 </itemizedlist><itemizedlist>
4269 <para>to enable the visual value editing dialog, download the
4270 JS-XMLRPC library, and copy somewhere in the web root files
4271 <filename>visualeditor.php</filename>,
4272 <filename>visualeditor.css</filename> and the folders
4273 <filename>yui</filename> and <filename>img</filename>. Then edit the
4274 debugger file <filename>controller.php</filename> and set
4275 appropriately the variable <varname>$editorpath</varname>.</para>
4277 </itemizedlist></para>
4280 <!-- Keep this comment at the end of the file
4285 sgml-minimize-attributes:nil
4286 sgml-always-quote-attributes:t
4289 sgml-parent-document:nil
4290 sgml-exposed-tags:nil
4291 sgml-local-catalogs:nil
4292 sgml-local-ecat-files:nil
4293 sgml-namecase-general:t
4294 sgml-general-insert-case:lower