1 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
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9 <title>XML-RPC for PHP</title>
11 <subtitle>version 3.0.0</subtitle>
14 <date>June 15, 2014</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>
218 <para><emphasis>Note:</emphasis> this is the last release of the library that will support PHP 5.1 and up.
219 Future releases will target php 5.3 as minimum supported version.</para>
223 <para>when using curl and keepalive, reset curl handle if we did not get back an http 200 response (eg a 302)</para>
227 <para>omit port on http 'Host' header if it is 80</para>
231 <para>test suite allows interrogating https servers ignoring their certs</para>
235 <para>method setAcceptedCompression was failing to disable reception of compressed responses if the
236 client supported them</para>
239 </itemizedlist></para>
243 <title>3.0.0 beta</title>
245 <para>This is the first release of the library to only support PHP 5.
246 Some legacy code has been removed, and support for features such as
247 exceptions and dateTime objects introduced.</para>
249 <para>The "beta" tag is meant to indicate the fact that the refactoring
250 has been more widespread than in precedent releases and that more
251 changes are likely to be introduced with time - the library is still
252 considered to be production quality.</para>
256 <para>improved: removed all usage of php functions deprecated in
257 php 5.3, usage of assign-by-ref when creating new objects
262 <para>improved: add support for the <ex:nil/> tag used by
263 the apache library, both in input and output</para>
267 <para>improved: add support for <classname>dateTime</classname>
268 objects in both in <function>php_xmlrpc_encode</function> and as
269 parameter for constructor of
270 <classname>xmlrpcval</classname></para>
274 <para>improved: add support for timestamps as parameter for
275 constructor of <classname>xmlrpcval</classname></para>
279 <para>improved: add option 'dates_as_objects' to
280 <function>php_xmlrpc_decode</function> to return
281 <classname>dateTime</classname> objects for xmlrpc
286 <para>improved: add new method
287 <methodname>SetCurlOptions</methodname> to
288 <classname>xmrlpc_client</classname> to allow extra flexibility in
289 tweaking http config, such as explicitly binding to an ip
294 <para>improved: add new method
295 <methodname>SetUserAgent</methodname> to
296 <classname>xmrlpc_client</classname> to to allow having different
297 user-agent http headers</para>
301 <para>improved: add a new member variable in server class to allow
302 fine-tuning of the encoding of returned values when the server is
303 in 'phpvals' mode</para>
307 <para>improved: allow servers in 'xmlrpcvals' mode to also
308 register plain php functions by defining them in the dispatch map
309 with an added option</para>
313 <para>improved: catch exceptions thrown during execution of php
314 functions exposed as methods by the server</para>
318 <para>fixed: bad encoding if same object is encoded twice using
319 php_xmlrpc_encode</para>
321 </itemizedlist></para>
327 <para><emphasis>Note:</emphasis> this might the last release of the
328 library that will support PHP 4. Future releases (if any) should target
329 php 5.0 as minimum supported version.</para>
333 <para>fixed: encoding of utf-8 characters outside of the BMP
338 <para>fixed: character set declarations surrounded by double
339 quotes were not recognized in http headers</para>
343 <para>fixed: be more tolerant in detection of charset in http
348 <para>fixed: fix detection of zlib.output_compression</para>
352 <para>fixed: use feof() to test if socket connections are to be
353 closed instead of the number of bytes read (rare bug when
354 communicating with some servers)</para>
358 <para>fixed: format floating point values using the correct
359 decimal separator even when php locale is set to one that uses
364 <para>fixed: improve robustness of the debugger when parsing weird
365 results from non-compliant servers</para>
369 <para>php warning when receiving 'false' in a bool value</para>
373 <para>improved: allow the add_to_map server method to add docs for
374 single params too</para>
378 <para>improved: added the possibility to wrap for exposure as
379 xmlrpc methods plain php class methods, object methods and even
382 </itemizedlist></para>
390 <para>fixed: work aroung bug in php 5.2.2 which broke support of
391 HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA</para>
395 <para>fixed: is_dir parameter of setCaCertificate() method is
400 <para>fixed: a php warning in xmlrpc_client creator method</para>
404 <para>fixed: parsing of '1e+1' as valid float</para>
408 <para>fixed: allow errorlevel 3 to work when prev. error handler was
409 a static method</para>
413 <para>fixed: usage of client::setcookie() for multiple cookies in
418 <para>improved: support for CP1252 charset is not part or the
419 library but almost possible</para>
423 <para>improved: more info when curl is enabled and debug mode is
434 <para>fixed: debugger errors on php installs with magic_quotes_gpc
439 <para>fixed: support for https connections via proxy</para>
443 <para>fixed: wrap_xmlrpc_method() generated code failed to properly
444 encode php objects</para>
448 <para>improved: slightly faster encoding of data which is internally
453 <para>improved: debugger always generates a 'null' id for jsonrpc if
458 <para>new: debugger can take advantage of a graphical value builder
459 (it has to be downloaded separately, as part of jsxmlrpc package.
460 See Appendix D for more details)</para>
464 <para>new: support for the <NIL/> xmlrpc extension. see below
465 for more details</para>
469 <para>new: server support for the system.getCapabilities xmlrpc
474 <para>new: <function><link
475 linkend="wrap_xmlrpc_method">wrap_xmlrpc_method()</link></function>
476 accepts two new options: debug and return_on_fault</para>
486 <para>The <function>wrap_php_function</function> and
487 <function>wrap_xmlrpc_method</function> functions have been moved
488 out of the base library file <filename>xmlrpc.inc</filename> into
489 a file of their own: <filename>xmlrpc_wrappers.php</filename>. You
490 will have to include() / require() it in your scripts if you have
491 been using those functions. For increased security, the automatic
492 rebuilding of php object instances out of received xmlrpc structs
493 in <function>wrap_xmlrpc_method()</function> has been disabled
494 (but it can be optionally re-enabled). Both
495 <function>wrap_php_function()</function> and
496 <function>wrap_xmlrpc_method()</function> functions accept many
497 more options to fine tune their behaviour, including one to return
498 the php code to be saved and later used as standalone php
503 <para>The constructor of xmlrpcval() values has seen some internal
504 changes, and it will not throw a php warning anymore when invoked
505 using an unknown xmlrpc type: the error will only be written to
506 php error log. Also <code>new xmlrpcval('true', 'boolean')</code>
507 is not supported anymore</para>
511 <para>The new function
512 <function>php_xmlrpc_decode_xml()</function> will take the xml
513 representation of either an xmlrpc request, response or single
514 value and return the corresponding php-xmlrpc object
519 <para>A new function <function>wrap_xmlrpc_server()</function>has
520 been added, to wrap all (or some) of the methods exposed by a
521 remote xmlrpc server into a php class</para>
525 <para>A new file has been added:
526 <filename>verify_compat.php</filename>, to help users diagnose the
527 level of compliance of their php installation with the
532 <para>Restored compatibility with php 4.0.5 (for those poor souls
533 still stuck on it)</para>
537 <para>Method <methodname>xmlrpc_server->service()</methodname>
538 now returns a value: either the response payload or xmlrpcresp
539 object instance</para>
544 <methodname>xmlrpc_server->add_to_map()</methodname> now
545 accepts xmlrpc methods with no param definitions</para>
549 <para>Documentation for single parameters of exposed methods can
550 be added to the dispatch map (and turned into html docs in
551 conjunction with a future release of the 'extras' package)</para>
555 <para>Full response payload is saved into xmlrpcresp object for
556 further debugging</para>
560 <para>The debugger can now generate code that wraps a remote
561 method into a php function (works for jsonrpc, too); it also has
562 better support for being activated via a single GET call (e.g. for
563 integration into other tools)</para>
567 <para>Stricter parsing of incoming xmlrpc messages: two more
568 invalid cases are now detected (double <literal>data</literal>
569 element inside <literal>array</literal> and
570 <literal>struct</literal>/<literal>array</literal> after scalar
571 inside <literal>value</literal> element)</para>
575 <para>More logging of errors in a lot of situations</para>
579 <para>Javadoc documentation of lib files (almost) complete</para>
583 <para>Many performance tweaks and code cleanups, plus the usual
584 crop of bugs fixed (see NEWS file for complete list of
589 <para>Lib internals have been modified to provide better support
590 for grafting extra functionality on top of it. Stay tuned for
591 future releases of the EXTRAS package (or go read Appendix
594 </itemizedlist></para>
598 <title>2.0 final</title>
602 <para>Added to the client class the possibility to use Digest and
603 NTLM authentication methods (when using the CURL library) for
604 connecting to servers and NTLM for connecting to proxies</para>
608 <para>Added to the client class the possibility to specify
609 alternate certificate files/directories for authenticating the
610 peer with when using HTTPS communication</para>
614 <para>Reviewed all examples and added a new demo file, containing
615 a proxy to forward xmlrpc requests to other servers (useful e.g.
616 for ajax coding)</para>
620 <para>The debugger has been upgraded to reflect the new client
625 <para>All known bugs have been squashed, and the lib is more
626 tolerant than ever of commonly-found mistakes</para>
628 </itemizedlist></para>
632 <title>2.0 Release candidate 3</title>
636 <para>Added to server class the property
637 <property>functions_parameters_type</property>, that allows the
638 server to register plain php functions as xmlrpc methods (i.e.
639 functions that do not take an xmlrpcmsg object as unique
644 <para>let server and client objects serialize calls using a
645 specified character set encoding for the produced xml instead of
646 US-ASCII (ISO-8859-1 and UTF-8 supported)</para>
650 <para>let php_xmlrpc_decode accept xmlrpcmsg objects as valid
655 <para>'class::method' syntax is now accepted in the server
660 <para><function>xmlrpc_clent::SetDebug()</function> accepts
661 integer values instead of a boolean value, with debugging level 2
662 adding to the information printed to screen the complete client
665 </itemizedlist></para>
669 <title>2.0 Release candidate 2</title>
673 <para>Added a new property of the client object:
674 <code>xmlrpc_client->return_type</code>, indicating whether
675 calls to the send() method will return xmlrpcresp objects whose
676 value() is an xmlrpcval object, a php value (automatically
677 decoded) or the raw xml received from the server.</para>
681 <para>Added in the extras dir. two new library file:
682 <filename>jsonrpc.inc</filename> and
683 <filename>jsonrpcs.inc</filename> containing new classes that
684 implement support for the json-rpc protocol (alpha quality
689 <para>Added a new client method: <code>setKey($key,
690 $keypass)</code> to be used in HTTPS connections</para>
694 <para>Added a new file containing some benchmarks in the testsuite
697 </itemizedlist></para>
701 <title>2.0 Release candidate 1</title>
705 <para>Support for HTTP proxies (new method:
706 <code>xmlrpc_client::setProxy()</code>)</para>
710 <para>Support HTTP compression of both requests and responses.
711 Clients can specify what kind of compression they accept for
712 responses between deflate/gzip/any, and whether to compress the
713 requests. Servers by default compress responses to clients that
714 explicitly declare support for compression (new methods:
715 <code>xmlrpc_client::setAcceptedCompression()</code>,
716 <code>xmlrpc_client::setRequestCompression()</code>). Note that the
717 ZLIB php extension needs to be enabled in PHP to support
722 <para>Implement HTTP 1.1 connections, but only if CURL is enabled
723 (added an extra parameter to
724 <code>xmlrpc_client::xmlrpc_client</code> to set the desired HTTP
725 protocol at creation time and a new supported value for the last
726 parameter of <code>xmlrpc_client::send</code>, which now can be
727 safely omitted if it has been specified at creation time)</para>
729 <para>With PHP versions greater than 4.3.8 keep-alives are enabled
730 by default for HTTP 1.1 connections. This should yield faster
731 execution times when making multiple calls in sequence to the same
732 xml-rpc server from a single client.</para>
736 <para>Introduce support for cookies. Cookies to be sent to the
737 server with a request can be set using
738 <code>xmlrpc_client::setCookie()</code>, while cookies received from
739 the server are found in <code>xmlrpcresp::cookies()</code>. It is
740 left to the user to check for validity of received cookies and
741 decide whether they apply to successive calls or not.</para>
745 <para>Better support for detecting different character set encodings
746 of xml-rpc requests and responses: both client and server objects
747 will correctly detect the charset encoding of received xml, and use
748 an appropriate xml parser.</para>
750 <para>Supported encodings are US-ASCII, UTF-8 and ISO-8859-1.</para>
754 <para>Added one new xmlrpcmsg constructor syntax, allowing usage of
755 a single string with the complete URL of the target server</para>
759 <para>Convert xml-rpc boolean values into native php values instead
764 <para>Force the <code>php_xmlrpc_encode</code> function to properly
765 encode numerically indexed php arrays into xml-rpc arrays
766 (numerically indexed php arrays always start with a key of 0 and
767 increment keys by values of 1)</para>
771 <para>Prevent the <code>php_xmlrpc_encode</code> function from
772 further re-encoding any objects of class <code>xmlrpcval</code> that
773 are passed to it. This allows to call the function with arguments
774 consisting of mixed php values / xmlrpcval objects.</para>
778 <para>Allow a server to NOT respond to system.* method calls
779 (setting the <code>$server->allow_system_funcs</code>
784 <para>Implement a new xmlrpcval method to determine if a value of
785 type struct has a member of a given name without having to loop
786 trough all members: <code>xmlrpcval::structMemExists()</code></para>
790 <para>Expand methods <code>xmlrpcval::addArray</code>,
791 <code>addScalar</code> and <code>addStruct</code> allowing extra php
792 values to be added to xmlrpcval objects already formed.</para>
796 <para>Let the <code>xmlrpc_client::send</code> method accept an XML
797 string for sending instead of an xmlrpcmsg object, to facilitate
798 debugging and integration with the php native xmlrpc
803 <para>Extend the <code>php_xmlrpc_encode</code> and
804 <code>php_xmlrpc_decode</code> functions to allow serialization and
805 rebuilding of PHP objects. To successfully rebuild a serialized
806 object, the object class must be defined in the deserializing end of
807 the transfer. Note that object members of type resource will be
808 deserialized as NULL values.</para>
810 <para>Note that his has been implemented adding a "php_class"
811 attribute to xml representation of xmlrpcval of STRUCT type, which,
812 strictly speaking, breaks the xml-rpc spec. Other xmlrpc
813 implementations are supposed to ignore such an attribute (unless
814 they implement a brain-dead custom xml parser...), so it should be
815 safe enabling it in heterogeneous environments. The activation of
816 this feature is done by usage of an option passed as second
817 parameter to both <code>php_xmlrpc_encode</code> and
818 <code>php_xmlrpc_decode</code>.</para>
822 <para>Extend the <code>php_xmlrpc_encode</code> function to allow
823 automatic serialization of iso8601-conforming php strings as
824 datetime.iso8601 xmlrpcvals, by usage of an optional
829 <para>Added an automatic stub code generator for converting xmlrpc
830 methods to php functions and vice-versa.</para>
832 <para>This is done via two new functions:
833 <code>wrap_php_function</code> and <code>wrap_xmlrpc_method</code>,
834 and has many caveats, with php being a typeless language and
839 <para>Allow object methods to be used in server dispatch map</para>
843 <para>Added a complete debugger solution, in the
844 <filename>debugger</filename> folder</para>
848 <para>Added configurable server-side debug messages, controlled by
849 the new method <code>xmlrpc_server::SetDebug()</code>. At level 0,
850 no debug messages are sent to the client; level 1 is the same as the
851 old behaviour; at level 2 a lot more info is echoed back to the
852 client, regarding the received call; at level 3 all warnings raised
853 during server processing are trapped (this prevents breaking the xml
854 to be echoed back to the client) and added to the debug info sent
855 back to the client</para>
859 <para>New XML parsing code, yields smaller memory footprint and
860 faster execution times, not to mention complete elimination of the
861 dreaded <filename>eval()</filename> construct, so prone to code
862 injection exploits</para>
866 <para>Rewritten most of the error messages, making text more
873 <chapter id="requirements">
874 <title>System Requirements</title>
876 <para>The library has been designed with goals of scalability and backward
877 compatibility. As such, it supports a wide range of PHP installs. Note
878 that not all features of the lib are available in every
879 configuration.</para>
881 <para>The <emphasis>minimum supported</emphasis> PHP version is
884 <para>If you wish to use SSL or HTTP 1.1 to communicate with remote
885 servers, you need the "curl" extension compiled into your PHP
888 <para>The "xmlrpc" native extension is not required to be compiled into
889 your PHP installation, but if it is, there will be no interference with
890 the operation of this library.</para>
893 <chapter id="manifest">
894 <title>Files in the distribution</title>
898 <glossterm>lib/xmlrpc.inc</glossterm>
901 <para>the XML-RPC classes. <function>include()</function> this in
902 your PHP files to use the classes.</para>
907 <glossterm>lib/xmlrpcs.inc</glossterm>
910 <para>the XML-RPC server class. <function>include()</function> this
911 in addition to xmlrpc.inc to get server functionality</para>
916 <glossterm>lib/xmlrpc_wrappers.php</glossterm>
919 <para>helper functions to "automagically" convert plain php
920 functions to xmlrpc services and vice versa</para>
925 <glossterm>demo/server/proxy.php</glossterm>
928 <para>a sample server implementing xmlrpc proxy
929 functionality.</para>
934 <glossterm>demo/server/server.php</glossterm>
937 <para>a sample server hosting various demo functions, as well as a
938 full suite of functions used for interoperability testing. It is
939 used by testsuite.php (see below) for unit testing the library, and
940 is not to be copied literally into your production servers</para>
945 <glossterm>demo/client/client.php, demo/client/agesort.php,
946 demo/client/which.php</glossterm>
949 <para>client code to exercise some of the functions in server.php,
950 including the <function>interopEchoTests.whichToolkit</function>
956 <glossterm>demo/client/wrap.php</glossterm>
959 <para>client code to illustrate 'wrapping' of remote methods into
960 php functions.</para>
965 <glossterm>demo/client/introspect.php</glossterm>
968 <para>client code to illustrate usage of introspection capabilities
969 offered by server.php.</para>
974 <glossterm>demo/client/mail.php</glossterm>
977 <para>client code to illustrate usage of an xmlrpc-to-email gateway
978 using Dave Winer's XML-RPC server at userland.com.</para>
983 <glossterm>demo/client/zopetest.php</glossterm>
986 <para>example client code that queries an xmlrpc server built in
992 <glossterm>demo/vardemo.php</glossterm>
995 <para>examples of how to construct xmlrpcval types</para>
1000 <glossterm>demo/demo1.txt, demo/demo2.txt, demo/demo3.txt</glossterm>
1003 <para>XML-RPC responses captured in a file for testing purposes (you
1004 can use these to test the
1005 <function>xmlrpcmsg->parseResponse()</function> method).</para>
1010 <glossterm>demo/server/discuss.php,
1011 demo/client/comment.php</glossterm>
1014 <para>Software used in the PHP chapter of <xref
1015 linkend="jellyfish" /> to provide a comment server and allow the
1016 attachment of comments to stories from Meerkat's data store.</para>
1021 <glossterm>test/testsuite.php, test/parse_args.php</glossterm>
1024 <para>A unit test suite for this software package. If you do
1025 development on this software, please consider submitting tests for
1031 <glossterm>test/benchmark.php</glossterm>
1034 <para>A (very limited) benchmarking suite for this software package.
1035 If you do development on this software, please consider submitting
1036 benchmarks for this suite.</para>
1041 <glossterm>test/phpunit.php, test/PHPUnit/*.php</glossterm>
1044 <para>An (incomplete) version PEAR's unit test framework for PHP.
1045 The complete package can be found at <ulink
1046 url="http://pear.php.net/package/PHPUnit">http://pear.php.net/package/PHPUnit</ulink></para>
1051 <glossterm>test/verify_compat.php</glossterm>
1054 <para>Script designed to help the user to verify the level of
1055 compatibility of the library with the current php install</para>
1060 <glossterm>extras/test.pl, extras/test.py</glossterm>
1063 <para>Perl and Python programs to exercise server.php to test that
1064 some of the methods work.</para>
1069 <glossterm>extras/workspace.testPhpServer.fttb</glossterm>
1072 <para>Frontier scripts to exercise the demo server. Thanks to Dave
1073 Winer for permission to include these. See <ulink
1074 url="http://www.xmlrpc.com/discuss/msgReader$853">Dave's
1075 announcement of these.</ulink></para>
1080 <glossterm>extras/rsakey.pem</glossterm>
1083 <para>A test certificate key for the SSL support, which can be used
1084 to generate dummy certificates. It has the passphrase "test."</para>
1091 <title>Known bugs and limitations</title>
1093 <para>This started out as a bare framework. Many "nice" bits haven't been
1094 put in yet. Specifically, very little type validation or coercion has been
1095 put in. PHP being a loosely-typed language, this is going to have to be
1096 done explicitly (in other words: you can call a lot of library functions
1097 passing them arguments of the wrong type and receive an error message only
1098 much further down the code, where it will be difficult to
1101 <para>dateTime.iso8601 is supported opaquely. It can't be done natively as
1102 the XML-RPC specification explicitly forbids passing of timezone
1103 specifiers in ISO8601 format dates. You can, however, use the <xref
1104 linkend="iso8601encode" /> and <xref linkend="iso8601decode" /> functions
1105 to do the encoding and decoding for you.</para>
1107 <para>Very little HTTP response checking is performed (e.g. HTTP redirects
1108 are not followed and the Content-Length HTTP header, mandated by the
1109 xml-rpc spec, is not validated); cookie support still involves quite a bit
1110 of coding on the part of the user.</para>
1112 <para>If a specific character set encoding other than US-ASCII, ISO-8859-1
1113 or UTF-8 is received in the HTTP header or XML prologue of xml-rpc request
1114 or response messages then it will be ignored for the moment, and the
1115 content will be parsed as if it had been encoded using the charset defined
1116 by <xref linkend="xmlrpc-defencoding" /></para>
1118 <para>Support for receiving from servers version 1 cookies (i.e.
1119 conforming to RFC 2965) is quite incomplete, and might cause unforeseen
1123 <chapter id="support">
1124 <title>Support</title>
1127 <title>Online Support</title>
1129 <para>XML-RPC for PHP is offered "as-is" without any warranty or
1130 commitment to support. However, informal advice and help is available
1131 via the XML-RPC for PHP website and mailing list and from
1136 <para>The <emphasis>XML-RPC for PHP</emphasis> development is hosted
1138 url="https://github.com/gggeek/phpxmlrpc">github.com/gggeek/phpxmlrpc</ulink>.
1139 Bugs, feature requests and patches can be posted to the <ulink
1140 url="https://github.com/gggeek/phpxmlrpc/issues">project's
1141 website</ulink>.</para>
1145 <para>The <emphasis>PHP XML-RPC interest mailing list</emphasis> is
1146 run by the author. More details <ulink
1147 url="http://lists.gnomehack.com/mailman/listinfo/phpxmlrpc">can be
1148 found here</ulink>.</para>
1152 <para>For more general XML-RPC questions, there is a Yahoo! Groups
1153 <ulink url="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xml-rpc/">XML-RPC mailing
1154 list</ulink>.</para>
1159 url="http://www.xmlrpc.com/discuss">XML-RPC.com</ulink> discussion
1160 group is a useful place to get help with using XML-RPC. This group
1161 is also gatewayed into the Yahoo! Groups mailing list.</para>
1166 <sect1 id="jellyfish" xreflabel="The Jellyfish Book">
1167 <title>The Jellyfish Book</title>
1169 <para><graphic align="right" depth="190" fileref="progxmlrpc.s.gif"
1170 format="GIF" width="145" />Together with Simon St.Laurent and Joe
1171 Johnston, Edd Dumbill wrote a book on XML-RPC for O'Reilly and
1172 Associates on XML-RPC. It features a rather fetching jellyfish on the
1175 <para>Complete details of the book are <ulink
1176 url="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/progxmlrpc/">available from
1177 O'Reilly's web site.</ulink></para>
1179 <para>Edd is responsible for the chapter on PHP, which includes a worked
1180 example of creating a forum server, and hooking it up the O'Reilly's
1181 <ulink url="http://meerkat.oreillynet.com/">Meerkat</ulink> service in
1182 order to allow commenting on news stories from around the Web.</para>
1184 <para>If you've benefited from the effort that has been put into writing
1185 this software, then please consider buying the book!</para>
1189 <chapter id="apidocs">
1190 <title>Class documentation</title>
1192 <sect1 id="xmlrpcval" xreflabel="xmlrpcval">
1193 <title>xmlrpcval</title>
1195 <para>This is where a lot of the hard work gets done. This class enables
1196 the creation and encapsulation of values for XML-RPC.</para>
1198 <para>Ensure you've read the XML-RPC spec at <ulink
1199 url="http://www.xmlrpc.com/stories/storyReader$7">http://www.xmlrpc.com/stories/storyReader$7</ulink>
1200 before reading on as it will make things clearer.</para>
1202 <para>The <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> class can store arbitrarily
1203 complicated values using the following types: <literal>i4 int boolean
1204 string double dateTime.iso8601 base64 array struct</literal>
1205 <literal>null</literal>. You should refer to the <ulink
1206 url="http://www.xmlrpc.com/spec">spec</ulink> for more information on
1207 what each of these types mean.</para>
1210 <title>Notes on types</title>
1215 <para>The type <classname>i4</classname> is accepted as a synonym
1216 for <classname>int</classname> when creating xmlrpcval objects. The
1217 xml parsing code will always convert <classname>i4</classname> to
1218 <classname>int</classname>: <classname>int</classname> is regarded
1219 by this implementation as the canonical name for this type.</para>
1223 <title>base64</title>
1225 <para>Base 64 encoding is performed transparently to the caller when
1226 using this type. Decoding is also transparent. Therefore you ought
1227 to consider it as a "binary" data type, for use when you want to
1228 pass data that is not 7-bit clean.</para>
1232 <title>boolean</title>
1234 <para>The php values <literal>true</literal> and
1235 <literal>1</literal> map to <literal>true</literal>. All other
1236 values (including the empty string) are converted to
1237 <literal>false</literal>.</para>
1241 <title>string</title>
1243 <para>Characters <, >, ', ", &, are encoded using their
1244 entity reference as &lt; &gt; &apos; &quot; and
1245 &amp; All other characters outside of the ASCII range are
1246 encoded using their character reference representation (e.g.
1247 &#200 for é). The XML-RPC spec recommends only encoding
1248 <literal>< &</literal> but this implementation goes further,
1249 for reasons explained by <ulink
1250 url="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml#syntax">the XML 1.0
1251 recommendation</ulink>. In particular, using character reference
1252 representation has the advantage of producing XML that is valid
1253 independently of the charset encoding assumed.</para>
1259 <para>There is no support for encoding <literal>null</literal>
1260 values in the XML-RPC spec, but at least a couple of extensions (and
1261 many toolkits) do support it. Before using <literal>null</literal>
1262 values in your messages, make sure that the responding party accepts
1263 them, and uses the same encoding convention (see ...).</para>
1267 <sect2 id="xmlrpcval-creation" xreflabel="xmlrpcval constructors">
1268 <title>Creation</title>
1270 <para>The constructor is the normal way to create an
1271 <classname>xmlrpcval</classname>. The constructor can take these
1276 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type>new
1277 <function>xmlrpcval</function></funcdef>
1283 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type>new
1284 <function>xmlrpcval</function></funcdef>
1286 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$stringVal</parameter></paramdef>
1290 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type>new
1291 <function>xmlrpcval</function></funcdef>
1293 <paramdef><type>mixed</type><parameter>$scalarVal</parameter></paramdef>
1295 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$scalartyp</parameter></paramdef>
1299 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type>new
1300 <function>xmlrpcval</function></funcdef>
1302 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$arrayVal</parameter></paramdef>
1304 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$arraytyp</parameter></paramdef>
1308 <para>The first constructor creates an empty value, which must be
1309 altered using the methods <function>addScalar</function>,
1310 <function>addArray</function> or <function>addStruct</function> before
1311 it can be used.</para>
1313 <para>The second constructor creates a simple string value.</para>
1315 <para>The third constructor is used to create a scalar value. The
1316 second parameter must be a name of an XML-RPC type. Valid types are:
1317 "<literal>int</literal>", "<literal>boolean</literal>",
1318 "<literal>string</literal>", "<literal>double</literal>",
1319 "<literal>dateTime.iso8601</literal>", "<literal>base64</literal>" or
1322 <para>Examples:</para>
1324 <programlisting language="php">
1325 $myInt = new xmlrpcvalue(1267, "int");
1326 $myString = new xmlrpcvalue("Hello, World!", "string");
1327 $myBool = new xmlrpcvalue(1, "boolean");
1328 $myString2 = new xmlrpcvalue(1.24, "string"); // note: this will serialize a php float value as xmlrpc string
1331 <para>The fourth constructor form can be used to compose complex
1332 XML-RPC values. The first argument is either a simple array in the
1333 case of an XML-RPC <classname>array</classname> or an associative
1334 array in the case of a <classname>struct</classname>. The elements of
1335 the array <emphasis>must be <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> objects
1336 themselves</emphasis>.</para>
1338 <para>The second parameter must be either "<literal>array</literal>"
1339 or "<literal>struct</literal>".</para>
1341 <para>Examples:</para>
1343 <programlisting language="php">
1344 $myArray = new xmlrpcval(
1346 new xmlrpcval("Tom"),
1347 new xmlrpcval("Dick"),
1348 new xmlrpcval("Harry")
1353 $myStruct = new xmlrpcval(
1355 "name" => new xmlrpcval("Tom", "string"),
1356 "age" => new xmlrpcval(34, "int"),
1357 "address" => new xmlrpcval(
1359 "street" => new xmlrpcval("Fifht Ave", "string"),
1360 "city" => new xmlrpcval("NY", "string")
1367 <para>See the file <literal>vardemo.php</literal> in this distribution
1368 for more examples.</para>
1371 <sect2 id="xmlrpcval-methods" xreflabel="xmlrpcval methods">
1372 <title>Methods</title>
1375 <title>addScalar</title>
1379 <funcdef><type>int</type><function>addScalar</function></funcdef>
1381 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$stringVal</parameter></paramdef>
1385 <funcdef><type>int</type><function>addScalar</function></funcdef>
1387 <paramdef><type>mixed</type><parameter>$scalarVal</parameter></paramdef>
1389 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$scalartyp</parameter></paramdef>
1393 <para>If <parameter>$val</parameter> is an empty
1394 <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> this method makes it a scalar
1395 value, and sets that value.</para>
1397 <para>If <parameter>$val</parameter> is already a scalar value, then
1398 no more scalars can be added and <literal>0</literal> is
1401 <para>If <parameter>$val</parameter> is an xmlrpcval of type array,
1402 the php value <parameter>$scalarval</parameter> is added as its last
1405 <para>If all went OK, <literal>1</literal> is returned, otherwise
1406 <literal>0</literal>.</para>
1410 <title>addArray</title>
1414 <funcdef><type>int</type><function>addArray</function></funcdef>
1416 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$arrayVal</parameter></paramdef>
1420 <para>The argument is a simple (numerically indexed) array. The
1421 elements of the array <emphasis>must be
1422 <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> objects
1423 themselves</emphasis>.</para>
1425 <para>Turns an empty <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> into an
1426 <classname>array</classname> with contents as specified by
1427 <parameter>$arrayVal</parameter>.</para>
1429 <para>If <parameter>$val</parameter> is an xmlrpcval of type array,
1430 the elements of <parameter>$arrayVal</parameter> are appended to the
1431 existing ones.</para>
1433 <para>See the fourth constructor form for more information.</para>
1435 <para>If all went OK, <literal>1</literal> is returned, otherwise
1436 <literal>0</literal>.</para>
1440 <title>addStruct</title>
1444 <funcdef><type>int</type><function>addStruct</function></funcdef>
1446 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$assocArrayVal</parameter></paramdef>
1450 <para>The argument is an associative array. The elements of the
1451 array <emphasis>must be <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> objects
1452 themselves</emphasis>.</para>
1454 <para>Turns an empty <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> into a
1455 <classname>struct</classname> with contents as specified by
1456 <parameter>$assocArrayVal</parameter>.</para>
1458 <para>If <parameter>$val</parameter> is an xmlrpcval of type struct,
1459 the elements of <parameter>$arrayVal</parameter> are merged with the
1460 existing ones.</para>
1462 <para>See the fourth constructor form for more information.</para>
1464 <para>If all went OK, <literal>1</literal> is returned, otherwise
1465 <literal>0</literal>.</para>
1469 <title>kindOf</title>
1473 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>kindOf</function></funcdef>
1479 <para>Returns a string containing "struct", "array" or "scalar"
1480 describing the base type of the value. If it returns "undef" it
1481 means that the value hasn't been initialised.</para>
1485 <title>serialize</title>
1489 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>serialize</function></funcdef>
1495 <para>Returns a string containing the XML-RPC representation of this
1500 <title>scalarVal</title>
1504 <funcdef><type>mixed</type><function>scalarVal</function></funcdef>
1510 <para>If <function>$val->kindOf() == "scalar"</function>, this
1511 method returns the actual PHP-language value of the scalar (base 64
1512 decoding is automatically handled here).</para>
1516 <title>scalarTyp</title>
1520 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>scalarTyp</function></funcdef>
1526 <para>If <function>$val->kindOf() == "scalar"</function>, this
1527 method returns a string denoting the type of the scalar. As
1528 mentioned before, <literal>i4</literal> is always coerced to
1529 <literal>int</literal>.</para>
1533 <title>arrayMem</title>
1537 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><function>arrayMem</function></funcdef>
1539 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$n</parameter></paramdef>
1543 <para>If <function>$val->kindOf() == "array"</function>, returns
1544 the <parameter>$n</parameter>th element in the array represented by
1545 the value <parameter>$val</parameter>. The value returned is an
1546 <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> object.</para>
1548 <para><programlisting language="php">
1549 // iterating over values of an array object
1550 for ($i = 0; $i < $val->arraySize(); $i++)
1552 $v = $val->arrayMem($i);
1553 echo "Element $i of the array is of type ".$v->kindOf();
1555 </programlisting></para>
1559 <title>arraySize</title>
1563 <funcdef><type>int</type><function>arraySize</function></funcdef>
1569 <para>If <parameter>$val</parameter> is an
1570 <classname>array</classname>, returns the number of elements in that
1575 <title>structMem</title>
1579 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><function>structMem</function></funcdef>
1581 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$memberName</parameter></paramdef>
1585 <para>If <function>$val->kindOf() == "struct"</function>, returns
1586 the element called <parameter>$memberName</parameter> from the
1587 struct represented by the value <parameter>$val</parameter>. The
1588 value returned is an <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> object.</para>
1592 <title>structEach</title>
1596 <funcdef><type>array</type><function>structEach</function></funcdef>
1602 <para>Returns the next (key, value) pair from the struct, when
1603 <parameter>$val</parameter> is a struct.
1604 <parameter>$value</parameter> is an xmlrpcval itself. See also <xref
1605 linkend="structreset" />.</para>
1607 <para><programlisting language="php">
1608 // iterating over all values of a struct object
1609 $val->structreset();
1610 while (list($key, $v) = $val->structEach())
1612 echo "Element $key of the struct is of type ".$v->kindOf();
1614 </programlisting></para>
1617 <sect3 id="structreset" xreflabel="structreset()">
1618 <title>structReset</title>
1622 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>structReset</function></funcdef>
1628 <para>Resets the internal pointer for
1629 <function>structEach()</function> to the beginning of the struct,
1630 where <parameter>$val</parameter> is a struct.</para>
1633 <sect3 id="structmemexists" xreflabel="structmemexists()">
1634 <title>structMemExists</title>
1638 <funcdef><type>bool</type><function>structMemExsists</function></funcdef>
1640 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$memberName</parameter></paramdef>
1644 <para>Returns <constant>TRUE</constant> or
1645 <constant>FALSE</constant> depending on whether a member of the
1646 given name exists in the struct.</para>
1651 <sect1 id="xmlrpcmsg" xreflabel="xmlrpcmsg">
1652 <title>xmlrpcmsg</title>
1654 <para>This class provides a representation for a request to an XML-RPC
1655 server. A client sends an <classname>xmlrpcmsg</classname> to a server,
1656 and receives back an <classname>xmlrpcresp</classname> (see <xref
1657 linkend="xmlrpc-client-send" />).</para>
1660 <title>Creation</title>
1662 <para>The constructor takes the following forms:</para>
1666 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcmsg</type>new
1667 <function>xmlrpcmsg</function></funcdef>
1669 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$methodName</parameter></paramdef>
1671 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$parameterArray</parameter><initializer>null</initializer></paramdef>
1675 <para>Where <parameter>methodName</parameter> is a string indicating
1676 the name of the method you wish to invoke, and
1677 <parameter>parameterArray</parameter> is a simple php
1678 <classname>Array</classname> of <classname>xmlrpcval</classname>
1679 objects. Here's an example message to the <emphasis>US state
1680 name</emphasis> server:</para>
1682 <programlisting language="php">
1683 $msg = new xmlrpcmsg("examples.getStateName", array(new xmlrpcval(23, "int")));
1686 <para>This example requests the name of state number 23. For more
1687 information on <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> objects, see <xref
1688 linkend="xmlrpcval" />.</para>
1690 <para>Note that the <parameter>parameterArray</parameter> parameter is
1691 optional and can be omitted for methods that take no input parameters
1692 or if you plan to add parameters one by one.</para>
1696 <title>Methods</title>
1699 <title>addParam</title>
1703 <funcdef><type>bool</type><function>addParam</function></funcdef>
1705 <paramdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><parameter>$xmlrpcVal</parameter></paramdef>
1709 <para>Adds the <classname>xmlrpcval</classname>
1710 <parameter>xmlrpcVal</parameter> to the parameter list for this
1711 method call. Returns TRUE or FALSE on error.</para>
1715 <title>getNumParams</title>
1719 <funcdef><type>int</type><function>getNumParams</function></funcdef>
1725 <para>Returns the number of parameters attached to this
1730 <title>getParam</title>
1734 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><function>getParam</function></funcdef>
1736 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$n</parameter></paramdef>
1740 <para>Gets the <parameter>n</parameter>th parameter in the message
1741 (with the index zero-based). Use this method in server
1742 implementations to retrieve the values sent by the client.</para>
1746 <title>method</title>
1750 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>method</function></funcdef>
1756 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>method</function></funcdef>
1758 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$methName</parameter></paramdef>
1762 <para>Gets or sets the method contained in the XML-RPC
1767 <title>parseResponse</title>
1771 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcresp</type><function>parseResponse</function></funcdef>
1773 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$xmlString</parameter></paramdef>
1777 <para>Given an incoming XML-RPC server response contained in the
1778 string <parameter>$xmlString</parameter>, this method constructs an
1779 <classname>xmlrpcresp</classname> response object and returns it,
1780 setting error codes as appropriate (see <xref
1781 linkend="xmlrpc-client-send" />).</para>
1783 <para>This method processes any HTTP/MIME headers it finds.</para>
1787 <title>parseResponseFile</title>
1791 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcresp</type><function>parseResponseFile</function></funcdef>
1793 <paramdef><type>file handle
1794 resource</type><parameter>$fileHandle</parameter></paramdef>
1798 <para>Given an incoming XML-RPC server response on the open file
1799 handle <parameter>fileHandle</parameter>, this method reads all the
1800 data it finds and passes it to
1801 <function>parseResponse.</function></para>
1803 <para>This method is useful to construct responses from pre-prepared
1804 files (see files <literal>demo1.txt, demo2.txt, demo3.txt</literal>
1805 in this distribution). It processes any HTTP headers it finds, and
1806 does not close the file handle.</para>
1810 <title>serialize</title>
1814 <funcdef><type>string
1815 </type><function>serialize</function></funcdef>
1821 <para>Returns the an XML string representing the XML-RPC
1827 <sect1 id="xmlrpc-client" xreflabel="xmlrpc_client">
1828 <title>xmlrpc_client</title>
1830 <para>This is the basic class used to represent a client of an XML-RPC
1834 <title>Creation</title>
1836 <para>The constructor accepts one of two possible syntaxes:</para>
1840 <funcdef><type>xmlrpc_client</type>new
1841 <function>xmlrpc_client</function></funcdef>
1843 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$server_url</parameter></paramdef>
1847 <funcdef><type>xmlrpc_client</type>new
1848 <function>xmlrpc_client</function></funcdef>
1850 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$server_path</parameter></paramdef>
1852 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$server_hostname</parameter></paramdef>
1854 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$server_port</parameter><initializer>80</initializer></paramdef>
1856 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$transport</parameter><initializer>'http'</initializer></paramdef>
1860 <para>Here are a couple of usage examples of the first form:</para>
1862 <programlisting language="php">
1863 $client = new xmlrpc_client("http://phpxmlrpc.sourceforge.net/server.php");
1864 $another_client = new xmlrpc_client("https://james:bond@secret.service.com:443/xmlrpcserver?agent=007");
1867 <para>The second syntax does not allow to express a username and
1868 password to be used for basic HTTP authorization as in the second
1869 example above, but instead it allows to choose whether xmlrpc calls
1870 will be made using the HTTP 1.0 or 1.1 protocol.</para>
1872 <para>Here's another example client set up to query Userland's XML-RPC
1873 server at <emphasis>betty.userland.com</emphasis>:</para>
1875 <programlisting language="php">
1876 $client = new xmlrpc_client("/RPC2", "betty.userland.com", 80);
1879 <para>The <parameter>server_port</parameter> parameter is optional,
1880 and if omitted will default to 80 when using HTTP and 443 when using
1881 HTTPS (see the <xref linkend="xmlrpc-client-send" /> method
1884 <para>The <parameter>transport</parameter> parameter is optional, and
1885 if omitted will default to 'http'. Allowed values are either
1886 '<symbol>http'</symbol>, '<symbol>https</symbol>' or
1887 '<symbol>http11'</symbol>. Its value can be overridden with every call
1888 to the <methodname>send</methodname> method. See the
1889 <methodname>send</methodname> method below for more details about the
1890 meaning of the different values.</para>
1894 <title>Methods</title>
1896 <para>This class supports the following methods.</para>
1898 <sect3 id="xmlrpc-client-send" xreflabel="xmlrpc_client->send">
1901 <para>This method takes the forms:</para>
1905 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcresp</type><function>send</function></funcdef>
1907 <paramdef><type>xmlrpcmsg</type><parameter>$xmlrpc_message</parameter></paramdef>
1909 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$timeout</parameter></paramdef>
1911 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$transport</parameter></paramdef>
1915 <funcdef><type>array</type><function>send</function></funcdef>
1917 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$xmlrpc_messages</parameter></paramdef>
1919 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$timeout</parameter></paramdef>
1921 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$transport</parameter></paramdef>
1925 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcresp</type><function>send</function></funcdef>
1927 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$xml_payload</parameter></paramdef>
1929 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$timeout</parameter></paramdef>
1931 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$transport</parameter></paramdef>
1935 <para>Where <parameter>xmlrpc_message</parameter> is an instance of
1936 <classname>xmlrpcmsg</classname> (see <xref linkend="xmlrpcmsg" />),
1937 and <parameter>response</parameter> is an instance of
1938 <classname>xmlrpcresp</classname> (see <xref
1939 linkend="xmlrpcresp" />).</para>
1941 <para><parameter>If xmlrpc_messages</parameter> is an array of
1942 message instances, <code>responses</code> will be an array of
1943 response instances. The client will try to make use of a single
1944 <code>system.multicall</code> xml-rpc method call to forward to the
1945 server all the messages in a single HTTP round trip, unless
1946 <code>$client->no_multicall</code> has been previously set to
1947 <code>TRUE</code> (see the multicall method below), in which case
1948 many consecutive xmlrpc requests will be sent.</para>
1950 <para>The third syntax allows to build by hand (or any other means)
1951 a complete xmlrpc request message, and send it to the server.
1952 <parameter>xml_payload</parameter> should be a string containing the
1953 complete xml representation of the request. It is e.g. useful when,
1954 for maximal speed of execution, the request is serialized into a
1955 string using the native php xmlrpc functions (see <ulink
1956 url="http://www.php.net/xmlrpc">the php manual on
1957 xmlrpc</ulink>).</para>
1959 <para>The <parameter>timeout</parameter> is optional, and will be
1960 set to <literal>0</literal> (wait for platform-specific predefined
1961 timeout) if omitted. This timeout value is passed to
1962 <function>fsockopen()</function>. It is also used for detecting
1963 server timeouts during communication (i.e. if the server does not
1964 send anything to the client for <parameter>timeout</parameter>
1965 seconds, the connection will be closed).</para>
1967 <para>The <parameter>transport</parameter> parameter is optional,
1968 and if omitted will default to the transport set using instance
1969 creator or 'http' if omitted. The only other valid values are
1970 'https', which will use an SSL HTTP connection to connect to the
1971 remote server, and 'http11'. Note that your PHP must have the "curl"
1972 extension compiled in order to use both these features. Note that
1973 when using SSL you should normally set your port number to 443,
1974 unless the SSL server you are contacting runs at any other
1978 <para>PHP 4.0.6 has a bug which prevents SSL working.</para>
1981 <para>In addition to low-level errors, the XML-RPC server you were
1982 querying may return an error in the
1983 <classname>xmlrpcresp</classname> object. See <xref
1984 linkend="xmlrpcresp" /> for details of how to handle these
1988 <sect3 id="multicall" xreflabel="xmlrpc_client->multicall">
1989 <title>multiCall</title>
1991 <para>This method takes the form:</para>
1995 <funcdef><type>array</type><function>multiCall</function></funcdef>
1997 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$messages</parameter></paramdef>
1999 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$timeout</parameter></paramdef>
2001 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$transport</parameter></paramdef>
2003 <paramdef><type>bool</type><parameter>$fallback</parameter></paramdef>
2007 <para>This method is used to boxcar many method calls in a single
2008 xml-rpc request. It will try first to make use of the
2009 <code>system.multicall</code> xml-rpc method call, and fall back to
2010 executing many separate requests if the server returns any
2013 <para><parameter>msgs</parameter> is an array of
2014 <classname>xmlrpcmsg</classname> objects (see <xref
2015 linkend="xmlrpcmsg" />), and <parameter>response</parameter> is an
2016 array of <classname>xmlrpcresp</classname> objects (see <xref
2017 linkend="xmlrpcresp" />).</para>
2019 <para>The <parameter>timeout</parameter> and
2020 <parameter>transport</parameter> parameters are optional, and behave
2021 as in the <methodname>send</methodname> method above.</para>
2023 <para>The <parameter>fallback</parameter> parameter is optional, and
2024 defaults to <constant>TRUE</constant>. When set to
2025 <constant>FALSE</constant> it will prevent the client to try using
2026 many single method calls in case of failure of the first multicall
2027 request. It should be set only when the server is known to support
2028 the multicall extension.</para>
2032 <title>setAcceptedCompression</title>
2036 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setAcceptedCompression</function></funcdef>
2038 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$compressionmethod</parameter></paramdef>
2042 <para>This method defines whether the client will accept compressed
2043 xml payload forming the bodies of the xmlrpc responses received from
2044 servers. Note that enabling reception of compressed responses merely
2045 adds some standard http headers to xmlrpc requests. It is up to the
2046 xmlrpc server to return compressed responses when receiving such
2047 requests. Allowed values for
2048 <parameter>compressionmethod</parameter> are: 'gzip', 'deflate',
2049 'any' or null (with any meaning either gzip or deflate).</para>
2051 <para>This requires the "zlib" extension to be enabled in your php
2052 install. If it is, by default <classname>xmlrpc_client</classname>
2053 instances will enable reception of compressed content.</para>
2057 <title>setCaCertificate</title>
2061 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setCaCertificate</function></funcdef>
2063 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$certificate</parameter></paramdef>
2065 <paramdef><type>bool</type><parameter>$is_dir</parameter></paramdef>
2069 <para>This method sets an optional certificate to be used in
2070 SSL-enabled communication to validate a remote server with (when the
2071 <parameter>server_method</parameter> is set to 'https' in the
2072 client's construction or in the send method and
2073 <methodname>SetSSLVerifypeer</methodname> has been set to
2074 <constant>TRUE</constant>).</para>
2076 <para>The <parameter>certificate</parameter> parameter must be the
2077 filename of a PEM formatted certificate, or a directory containing
2078 multiple certificate files. The <parameter>is_dir</parameter>
2079 parameter defaults to <constant>FALSE</constant>, set it to
2080 <constant>TRUE</constant> to specify that
2081 <parameter>certificate</parameter> indicates a directory instead of
2082 a single file.</para>
2084 <para>This requires the "curl" extension to be compiled into your
2085 installation of PHP. For more details see the man page for the
2086 <function>curl_setopt</function> function.</para>
2090 <title>setCertificate</title>
2094 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setCertificate</function></funcdef>
2096 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$certificate</parameter></paramdef>
2098 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$passphrase</parameter></paramdef>
2102 <para>This method sets the optional certificate and passphrase used
2103 in SSL-enabled communication with a remote server (when the
2104 <parameter>server_method</parameter> is set to 'https' in the
2105 client's construction or in the send method).</para>
2107 <para>The <parameter>certificate</parameter> parameter must be the
2108 filename of a PEM formatted certificate. The
2109 <parameter>passphrase</parameter> parameter must contain the
2110 password required to use the certificate.</para>
2112 <para>This requires the "curl" extension to be compiled into your
2113 installation of PHP. For more details see the man page for the
2114 <function>curl_setopt</function> function.</para>
2116 <para>Note: to retrieve information about the client certificate on
2117 the server side, you will need to look into the environment
2118 variables which are set up by the webserver. Different webservers
2119 will typically set up different variables.</para>
2123 <title>setCookie</title>
2127 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setCookie</function></funcdef>
2129 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$name</parameter></paramdef>
2131 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$value</parameter></paramdef>
2133 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$path</parameter></paramdef>
2135 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$domain</parameter></paramdef>
2137 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$port</parameter></paramdef>
2141 <para>This method sets a cookie that will be sent to the xmlrpc
2142 server along with every further request (useful e.g. for keeping
2143 session info outside of the xml-rpc payload).</para>
2145 <para><parameter>$value</parameter> is optional, and defaults to
2148 <para><parameter>$path, $domain and $port</parameter> are optional,
2149 and will be omitted from the cookie header if unspecified. Note that
2150 setting any of these values will turn the cookie into a 'version 1'
2151 cookie, that might not be fully supported by the server (see RFC2965
2152 for more details).</para>
2156 <title>setCredentials</title>
2160 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setCredentials</function></funcdef>
2162 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$username</parameter></paramdef>
2164 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$password</parameter></paramdef>
2166 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$authtype</parameter></paramdef>
2170 <para>This method sets the username and password for authorizing the
2171 client to a server. With the default (HTTP) transport, this
2172 information is used for HTTP Basic authorization. Note that username
2173 and password can also be set using the class constructor. With HTTP
2174 1.1 and HTTPS transport, NTLM and Digest authentication protocols
2175 are also supported. To enable them use the constants
2176 <constant>CURLAUTH_DIGEST</constant> and
2177 <constant>CURLAUTH_NTLM</constant> as values for the authtype
2182 <title>setCurlOptions</title>
2184 <para><funcsynopsis>
2186 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setCurlOptions</function></funcdef>
2188 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$options</parameter></paramdef>
2190 </funcsynopsis>This method allows to directly set any desired
2191 option to manipulate the usage of the cURL client (when in cURL
2192 mode). It can be used eg. to explicitly bind to an outgoing ip
2193 address when the server is multihomed</para>
2197 <title>setDebug</title>
2201 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setDebug</function></funcdef>
2203 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$debugLvl</parameter></paramdef>
2207 <para><parameter>debugLvl</parameter> is either <literal>0,
2208 1</literal> or 2 depending on whether you require the client to
2209 print debugging information to the browser. The default is not to
2210 output this information (0).</para>
2212 <para>The debugging information at level 1includes the raw data
2213 returned from the XML-RPC server it was querying (including bot HTTP
2214 headers and the full XML payload), and the PHP value the client
2215 attempts to create to represent the value returned by the server. At
2216 level2, the complete payload of the xmlrpc request is also printed,
2217 before being sent t the server.</para>
2219 <para>This option can be very useful when debugging servers as it
2220 allows you to see exactly what the client sends and the server
2225 <title>setKey</title>
2229 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setKey</function></funcdef>
2231 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$key</parameter></paramdef>
2233 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$keypass</parameter></paramdef>
2237 <para>This method sets the optional certificate key and passphrase
2238 used in SSL-enabled communication with a remote server (when the
2239 <parameter>transport</parameter> is set to 'https' in the client's
2240 construction or in the send method).</para>
2242 <para>This requires the "curl" extension to be compiled into your
2243 installation of PHP. For more details see the man page for the
2244 <function>curl_setopt</function> function.</para>
2248 <title>setProxy</title>
2252 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setProxy</function></funcdef>
2254 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$proxyhost</parameter></paramdef>
2256 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$proxyport</parameter></paramdef>
2258 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$proxyusername</parameter></paramdef>
2260 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$proxypassword</parameter></paramdef>
2262 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$authtype</parameter></paramdef>
2266 <para>This method enables calling servers via an HTTP proxy. The
2267 <parameter>proxyusername</parameter>,<parameter>
2268 proxypassword</parameter> and <parameter>authtype</parameter>
2269 parameters are optional. <parameter>Authtype</parameter> defaults to
2270 <constant>CURLAUTH_BASIC</constant> (Basic authentication protocol);
2271 the only other valid value is the constant
2272 <constant>CURLAUTH_NTLM</constant>, and has effect only when the
2273 client uses the HTTP 1.1 protocol.</para>
2275 <para>NB: CURL versions before 7.11.10 cannot use a proxy to
2276 communicate with https servers.</para>
2280 <title>setRequestCompression</title>
2284 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setRequestCompression</function></funcdef>
2286 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$compressionmethod</parameter></paramdef>
2290 <para>This method defines whether the xml payload forming the
2291 request body will be sent to the server in compressed format, as per
2292 the HTTP specification. This is particularly useful for large
2293 request parameters and over slow network connections. Allowed values
2294 for <parameter>compressionmethod</parameter> are: 'gzip', 'deflate',
2295 'any' or null (with any meaning either gzip or deflate). Note that
2296 there is no automatic fallback mechanism in place for errors due to
2297 servers not supporting receiving compressed request bodies, so make
2298 sure that the particular server you are querying does accept
2299 compressed requests before turning it on.</para>
2301 <para>This requires the "zlib" extension to be enabled in your php
2306 <title>setSSLVerifyHost</title>
2310 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setSSLVerifyHost</function></funcdef>
2312 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$i</parameter></paramdef>
2316 <para>This method defines whether connections made to XML-RPC
2317 backends via HTTPS should verify the remote host's SSL certificate's
2318 common name (CN). By default, only the existence of a CN is checked.
2319 <parameter><parameter>$i</parameter></parameter> should be an
2320 integer value; 0 to not check the CN at all, 1 to merely check for
2321 its existence, and 2 to check that the CN on the certificate matches
2322 the hostname that is being connected to.</para>
2326 <title>setSSLVerifyPeer</title>
2330 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setSSLVerifyPeer</function></funcdef>
2332 <paramdef><type>bool</type><parameter>$i</parameter></paramdef>
2336 <para>This method defines whether connections made to XML-RPC
2337 backends via HTTPS should verify the remote host's SSL certificate,
2338 and cause the connection to fail if the cert verification fails.
2339 <parameter><parameter>$i</parameter></parameter> should be a boolean
2340 value. Default value: <constant>TRUE</constant>. To specify custom
2341 SSL certificates to validate the server with, use the
2342 <methodname>setCaCertificate</methodname> method.</para>
2346 <title>setUserAgent</title>
2348 <para><funcsynopsis>
2350 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>Useragent</function></funcdef>
2352 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$useragent</parameter></paramdef>
2354 </funcsynopsis>This method sets a custom user-agent that will be
2355 used by the client in the http headers sent with the request. The
2356 default value is built using the library name and version
2362 <title>Variables</title>
2364 <para>NB: direct manipulation of these variables is only recommended
2365 for advanced users.</para>
2368 <title>no_multicall</title>
2370 <para>This member variable determines whether the multicall() method
2371 will try to take advantage of the system.multicall xmlrpc method to
2372 dispatch to the server an array of requests in a single http
2373 roundtrip or simply execute many consecutive http calls. Defaults to
2374 FALSE, but it will be enabled automatically on the first failure of
2375 execution of system.multicall.</para>
2379 <title>request_charset_encoding</title>
2381 <para>This is the charset encoding that will be used for serializing
2382 request sent by the client.</para>
2384 <para>If defaults to NULL, which means using US-ASCII and encoding
2385 all characters outside of the ASCII range using their xml character
2386 entity representation (this has the benefit that line end characters
2387 will not be mangled in the transfer, a CR-LF will be preserved as
2388 well as a singe LF).</para>
2390 <para>Valid values are 'US-ASCII', 'UTF-8' and 'ISO-8859-1'</para>
2393 <sect3 id="return-type" xreflabel="return_type">
2394 <title>return_type</title>
2396 <para>This member variable determines whether the value returned
2397 inside an xmlrpcresp object as results of calls to the send() and
2398 multicall() methods will be an xmlrpcval object, a plain php value
2399 or a raw xml string. Allowed values are 'xmlrpcvals' (the default),
2400 'phpvals' and 'xml'. To allow the user to differentiate between a
2401 correct and a faulty response, fault responses will be returned as
2402 xmlrpcresp objects in any case. Note that the 'phpvals' setting will
2403 yield faster execution times, but some of the information from the
2404 original response will be lost. It will be e.g. impossible to tell
2405 whether a particular php string value was sent by the server as an
2406 xmlrpc string or base64 value.</para>
2408 <para>Example usage:</para>
2410 <programlisting language="php">
2411 $client = new xmlrpc_client("phpxmlrpc.sourceforge.net/server.php");
2412 $client->return_type = 'phpvals';
2413 $message = new xmlrpcmsg("examples.getStateName", array(new xmlrpcval(23, "int")));
2414 $resp = $client->send($message);
2415 if ($resp->faultCode()) echo 'KO. Error: '.$resp->faultString(); else echo 'OK: got '.$resp->value();
2418 <para>For more details about usage of the 'xml' value, see Appendix
2424 <sect1 id="xmlrpcresp" xreflabel="xmlrpcresp">
2425 <title>xmlrpcresp</title>
2427 <para>This class is used to contain responses to XML-RPC requests. A
2428 server method handler will construct an
2429 <classname>xmlrpcresp</classname> and pass it as a return value. This
2430 same value will be returned by the result of an invocation of the
2431 <function>send</function> method of the
2432 <classname>xmlrpc_client</classname> class.</para>
2435 <title>Creation</title>
2439 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcresp</type>new
2440 <function>xmlrpcresp</function></funcdef>
2442 <paramdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><parameter>$xmlrpcval</parameter></paramdef>
2446 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcresp</type>new
2447 <function>xmlrpcresp</function></funcdef>
2449 <paramdef><parameter>0</parameter></paramdef>
2451 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$errcode</parameter></paramdef>
2453 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$err_string</parameter></paramdef>
2457 <para>The first syntax is used when execution has happened without
2458 difficulty: <parameter>$xmlrpcval</parameter> is an
2459 <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> value with the result of the method
2460 execution contained in it. Alternatively it can be a string containing
2461 the xml serialization of the single xml-rpc value result of method
2464 <para>The second type of constructor is used in case of failure.
2465 <parameter>errcode</parameter> and <parameter>err_string</parameter>
2466 are used to provide indication of what has gone wrong. See <xref
2467 linkend="xmlrpc-server" /> for more information on passing error
2472 <title>Methods</title>
2475 <title>faultCode</title>
2479 <funcdef><type>int</type><function>faultCode</function></funcdef>
2485 <para>Returns the integer fault code return from the XML-RPC
2486 response. A zero value indicates success, any other value indicates
2487 a failure response.</para>
2491 <title>faultString</title>
2495 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>faultString</function></funcdef>
2501 <para>Returns the human readable explanation of the fault indicated
2502 by <function>$resp->faultCode</function>().</para>
2506 <title>value</title>
2510 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><function>value</function></funcdef>
2516 <para>Returns an <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> object containing
2517 the return value sent by the server. If the response's
2518 <function>faultCode</function> is non-zero then the value returned
2519 by this method should not be used (it may not even be an
2522 <para>Note: if the xmlrpcresp instance in question has been created
2523 by an <classname>xmlrpc_client</classname> object whose
2524 <varname>return_type</varname> was set to 'phpvals', then a plain
2525 php value will be returned instead of an
2526 <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> object. If the
2527 <varname>return_type</varname> was set to 'xml', an xml string will
2528 be returned (see the return_type member var above for more
2533 <title>serialize</title>
2537 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>serialize</function></funcdef>
2543 <para>Returns an XML string representation of the response (xml
2544 prologue not included).</para>
2549 <sect1 id="xmlrpc-server" xreflabel="xmlrpc_server">
2550 <title>xmlrpc_server</title>
2552 <para>The implementation of this class has been kept as simple to use as
2553 possible. The constructor for the server basically does all the work.
2554 Here's a minimal example:</para>
2556 <programlisting language="php">
2557 function foo ($xmlrpcmsg) {
2559 return new xmlrpcresp($some_xmlrpc_val);
2563 function foobar($xmlrpcmsg) {
2565 return new xmlrpcresp($some_xmlrpc_val);
2569 $s = new xmlrpc_server(
2571 "examples.myFunc1" => array("function" => "foo"),
2572 "examples.myFunc2" => array("function" => "bar::foobar"),
2576 <para>This performs everything you need to do with a server. The single
2577 constructor argument is an associative array from xmlrpc method names to
2578 php function names. The incoming request is parsed and dispatched to the
2579 relevant php function, which is responsible for returning a
2580 <classname>xmlrpcresp</classname> object, that will be serialized back
2581 to the caller.</para>
2584 <title>Method handler functions</title>
2586 <para>Both php functions and class methods can be registered as xmlrpc
2587 method handlers.</para>
2589 <para>The synopsis of a method handler function is:</para>
2591 <para><synopsis>xmlrpcresp $resp = function (xmlrpcmsg $msg)</synopsis></para>
2593 <para>No text should be echoed 'to screen' by the handler function, or
2594 it will break the xml response sent back to the client. This applies
2595 also to error and warning messages that PHP prints to screen unless
2596 the appropriate parameters have been set in the php.in file. Another
2597 way to prevent echoing of errors inside the response and facilitate
2598 debugging is to use the server SetDebug method with debug level 3 (see
2599 ...). Exceptions thrown duting execution of handler functions are
2600 caught by default and a XML-RPC error reponse is generated instead.
2601 This behaviour can be finetuned by usage of the
2602 <varname>exception_handling</varname> member variable (see
2605 <para>Note that if you implement a method with a name prefixed by
2606 <code>system.</code> the handler function will be invoked by the
2607 server with two parameters, the first being the server itself and the
2608 second being the <classname>xmlrpcmsg</classname> object.</para>
2610 <para>The same php function can be registered as handler of multiple
2611 xmlrpc methods.</para>
2613 <para>Here is a more detailed example of what the handler function
2614 <function>foo</function> may do:</para>
2616 <programlisting language="php">
2617 function foo ($xmlrpcmsg) {
2618 global $xmlrpcerruser; // import user errcode base value
2620 $meth = $xmlrpcmsg->method(); // retrieve method name
2621 $par = $xmlrpcmsg->getParam(0); // retrieve value of first parameter - assumes at least one param received
2622 $val = $par->scalarval(); // decode value of first parameter - assumes it is a scalar value
2627 // this is an error condition
2628 return new xmlrpcresp(0, $xmlrpcerruser+1, // user error 1
2629 "There's a problem, Captain");
2631 // this is a successful value being returned
2632 return new xmlrpcresp(new xmlrpcval("All's fine!", "string"));
2637 <para>See <filename>server.php</filename> in this distribution for
2638 more examples of how to do this.</para>
2640 <para>Since release 2.0RC3 there is a new, even simpler way of
2641 registering php functions with the server. See section 5.7
2646 <title>The dispatch map</title>
2648 <para>The first argument to the <function>xmlrpc_server</function>
2649 constructor is an array, called the <emphasis>dispatch map</emphasis>.
2650 In this array is the information the server needs to service the
2651 XML-RPC methods you define.</para>
2653 <para>The dispatch map takes the form of an associative array of
2654 associative arrays: the outer array has one entry for each method, the
2655 key being the method name. The corresponding value is another
2656 associative array, which can have the following members:</para>
2660 <para><function><literal>function</literal></function> - this
2661 entry is mandatory. It must be either a name of a function in the
2662 global scope which services the XML-RPC method, or an array
2663 containing an instance of an object and a static method name (for
2664 static class methods the 'class::method' syntax is also
2669 <para><function><literal>signature</literal></function> - this
2670 entry is an array containing the possible signatures (see <xref
2671 linkend="signatures" />) for the method. If this entry is present
2672 then the server will check that the correct number and type of
2673 parameters have been sent for this method before dispatching
2678 <para><function><literal>docstring</literal></function> - this
2679 entry is a string containing documentation for the method. The
2680 documentation may contain HTML markup.</para>
2684 <para><literal>signature_docs</literal> - this entry can be used
2685 to provide documentation for the single parameters. It must match
2686 in structure the 'signature' member. By default, only the
2687 <classname>documenting_xmlrpc_server</classname> class in the
2688 extras package will take advantage of this, since the
2689 "system.methodHelp" protocol does not support documenting method
2690 parameters individually.</para>
2694 <para><literal>parameters_type</literal> - this entry can be used
2695 when the server is working in 'xmlrpcvals' mode (see ...) to
2696 define one or more entries in the dispatch map as being functions
2697 that follow the 'phpvals' calling convention. The only useful
2698 value is currently the string <literal>phpvals</literal>.</para>
2702 <para>Look at the <filename>server.php</filename> example in the
2703 distribution to see what a dispatch map looks like.</para>
2706 <sect2 id="signatures" xreflabel="Signatures">
2707 <title>Method signatures</title>
2709 <para>A signature is a description of a method's return type and its
2710 parameter types. A method may have more than one signature.</para>
2712 <para>Within a server's dispatch map, each method has an array of
2713 possible signatures. Each signature is an array of types. The first
2714 entry is the return type. For instance, the method <programlisting
2715 language="php">string examples.getStateName(int)
2716 </programlisting> has the signature <programlisting language="php">array($xmlrpcString, $xmlrpcInt)
2717 </programlisting> and, assuming that it is the only possible signature for the
2718 method, it might be used like this in server creation: <programlisting
2720 $findstate_sig = array(array($xmlrpcString, $xmlrpcInt));
2722 $findstate_doc = 'When passed an integer between 1 and 51 returns the
2723 name of a US state, where the integer is the index of that state name
2724 in an alphabetic order.';
2726 $s = new xmlrpc_server( array(
2727 "examples.getStateName" => array(
2728 "function" => "findstate",
2729 "signature" => $findstate_sig,
2730 "docstring" => $findstate_doc
2732 </programlisting></para>
2734 <para>Note that method signatures do not allow to check nested
2735 parameters, e.g. the number, names and types of the members of a
2736 struct param cannot be validated.</para>
2738 <para>If a method that you want to expose has a definite number of
2739 parameters, but each of those parameters could reasonably be of
2740 multiple types, the array of acceptable signatures will easily grow
2741 into a combinatorial explosion. To avoid such a situation, the lib
2742 defines the global var <varname>$xmlrpcValue</varname>, which can be
2743 used in method signatures as a placeholder for 'any xmlrpc
2746 <para><programlisting language="php">
2747 $echoback_sig = array(array($xmlrpcValue, $xmlrpcValue));
2749 $findstate_doc = 'Echoes back to the client the received value, regardless of its type';
2751 $s = new xmlrpc_server( array(
2752 "echoBack" => array(
2753 "function" => "echoback",
2754 "signature" => $echoback_sig, // this sig guarantees that the method handler will be called with one and only one parameter
2755 "docstring" => $echoback_doc
2757 </programlisting></para>
2759 <para>Methods <methodname>system.listMethods</methodname>,
2760 <methodname>system.methodHelp</methodname>,
2761 <methodname>system.methodSignature</methodname> and
2762 <methodname>system.multicall</methodname> are already defined by the
2763 server, and should not be reimplemented (see Reserved Methods
2768 <title>Delaying the server response</title>
2770 <para>You may want to construct the server, but for some reason not
2771 fulfill the request immediately (security verification, for instance).
2772 If you omit to pass to the constructor the dispatch map or pass it a
2773 second argument of <literal>0</literal> this will have the desired
2774 effect. You can then use the <function>service()</function> method of
2775 the server class to service the request. For example:</para>
2777 <programlisting language="php">
2778 $s = new xmlrpc_server($myDispMap, 0); // second parameter = 0 prevents automatic servicing of request
2780 // ... some code that does other stuff here
2785 <para>Note that the <methodname>service</methodname> method will print
2786 the complete result payload to screen and send appropriate HTTP
2787 headers back to the client, but also return the response object. This
2788 permits further manipulation of the response, possibly in combination
2789 with output buffering.</para>
2791 <para>To prevent the server from sending HTTP headers back to the
2792 client, you can pass a second parameter with a value of
2793 <literal>TRUE</literal> to the <methodname>service</methodname>
2794 method. In this case, the response payload will be returned instead of
2795 the response object.</para>
2797 <para>Xmlrpc requests retrieved by other means than HTTP POST bodies
2798 can also be processed. For example:</para>
2800 <programlisting language="php">
2801 $s = new xmlrpc_server(); // not passing a dispatch map prevents automatic servicing of request
2803 // ... some code that does other stuff here, including setting dispatch map into server object
2805 $resp = $s->service($xmlrpc_request_body, true); // parse a variable instead of POST body, retrieve response payload
2807 // ... some code that does other stuff with xml response $resp here
2812 <title>Modifying the server behaviour</title>
2814 <para>A couple of methods / class variables are available to modify
2815 the behaviour of the server. The only way to take advantage of their
2816 existence is by usage of a delayed server response (see above)</para>
2819 <title>setDebug()</title>
2821 <para>This function controls weather the server is going to echo
2822 debugging messages back to the client as comments in response body.
2823 Valid values: 0,1,2,3, with 1 being the default. At level 0, no
2824 debug info is returned to the client. At level 2, the complete
2825 client request is added to the response, as part of the xml
2826 comments. At level 3, a new PHP error handler is set when executing
2827 user functions exposed as server methods, and all non-fatal errors
2828 are trapped and added as comments into the response.</para>
2832 <title>allow_system_funcs</title>
2834 <para>Default_value: TRUE. When set to FALSE, disables support for
2835 <methodname>System.xxx</methodname> functions in the server. It
2836 might be useful e.g. if you do not wish the server to respond to
2837 requests to <methodname>System.ListMethods</methodname>.</para>
2841 <title>compress_response</title>
2843 <para>When set to TRUE, enables the server to take advantage of HTTP
2844 compression, otherwise disables it. Responses will be transparently
2845 compressed, but only when an xmlrpc-client declares its support for
2846 compression in the HTTP headers of the request.</para>
2848 <para>Note that the ZLIB php extension must be installed for this to
2849 work. If it is, <varname>compress_response</varname> will default to
2854 <title>exception_handling</title>
2856 <para>This variable controls the behaviour of the server when an
2857 exception is thrown by a method handler php function. Valid values:
2858 0,1,2, with 0 being the default. At level 0, the server catches the
2859 exception and return an 'internal error' xmlrpc response; at 1 it
2860 catches the exceptions and return an xmlrpc response with the error
2861 code and error message corresponding to the exception that was
2862 thron; at 2 = the exception is floated to the upper layers in the
2867 <title>response_charset_encoding</title>
2869 <para>Charset encoding to be used for response (only affects string
2872 <para>If it can, the server will convert the generated response from
2873 internal_encoding to the intended one.</para>
2875 <para>Valid values are: a supported xml encoding (only UTF-8 and
2876 ISO-8859-1 at present, unless mbstring is enabled), null (leave
2877 charset unspecified in response and convert output stream to
2878 US_ASCII), 'default' (use xmlrpc library default as specified in
2879 xmlrpc.inc, convert output stream if needed), or 'auto' (use
2880 client-specified charset encoding or same as request if request
2881 headers do not specify it (unless request is US-ASCII: then use
2882 library default anyway).</para>
2887 <title>Fault reporting</title>
2889 <para>Fault codes for your servers should start at the value indicated
2890 by the global <literal>$xmlrpcerruser</literal> + 1.</para>
2892 <para>Standard errors returned by the server include:</para>
2896 <term><literal>1</literal> <phrase>Unknown method</phrase></term>
2899 <para>Returned if the server was asked to dispatch a method it
2900 didn't know about</para>
2905 <term><literal>2</literal> <phrase>Invalid return
2906 payload</phrase></term>
2909 <para>This error is actually generated by the client, not
2910 server, code, but signifies that a server returned something it
2911 couldn't understand. A more detailed error report is sometimes
2912 added onto the end of the phrase above.</para>
2917 <term><literal>3</literal> <phrase>Incorrect
2918 parameters</phrase></term>
2921 <para>This error is generated when the server has signature(s)
2922 defined for a method, and the parameters passed by the client do
2923 not match any of signatures.</para>
2928 <term><literal>4</literal> <phrase>Can't introspect: method
2929 unknown</phrase></term>
2932 <para>This error is generated by the builtin
2933 <function>system.*</function> methods when any kind of
2934 introspection is attempted on a method undefined by the
2940 <term><literal>5</literal> <phrase>Didn't receive 200 OK from
2941 remote server</phrase></term>
2944 <para>This error is generated by the client when a remote server
2945 doesn't return HTTP/1.1 200 OK in response to a request. A more
2946 detailed error report is added onto the end of the phrase
2952 <term><literal>6</literal> <phrase>No data received from
2953 server</phrase></term>
2956 <para>This error is generated by the client when a remote server
2957 returns HTTP/1.1 200 OK in response to a request, but no
2958 response body follows the HTTP headers.</para>
2963 <term><literal>7</literal> <phrase>No SSL support compiled
2967 <para>This error is generated by the client when trying to send
2968 a request with HTTPS and the CURL extension is not available to
2974 <term><literal>8</literal> <phrase>CURL error</phrase></term>
2977 <para>This error is generated by the client when trying to send
2978 a request with HTTPS and the HTTPS communication fails.</para>
2983 <term><literal>9-14</literal> <phrase>multicall
2984 errors</phrase></term>
2987 <para>These errors are generated by the server when something
2988 fails inside a system.multicall request.</para>
2993 <term><literal>100-</literal> <phrase>XML parse
2994 errors</phrase></term>
2997 <para>Returns 100 plus the XML parser error code for the fault
2998 that occurred. The <function>faultString</function> returned
2999 explains where the parse error was in the incoming XML
3007 <title>'New style' servers</title>
3009 <para>In the same spirit of simplification that inspired the
3010 <varname>xmlrpc_client::return_type</varname> class variable, a new
3011 class variable has been added to the server class:
3012 <varname>functions_parameters_type</varname>. When set to 'phpvals',
3013 the functions registered in the server dispatch map will be called
3014 with plain php values as parameters, instead of a single xmlrpcmsg
3015 instance parameter. The return value of those functions is expected to
3016 be a plain php value, too. An example is worth a thousand
3017 words:<programlisting language="php">
3018 function foo($usr_id, $out_lang='en') {
3019 global $xmlrpcerruser;
3023 if ($someErrorCondition)
3024 return new xmlrpcresp(0, $xmlrpcerruser+1, 'DOH!');
3029 'picture' => new xmlrpcval(file_get_contents($picOfTheGuy), 'base64')
3033 $s = new xmlrpc_server(
3035 "examples.myFunc" => array(
3036 "function" => "bar::foobar",
3037 "signature" => array(
3038 array($xmlrpcString, $xmlrpcInt),
3039 array($xmlrpcString, $xmlrpcInt, $xmlrpcString)
3043 $s->functions_parameters_type = 'phpvals';
3045 </programlisting>There are a few things to keep in mind when using this
3046 simplified syntax:</para>
3048 <para>to return an xmlrpc error, the method handler function must
3049 return an instance of <classname>xmlrpcresp</classname>. The only
3050 other way for the server to know when an error response should be
3051 served to the client is to throw an exception and set the server's
3052 <varname>exception_handling</varname> memeber var to 1;</para>
3054 <para>to return a base64 value, the method handler function must
3055 encode it on its own, creating an instance of an xmlrpcval
3058 <para>the method handler function cannot determine the name of the
3059 xmlrpc method it is serving, unlike standard handler functions that
3060 can retrieve it from the message object;</para>
3062 <para>when receiving nested parameters, the method handler function
3063 has no way to distinguish a php string that was sent as base64 value
3064 from one that was sent as a string value;</para>
3066 <para>this has a direct consequence on the support of
3067 system.multicall: a method whose signature contains datetime or base64
3068 values will not be available to multicall calls;</para>
3070 <para>last but not least, the direct parsing of xml to php values is
3071 much faster than using xmlrpcvals, and allows the library to handle
3072 much bigger messages without allocating all available server memory or
3073 smashing PHP recursive call stack.</para>
3078 <chapter id="globalvars">
3079 <title>Global variables</title>
3081 <para>Many global variables are defined in the xmlrpc.inc file. Some of
3082 those are meant to be used as constants (and modifying their value might
3083 cause unpredictable behaviour), while some others can be modified in your
3084 php scripts to alter the behaviour of the xml-rpc client and
3088 <title>"Constant" variables</title>
3091 <title>$xmlrpcerruser</title>
3093 <para><fieldsynopsis>
3094 <varname>$xmlrpcerruser</varname>
3096 <initializer>800</initializer>
3097 </fieldsynopsis>The minimum value for errors reported by user
3098 implemented XML-RPC servers. Error numbers lower than that are
3099 reserved for library usage.</para>
3103 <title>$xmlrpcI4, $xmlrpcInt, $xmlrpcBoolean, $xmlrpcDouble,
3104 $xmlrpcString, $xmlrpcDateTime, $xmlrpcBase64, $xmlrpcArray,
3105 $xmlrpcStruct, $xmlrpcValue, $xmlrpcNull</title>
3107 <para>For convenience the strings representing the XML-RPC types have
3108 been encoded as global variables:<programlisting language="php">
3111 $xmlrpcBoolean="boolean";
3112 $xmlrpcDouble="double";
3113 $xmlrpcString="string";
3114 $xmlrpcDateTime="dateTime.iso8601";
3115 $xmlrpcBase64="base64";
3116 $xmlrpcArray="array";
3117 $xmlrpcStruct="struct";
3118 $xmlrpcValue="undefined";
3120 </programlisting></para>
3124 <title>$xmlrpcTypes, $xmlrpc_valid_parents, $xmlrpcerr, $xmlrpcstr,
3125 $xmlrpcerrxml, $xmlrpc_backslash, $_xh, $xml_iso88591_Entities,
3126 $xmlEntities, $xmlrpcs_capabilities</title>
3128 <para>Reserved for internal usage.</para>
3133 <title>Variables whose value can be modified</title>
3135 <sect2 id="xmlrpc-defencoding" xreflabel="xmlrpc_defencoding">
3136 <title xreflabel="">xmlrpc_defencoding</title>
3139 <varname>$xmlrpc_defencoding</varname>
3141 <initializer>"UTF8"</initializer>
3144 <para>This variable defines the character set encoding that will be
3145 used by the xml-rpc client and server to decode the received messages,
3146 when a specific charset declaration is not found (in the messages sent
3147 non-ascii chars are always encoded using character references, so that
3148 the produced xml is valid regardless of the charset encoding
3151 <para>Allowed values: <literal>"UTF8"</literal>,
3152 <literal>"ISO-8859-1"</literal>, <literal>"ASCII".</literal></para>
3154 <para>Note that the appropriate RFC actually mandates that XML
3155 received over HTTP without indication of charset encoding be treated
3156 as US-ASCII, but many servers and clients 'in the wild' violate the
3157 standard, and assume the default encoding is UTF-8.</para>
3161 <title>xmlrpc_internalencoding</title>
3163 <para><fieldsynopsis>
3164 <varname>$xmlrpc_internalencoding</varname>
3166 <initializer>"ISO-8859-1"</initializer>
3167 </fieldsynopsis>This variable defines the character set encoding
3168 that the library uses to transparently encode into valid XML the
3169 xml-rpc values created by the user and to re-encode the received
3170 xml-rpc values when it passes them to the PHP application. It only
3171 affects xml-rpc values of string type. It is a separate value from
3172 xmlrpc_defencoding, allowing e.g. to send/receive xml messages encoded
3173 on-the-wire in US-ASCII and process them as UTF-8. It defaults to the
3174 character set used internally by PHP (unless you are running an
3175 MBString-enabled installation), so you should change it only in
3176 special situations, if e.g. the string values exchanged in the xml-rpc
3177 messages are directly inserted into / fetched from a database
3178 configured to return UTF8 encoded strings to PHP. Example
3181 <para><programlisting language="php">
3184 include('xmlrpc.inc');
3185 $xmlrpc_internalencoding = 'UTF-8'; // this has to be set after the inclusion above
3186 $v = new xmlrpcval('κόÏ
\83με'); // This xmlrpc value will be correctly serialized as the greek word 'kosme'
3187 </programlisting></para>
3191 <title>xmlrpcName</title>
3193 <para><fieldsynopsis>
3194 <varname>$xmlrpcName</varname>
3196 <initializer>"XML-RPC for PHP"</initializer>
3197 </fieldsynopsis>The string representation of the name of the XML-RPC
3198 for PHP library. It is used by the client for building the User-Agent
3199 HTTP header that is sent with every request to the server. You can
3200 change its value if you need to customize the User-Agent
3205 <title>xmlrpcVersion</title>
3207 <para><fieldsynopsis>
3208 <varname>$xmlrpcVersion</varname>
3210 <initializer>"2.2"</initializer>
3211 </fieldsynopsis>The string representation of the version number of
3212 the XML-RPC for PHP library in use. It is used by the client for
3213 building the User-Agent HTTP header that is sent with every request to
3214 the server. You can change its value if you need to customize the
3215 User-Agent string.</para>
3219 <title>xmlrpc_null_extension</title>
3221 <para>When set to <constant>TRUE</constant>, the lib will enable
3222 support for the <NIL/> (and <EX:NIL/>) xmlrpc value, as
3223 per the extension to the standard proposed here. This means that
3224 <NIL/> and <EX:NIL/> tags received will be parsed as valid
3225 xmlrpc, and the corresponding xmlrpcvals will return "null" for
3226 <methodname>scalarTyp()</methodname>.</para>
3230 <title>xmlrpc_null_apache_encoding</title>
3232 <para>When set to <literal>TRUE</literal>, php NULL values encoded
3233 into <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> objects get serialized using the
3234 <literal><EX:NIL/></literal> tag instead of
3235 <literal><NIL/></literal>. Please note that both forms are
3236 always accepted as input regardless of the value of this
3242 <chapter id="helpers">
3243 <title>Helper functions</title>
3245 <para>XML-RPC for PHP contains some helper functions which you can use to
3246 make processing of XML-RPC requests easier.</para>
3249 <title>Date functions</title>
3251 <para>The XML-RPC specification has this to say on dates:</para>
3254 <para id="wrap_xmlrpc_method">Don't assume a timezone. It should be
3255 specified by the server in its documentation what assumptions it makes
3256 about timezones.</para>
3259 <para>Unfortunately, this means that date processing isn't
3260 straightforward. Although XML-RPC uses ISO 8601 format dates, it doesn't
3261 use the timezone specifier.</para>
3263 <para>We strongly recommend that in every case where you pass dates in
3264 XML-RPC calls, you use UTC (GMT) as your timezone. Most computer
3265 languages include routines for handling GMT times natively, and you
3266 won't have to translate between timezones.</para>
3268 <para>For more information about dates, see <ulink
3269 url="http://www.uic.edu/year2000/datefmt.html">ISO 8601: The Right
3270 Format for Dates</ulink>, which has a handy link to a PDF of the ISO
3271 8601 specification. Note that XML-RPC uses exactly one of the available
3272 representations: CCYYMMDDTHH:MM:SS.</para>
3274 <sect2 id="iso8601encode" xreflabel="iso8601_encode()">
3275 <title>iso8601_encode</title>
3279 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>iso8601_encode</function></funcdef>
3281 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$time_t</parameter></paramdef>
3284 choice="opt"><type>int</type><parameter>$utc</parameter><initializer>0</initializer></paramdef>
3288 <para>Returns an ISO 8601 formatted date generated from the UNIX
3289 timestamp <parameter>$time_t</parameter>, as returned by the PHP
3290 function <function>time()</function>.</para>
3292 <para>The argument <parameter>$utc</parameter> can be omitted, in
3293 which case it defaults to <literal>0</literal>. If it is set to
3294 <literal>1</literal>, then the function corrects the time passed in
3295 for UTC. Example: if you're in the GMT-6:00 timezone and set
3296 <parameter>$utc</parameter>, you will receive a date representation
3297 six hours ahead of your local time.</para>
3299 <para>The included demo program <filename>vardemo.php</filename>
3300 includes a demonstration of this function.</para>
3303 <sect2 id="iso8601decode" xreflabel="iso8601_decode()">
3304 <title>iso8601_decode</title>
3308 <funcdef><type>int</type><function>iso8601_decode</function></funcdef>
3310 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$isoString</parameter></paramdef>
3312 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$utc</parameter><initializer>0</initializer></paramdef>
3316 <para>Returns a UNIX timestamp from an ISO 8601 encoded time and date
3317 string passed in. If <parameter>$utc</parameter> is
3318 <literal>1</literal> then <parameter>$isoString</parameter> is assumed
3319 to be in the UTC timezone, and thus the result is also UTC: otherwise,
3320 the timezone is assumed to be your local timezone and you receive a
3321 local timestamp.</para>
3325 <sect1 id="arrayuse">
3326 <title>Easy use with nested PHP values</title>
3328 <para>Dan Libby was kind enough to contribute two helper functions that
3329 make it easier to translate to and from PHP values. This makes it easier
3330 to deal with complex structures. At the moment support is limited to
3331 <type>int</type>, <type>double</type>, <type>string</type>,
3332 <type>array</type>, <type>datetime</type> and <type>struct</type>
3333 datatypes; note also that all PHP arrays are encoded as structs, except
3334 arrays whose keys are integer numbers starting with 0 and incremented by
3337 <para>These functions reside in <filename>xmlrpc.inc</filename>.</para>
3339 <sect2 id="phpxmlrpcdecode">
3340 <title>php_xmlrpc_decode</title>
3344 <funcdef><type>mixed</type><function>php_xmlrpc_decode</function></funcdef>
3346 <paramdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><parameter>$xmlrpc_val</parameter></paramdef>
3348 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$options</parameter></paramdef>
3352 <funcdef><type>array</type><function>php_xmlrpc_decode</function></funcdef>
3354 <paramdef><type>xmlrpcmsg</type><parameter>$xmlrpcmsg_val</parameter></paramdef>
3356 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$options</parameter></paramdef>
3360 <para>Returns a native PHP value corresponding to the values found in
3361 the <type>xmlrpcval</type> <parameter>$xmlrpc_val</parameter>,
3362 translated into PHP types. Base-64 and datetime values are
3363 automatically decoded to strings.</para>
3365 <para>In the second form, returns an array containing the parameters
3367 <parameter><classname>xmlrpcmsg</classname>_val</parameter>, decoded
3368 to php types.</para>
3370 <para>The <parameter>options</parameter> parameter is optional. If
3371 specified, it must consist of an array of options to be enabled in the
3372 decoding process. At the moment the only valid option are
3373 <symbol>decode_php_objs</symbol> and
3374 <literal>dates_as_objects</literal>. When the first is set, php
3375 objects that have been converted to xml-rpc structs using the
3376 <function>php_xmlrpc_encode</function> function and a corresponding
3377 encoding option will be converted back into object values instead of
3378 arrays (provided that the class definition is available at
3379 reconstruction time). When the second is set, XML-RPC datetime values
3380 will be converted into native <classname>dateTime</classname> objects
3381 instead of strings.</para>
3383 <para><emphasis><emphasis>WARNING</emphasis>:</emphasis> please take
3384 extreme care before enabling the <symbol>decode_php_objs</symbol>
3385 option: when php objects are rebuilt from the received xml, their
3386 constructor function will be silently invoked. This means that you are
3387 allowing the remote end to trigger execution of uncontrolled PHP code
3388 on your server, opening the door to code injection exploits. Only
3389 enable this option when you have complete trust of the remote
3390 server/client.</para>
3392 <para>Example:<programlisting language="php">
3393 // wrapper to expose an existing php function as xmlrpc method handler
3394 function foo_wrapper($m)
3396 $params = php_xmlrpc_decode($m);
3397 $retval = call_user_func_array('foo', $params);
3398 return new xmlrpcresp(new xmlrpcval($retval)); // foo return value will be serialized as string
3401 $s = new xmlrpc_server(array(
3402 "examples.myFunc1" => array(
3403 "function" => "foo_wrapper",
3404 "signatures" => ...
3406 </programlisting></para>
3409 <sect2 id="phpxmlrpcencode">
3410 <title>php_xmlrpc_encode</title>
3414 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><function>php_xmlrpc_encode</function></funcdef>
3416 <paramdef><type>mixed</type><parameter>$phpval</parameter></paramdef>
3418 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$options</parameter></paramdef>
3422 <para>Returns an <type>xmlrpcval</type> object populated with the PHP
3423 values in <parameter>$phpval</parameter>. Works recursively on arrays
3424 and objects, encoding numerically indexed php arrays into array-type
3425 xmlrpcval objects and non numerically indexed php arrays into
3426 struct-type xmlrpcval objects. Php objects are encoded into
3427 struct-type xmlrpcvals, excepted for php values that are already
3428 instances of the xmlrpcval class or descendants thereof, which will
3429 not be further encoded. Note that there's no support for encoding php
3430 values into base-64 values. Encoding of date-times is optionally
3431 carried on on php strings with the correct format.</para>
3433 <para>The <parameter>options</parameter> parameter is optional. If
3434 specified, it must consist of an array of options to be enabled in the
3435 encoding process. At the moment the only valid options are
3436 <symbol>encode_php_objs</symbol>, <literal>null_extension</literal>
3437 and <symbol>auto_dates</symbol>.</para>
3439 <para>The first will enable the creation of 'particular' xmlrpcval
3440 objects out of php objects, that add a "php_class" xml attribute to
3441 their serialized representation. This attribute allows the function
3442 php_xmlrpc_decode to rebuild the native php objects (provided that the
3443 same class definition exists on both sides of the communication). The
3444 second allows to encode php <literal>NULL</literal> values to the
3445 <literal><NIL/></literal> (or
3446 <literal><EX:NIL/></literal>, see ...) tag. The last encodes any
3447 string that matches the ISO8601 format into an XML-RPC
3450 <para>Example:<programlisting language="php">
3451 // the easy way to build a complex xml-rpc struct, showing nested base64 value and datetime values
3452 $val = php_xmlrpc_encode(array(
3453 'first struct_element: an int' => 666,
3454 'second: an array' => array ('apple', 'orange', 'banana'),
3455 'third: a base64 element' => new xmlrpcval('hello world', 'base64'),
3456 'fourth: a datetime' => '20060107T01:53:00'
3457 ), array('auto_dates'));
3458 </programlisting></para>
3462 <title>php_xmlrpc_decode_xml</title>
3466 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval | xmlrpcresp |
3467 xmlrpcmsg</type><function>php_xmlrpc_decode_xml</function></funcdef>
3469 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$xml</parameter></paramdef>
3471 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$options</parameter></paramdef>
3475 <para>Decodes the xml representation of either an xmlrpc request,
3476 response or single value, returning the corresponding php-xmlrpc
3477 object, or <literal>FALSE</literal> in case of an error.</para>
3479 <para>The <parameter>options</parameter> parameter is optional. If
3480 specified, it must consist of an array of options to be enabled in the
3481 decoding process. At the moment, no option is supported.</para>
3483 <para>Example:<programlisting language="php">
3484 $text = '<value><array><data><value>Hello world</value></data></array></value>';
3485 $val = php_xmlrpc_decode_xml($text);
3486 if ($val) echo 'Found a value of type '.$val->kindOf(); else echo 'Found invalid xml';
3487 </programlisting></para>
3492 <title>Automatic conversion of php functions into xmlrpc methods (and
3495 <para>For the extremely lazy coder, helper functions have been added
3496 that allow to convert a php function into an xmlrpc method, and a
3497 remotely exposed xmlrpc method into a local php function - or a set of
3498 methods into a php class. Note that these comes with many caveat.</para>
3501 <title>wrap_xmlrpc_method</title>
3505 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>wrap_xmlrpc_method</function></funcdef>
3507 <paramdef>$client</paramdef>
3509 <paramdef>$methodname</paramdef>
3511 <paramdef>$extra_options</paramdef>
3515 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>wrap_xmlrpc_method</function></funcdef>
3517 <paramdef>$client</paramdef>
3519 <paramdef>$methodname</paramdef>
3521 <paramdef>$signum</paramdef>
3523 <paramdef>$timeout</paramdef>
3525 <paramdef>$protocol</paramdef>
3527 <paramdef>$funcname</paramdef>
3531 <para>Given an xmlrpc server and a method name, creates a php wrapper
3532 function that will call the remote method and return results using
3533 native php types for both params and results. The generated php
3534 function will return an xmlrpcresp object for failed xmlrpc
3537 <para>The second syntax is deprecated, and is listed here only for
3538 backward compatibility.</para>
3540 <para>The server must support the
3541 <methodname>system.methodSignature</methodname> xmlrpc method call for
3542 this function to work.</para>
3544 <para>The <parameter>client</parameter> param must be a valid
3545 xmlrpc_client object, previously created with the address of the
3546 target xmlrpc server, and to which the preferred communication options
3547 have been set.</para>
3549 <para>The optional parameters can be passed as array key,value pairs
3550 in the <parameter>extra_options</parameter> param.</para>
3552 <para>The <parameter>signum</parameter> optional param has the purpose
3553 of indicating which method signature to use, if the given server
3554 method has multiple signatures (defaults to 0).</para>
3556 <para>The <parameter>timeout</parameter> and
3557 <parameter>protocol</parameter> optional params are the same as in the
3558 <methodname>xmlrpc_client::send()</methodname> method.</para>
3560 <para>If set, the optional <parameter>new_function_name</parameter>
3561 parameter indicates which name should be used for the generated
3562 function. In case it is not set the function name will be
3563 auto-generated.</para>
3565 <para>If the <literal>return_source</literal> optional parameter is
3566 set, the function will return the php source code to build the wrapper
3567 function, instead of evaluating it (useful to save the code and use it
3568 later as stand-alone xmlrpc client).</para>
3570 <para>If the <literal>encode_php_objs</literal> optional parameter is
3571 set, instances of php objects later passed as parameters to the newly
3572 created function will receive a 'special' treatment that allows the
3573 server to rebuild them as php objects instead of simple arrays. Note
3574 that this entails using a "slightly augmented" version of the xmlrpc
3575 protocol (ie. using element attributes), which might not be understood
3576 by xmlrpc servers implemented using other libraries.</para>
3578 <para>If the <literal>decode_php_objs</literal> optional parameter is
3579 set, instances of php objects that have been appropriately encoded by
3580 the server using a coordinate option will be deserialized as php
3581 objects instead of simple arrays (the same class definition should be
3582 present server side and client side).</para>
3584 <para><emphasis>Note that this might pose a security risk</emphasis>,
3585 since in order to rebuild the object instances their constructor
3586 method has to be invoked, and this means that the remote server can
3587 trigger execution of unforeseen php code on the client: not really a
3588 code injection, but almost. Please enable this option only when you
3589 trust the remote server.</para>
3591 <para>In case of an error during generation of the wrapper function,
3592 FALSE is returned, otherwise the name (or source code) of the new
3595 <para>Known limitations: server must support
3596 <methodname>system.methodsignature</methodname> for the wanted xmlrpc
3597 method; for methods that expose multiple signatures, only one can be
3598 picked; for remote calls with nested xmlrpc params, the caller of the
3599 generated php function has to encode on its own the params passed to
3600 the php function if these are structs or arrays whose (sub)members
3601 include values of type base64.</para>
3603 <para>Note: calling the generated php function 'might' be slow: a new
3604 xmlrpc client is created on every invocation and an xmlrpc-connection
3605 opened+closed. An extra 'debug' param is appended to the parameter
3606 list of the generated php function, useful for debugging
3609 <para>Example usage:</para>
3611 <programlisting language="php">
3612 $c = new xmlrpc_client('http://phpxmlrpc.sourceforge.net/server.php');
3614 $function = wrap_xmlrpc_method($client, 'examples.getStateName');
3617 die('Cannot introspect remote method');
3620 $statename = $function($a);
3621 if (is_a($statename, 'xmlrpcresp')) // call failed
3623 echo 'Call failed: '.$statename->faultCode().'. Calling again with debug on';
3624 $function($a, true);
3627 echo "OK, state nr. $stateno is $statename";
3632 <sect2 id="wrap_php_function">
3633 <title>wrap_php_function</title>
3637 <funcdef><type>array</type><function>wrap_php_function</function></funcdef>
3639 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$funcname</parameter></paramdef>
3641 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$wrapper_function_name</parameter></paramdef>
3643 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$extra_options</parameter></paramdef>
3647 <para>Given a user-defined PHP function, create a PHP 'wrapper'
3648 function that can be exposed as xmlrpc method from an xmlrpc_server
3649 object and called from remote clients, and return the appropriate
3650 definition to be added to a server's dispatch map.</para>
3652 <para>The optional <parameter>$wrapper_function_name</parameter>
3653 specifies the name that will be used for the auto-generated
3656 <para>Since php is a typeless language, to infer types of input and
3657 output parameters, it relies on parsing the javadoc-style comment
3658 block associated with the given function. Usage of xmlrpc native types
3659 (such as datetime.dateTime.iso8601 and base64) in the docblock @param
3660 tag is also allowed, if you need the php function to receive/send data
3661 in that particular format (note that base64 encoding/decoding is
3662 transparently carried out by the lib, while datetime vals are passed
3663 around as strings).</para>
3665 <para>Known limitations: only works for
3666 user-defined functions, not for PHP internal functions (reflection
3667 does not support retrieving number/type of params for those); the
3668 wrapped php function will not be able to programmatically return an
3669 xmlrpc error response.</para>
3671 <para>If the <literal>return_source</literal> optional parameter is
3672 set, the function will return the php source code to build the wrapper
3673 function, instead of evaluating it (useful to save the code and use it
3674 later in a stand-alone xmlrpc server). It will be in the stored in the
3675 <literal>source</literal> member of the returned array.</para>
3677 <para>If the <literal>suppress_warnings</literal> optional parameter
3678 is set, any runtime warning generated while processing the
3679 user-defined php function will be catched and not be printed in the
3680 generated xml response.</para>
3682 <para>If the <parameter>extra_options</parameter> array contains the
3683 <literal>encode_php_objs</literal> value, wrapped functions returning
3684 php objects will generate "special" xmlrpc responses: when the xmlrpc
3685 decoding of those responses is carried out by this same lib, using the
3686 appropriate param in php_xmlrpc_decode(), the objects will be
3689 <para>In short: php objects can be serialized, too (except for their
3690 resource members), using this function. Other libs might choke on the
3691 very same xml that will be generated in this case (i.e. it has a
3692 nonstandard attribute on struct element tags)</para>
3694 <para>If the <literal>decode_php_objs</literal> optional parameter is
3695 set, instances of php objects that have been appropriately encoded by
3696 the client using a coordinate option will be deserialized and passed
3697 to the user function as php objects instead of simple arrays (the same
3698 class definition should be present server side and client
3701 <para><emphasis>Note that this might pose a security risk</emphasis>,
3702 since in order to rebuild the object instances their constructor
3703 method has to be invoked, and this means that the remote client can
3704 trigger execution of unforeseen php code on the server: not really a
3705 code injection, but almost. Please enable this option only when you
3706 trust the remote clients.</para>
3708 <para>Example usage:</para>
3710 <para><programlisting language="php">/**
3711 * State name from state number decoder. NB: do NOT remove this comment block.
3712 * @param integer $stateno the state number
3713 * @return string the name of the state (or error description)
3715 function findstate($stateno)
3718 if (isset($stateNames[$stateno-1]))
3720 return $stateNames[$stateno-1];
3724 return "I don't have a state for the index '" . $stateno . "'";
3728 // wrap php function, build xmlrpc server
3730 $findstate_sig = wrap_php_function('findstate');
3732 $methods['examples.getStateName'] = $findstate_sig;
3733 $srv = new xmlrpc_server($methods);
3734 </programlisting></para>
3738 <sect1 id="deprecated">
3739 <title>Functions removed from the library</title>
3741 <para>The following two functions have been deprecated in version 1.1 of
3742 the library, and removed in version 2, in order to avoid conflicts with
3743 the EPI xml-rpc library, which also defines two functions with the same
3746 <para>To ease the transition to the new naming scheme and avoid breaking
3747 existing implementations, the following scheme has been adopted:
3750 <para>If EPI-XMLRPC is not active in the current PHP installation,
3751 the constant <literal>XMLRPC_EPI_ENABLED</literal> will be set to
3752 <literal>'0'</literal></para>
3756 <para>If EPI-XMLRPC is active in the current PHP installation, the
3757 constant <literal>XMLRPC_EPI_ENABLED</literal> will be set to
3758 <literal>'1'</literal></para>
3760 </itemizedlist></para>
3762 <para>The following documentation is kept for historical
3765 <sect2 id="xmlrpcdecode">
3766 <title>xmlrpc_decode</title>
3770 <funcdef><type>mixed</type><function>xmlrpc_decode</function></funcdef>
3772 <paramdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><parameter>$xmlrpc_val</parameter></paramdef>
3776 <para>Alias for php_xmlrpc_decode.</para>
3779 <sect2 id="xmlrpcencode">
3780 <title>xmlrpc_encode</title>
3784 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><function>xmlrpc_encode</function></funcdef>
3786 <paramdef><type>mixed</type><parameter>$phpval</parameter></paramdef>
3790 <para>Alias for php_xmlrpc_encode.</para>
3794 <sect1 id="debugging">
3795 <title>Debugging aids</title>
3798 <title>xmlrpc_debugmsg</title>
3802 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>xmlrpc_debugmsg</function></funcdef>
3804 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$debugstring</parameter></paramdef>
3808 <para>Sends the contents of <parameter>$debugstring</parameter> in XML
3809 comments in the server return payload. If a PHP client has debugging
3810 turned on, the user will be able to see server debug
3813 <para>Use this function in your methods so you can pass back
3814 diagnostic information. It is only available from
3815 <filename>xmlrpcs.inc</filename>.</para>
3820 <chapter id="reserved" xreflabel="Reserved methods">
3821 <title>Reserved methods</title>
3823 <para>In order to extend the functionality offered by XML-RPC servers
3824 without impacting on the protocol, reserved methods are supported in this
3827 <para>All methods starting with <function>system.</function> are
3828 considered reserved by the server. PHP for XML-RPC itself provides four
3829 special methods, detailed in this chapter.</para>
3831 <para>Note that all server objects will automatically respond to clients
3832 querying these methods, unless the property
3833 <property>allow_system_funcs</property> has been set to
3834 <constant>false</constant> before calling the
3835 <methodname>service()</methodname> method. This might pose a security risk
3836 if the server is exposed to public access, e.g. on the internet.</para>
3839 <title>system.getCapabilities</title>
3845 <title>system.listMethods</title>
3847 <para>This method may be used to enumerate the methods implemented by
3848 the XML-RPC server.</para>
3850 <para>The <function>system.listMethods</function> method requires no
3851 parameters. It returns an array of strings, each of which is the name of
3852 a method implemented by the server.</para>
3855 <sect1 id="sysmethodsig">
3856 <title>system.methodSignature</title>
3858 <para>This method takes one parameter, the name of a method implemented
3859 by the XML-RPC server.</para>
3861 <para>It returns an array of possible signatures for this method. A
3862 signature is an array of types. The first of these types is the return
3863 type of the method, the rest are parameters.</para>
3865 <para>Multiple signatures (i.e. overloading) are permitted: this is the
3866 reason that an array of signatures are returned by this method.</para>
3868 <para>Signatures themselves are restricted to the top level parameters
3869 expected by a method. For instance if a method expects one array of
3870 structs as a parameter, and it returns a string, its signature is simply
3871 "string, array". If it expects three integers, its signature is "string,
3872 int, int, int".</para>
3874 <para>For parameters that can be of more than one type, the "undefined"
3875 string is supported.</para>
3877 <para>If no signature is defined for the method, a not-array value is
3878 returned. Therefore this is the way to test for a non-signature, if
3879 <parameter>$resp</parameter> below is the response object from a method
3880 call to <function>system.methodSignature</function>:</para>
3882 <programlisting language="php">
3883 $v = $resp->value();
3884 if ($v->kindOf() != "array") {
3885 // then the method did not have a signature defined
3889 <para>See the <filename>introspect.php</filename> demo included in this
3890 distribution for an example of using this method.</para>
3893 <sect1 id="sysmethhelp">
3894 <title>system.methodHelp</title>
3896 <para>This method takes one parameter, the name of a method implemented
3897 by the XML-RPC server.</para>
3899 <para>It returns a documentation string describing the use of that
3900 method. If no such string is available, an empty string is
3903 <para>The documentation string may contain HTML markup.</para>
3907 <title>system.multicall</title>
3909 <para>This method takes one parameter, an array of 'request' struct
3910 types. Each request struct must contain a
3911 <parameter>methodName</parameter> member of type string and a
3912 <parameter>params</parameter> member of type array, and corresponds to
3913 the invocation of the corresponding method.</para>
3915 <para>It returns a response of type array, with each value of the array
3916 being either an error struct (containing the faultCode and faultString
3917 members) or the successful response value of the corresponding single
3922 <chapter id="examples" xreflabel="Examples">
3923 <title>Examples</title>
3925 <para>The best examples are to be found in the sample files included with
3926 the distribution. Some are included here.</para>
3928 <sect1 id="statename">
3929 <title>XML-RPC client: state name query</title>
3931 <para>Code to get the corresponding state name from a number (1-50) from
3932 the demo server available on SourceForge</para>
3934 <programlisting language="php">
3935 $m = new xmlrpcmsg('examples.getStateName',
3936 array(new xmlrpcval($HTTP_POST_VARS["stateno"], "int")));
3937 $c = new xmlrpc_client("/server.php", "phpxmlrpc.sourceforge.net", 80);
3938 $r = $c->send($m);
3939 if (!$r->faultCode()) {
3940 $v = $r->value();
3941 print "State number " . htmlentities($HTTP_POST_VARS["stateno"]) . " is " .
3942 htmlentities($v->scalarval()) . "<BR>";
3943 print "<HR>I got this value back<BR><PRE>" .
3944 htmlentities($r->serialize()) . "</PRE><HR>\n";
3946 print "Fault <BR>";
3947 print "Code: " . htmlentities($r->faultCode()) . "<BR>" .
3948 "Reason: '" . htmlentities($r->faultString()) . "'<BR>";
3954 <title>Executing a multicall call</title>
3956 <para>To be documented...</para>
3961 <title>Frequently Asked Questions</title>
3964 <title>How to send custom XML as payload of a method call</title>
3966 <para>Unfortunately, at the time the XML-RPC spec was designed, support
3967 for namespaces in XML was not as ubiquitous as it is now. As a
3968 consequence, no support was provided in the protocol for embedding XML
3969 elements from other namespaces into an xmlrpc request.</para>
3971 <para>To send an XML "chunk" as payload of a method call or response,
3972 two options are available: either send the complete XML block as a
3973 string xmlrpc value, or as a base64 value. Since the '<' character in
3974 string values is encoded as '&lt;' in the xml payload of the method
3975 call, the XML string will not break the surrounding xmlrpc, unless
3976 characters outside of the assumed character set are used. The second
3977 method has the added benefits of working independently of the charset
3978 encoding used for the xml to be transmitted, and preserving exactly
3979 whitespace, whilst incurring in some extra message length and cpu load
3980 (for carrying out the base64 encoding/decoding).</para>
3984 <title>Is there any limitation on the size of the requests / responses
3985 that can be successfully sent?</title>
3987 <para>Yes. But I have no hard figure to give; it most likely will depend
3988 on the version of PHP in usage and its configuration.</para>
3990 <para>Keep in mind that this library is not optimized for speed nor for
3991 memory usage. Better alternatives exist when there are strict
3992 requirements on throughput or resource usage, such as the php native
3993 xmlrpc extension (see the PHP manual for more information).</para>
3995 <para>Keep in mind also that HTTP is probably not the best choice in
3996 such a situation, and XML is a deadly enemy. CSV formatted data over
3997 socket would be much more efficient.</para>
3999 <para>If you really need to move a massive amount of data around, and
4000 you are crazy enough to do it using phpxmlrpc, your best bet is to
4001 bypass usage of the xmlrpcval objects, at least in the decoding phase,
4002 and have the server (or client) object return to the calling function
4003 directly php values (see <varname>xmlrpc_client::return_type</varname>
4004 and <varname>xmlrpc_server::functions_parameters_type</varname> for more
4009 <title>My server (client) returns an error whenever the client (server)
4010 returns accented characters</title>
4012 <para>To be documented...</para>
4016 <title>How to enable long-lasting method calls</title>
4018 <para>To be documented...</para>
4022 <title>My client returns "XML-RPC Fault #2: Invalid return payload:
4023 enable debugging to examine incoming payload": what should I do?</title>
4025 <para>The response you are seeing is a default error response that the
4026 client object returns to the php application when the server did not
4027 respond to the call with a valid xmlrpc response.</para>
4029 <para>The most likely cause is that you are not using the correct URL
4030 when creating the client object, or you do not have appropriate access
4031 rights to the web page you are requesting, or some other common http
4032 misconfiguration.</para>
4034 <para>To find out what the server is really returning to your client,
4035 you have to enable the debug mode of the client, using
4036 $client->setdebug(1);</para>
4040 <title>How can I save to a file the xml of the xmlrpc responses received
4041 from servers?</title>
4043 <para>If what you need is to save the responses received from the server
4044 as xml, you have two options:</para>
4046 <para>1- use the serialize() method on the response object.</para>
4048 <programlisting language="php">
4049 $resp = $client->send($msg);
4050 if (!$resp->faultCode())
4051 $data_to_be_saved = $resp->serialize();
4054 <para>Note that this will not be 100% accurate, since the xml generated
4055 by the response object can be different from the xml received,
4056 especially if there is some character set conversion involved, or such
4057 (eg. if you receive an empty string tag as <string/>, serialize()
4058 will output <string></string>), or if the server sent back
4059 as response something invalid (in which case the xml generated client
4060 side using serialize() will correspond to the error response generated
4061 internally by the lib).</para>
4063 <para>2 - set the client object to return the raw xml received instead
4064 of the decoded objects:</para>
4066 <programlisting language="php">
4067 $client = new xmlrpc_client($url);
4068 $client->return_type = 'xml';
4069 $resp = $client->send($msg);
4070 if (!$resp->faultCode())
4071 $data_to_be_saved = $resp->value();
4074 <para>Note that using this method the xml response response will not be
4075 parsed at all by the library, only the http communication protocol will
4076 be checked. This means that xmlrpc responses sent by the server that
4077 would have generated an error response on the client (eg. malformed xml,
4078 responses that have faultcode set, etc...) now will not be flagged as
4079 invalid, and you might end up saving not valid xml but random
4084 <title>Can I use the ms windows character set?</title>
4086 <para>If the data your application is using comes from a Microsoft
4087 application, there are some chances that the character set used to
4088 encode it is CP1252 (the same might apply to data received from an
4089 external xmlrpc server/client, but it is quite rare to find xmlrpc
4090 toolkits that encode to CP1252 instead of UTF8). It is a character set
4091 which is "almost" compatible with ISO 8859-1, but for a few extra
4094 <para>PHP-XMLRPC only supports the ISO 8859-1 and UTF8 character sets.
4095 The net result of this situation is that those extra characters will not
4096 be properly encoded, and will be received at the other end of the
4097 XML-RPC transmission as "garbled data". Unfortunately the library cannot
4098 provide real support for CP1252 because of limitations in the PHP 4 xml
4099 parser. Luckily, we tried our best to support this character set anyway,
4100 and, since version 2.2.1, there is some form of support, left commented
4103 <para>To properly encode outgoing data that is natively in CP1252, you
4104 will have to uncomment all relative code in the file
4105 <filename>xmlrpc.inc</filename> (you can search for the string "1252"),
4106 then set <code>$GLOBALS['xmlrpc_internalencoding']='CP1252';</code>
4107 Please note that all incoming data will then be fed to your application
4108 as UTF-8 to avoid any potential data loss.</para>
4112 <title>Does the library support using cookies / http sessions?</title>
4114 <para>In short: yes, but a little coding is needed to make it
4117 <para>The code below uses sessions to e.g. let the client store a value
4118 on the server and retrieve it later.</para>
4120 <para><programlisting>
4121 $resp = $client->send(new xmlrpcmsg('registervalue', array(new xmlrpcval('foo'), new xmlrpcval('bar'))));
4122 if (!$resp->faultCode())
4124 $cookies = $resp->cookies();
4125 if (array_key_exists('PHPSESSID', $cookies)) // nb: make sure to use the correct session cookie name
4127 $session_id = $cookies['PHPSESSID']['value'];
4129 // do some other stuff here...
4131 $client->setcookie('PHPSESSID', $session_id);
4132 $val = $client->send(new xmlrpcmsg('getvalue', array(new xmlrpcval('foo')));
4135 </programlisting>Server-side sessions are handled normally like in any other
4136 php application. Please see the php manual for more information about
4139 <para>NB: unlike web browsers, not all xmlrpc clients support usage of
4140 http cookies. If you have troubles with sessions and control only the
4141 server side of the communication, please check with the makers of the
4142 xmlrpc client in use.</para>
4146 <appendix id="integration">
4147 <title>Integration with the PHP xmlrpc extension</title>
4149 <para>To be documented more...</para>
4151 <para>In short: for the fastest execution possible, you can enable the php
4152 native xmlrpc extension, and use it in conjunction with phpxmlrpc. The
4153 following code snippet gives an example of such integration</para>
4155 <programlisting language="php">
4156 /*** client side ***/
4157 $c = new xmlrpc_client('http://phpxmlrpc.sourceforge.net/server.php');
4159 // tell the client to return raw xml as response value
4160 $c->return_type = 'xml';
4162 // let the native xmlrpc extension take care of encoding request parameters
4163 $r = $c->send(xmlrpc_encode_request('examples.getStateName', $_POST['stateno']));
4165 if ($r->faultCode())
4166 // HTTP transport error
4167 echo 'Got error '.$r->faultCode();
4170 // HTTP request OK, but XML returned from server not parsed yet
4171 $v = xmlrpc_decode($r->value());
4172 // check if we got a valid xmlrpc response from server
4174 echo 'Got invalid response';
4176 // check if server sent a fault response
4177 if (xmlrpc_is_fault($v))
4178 echo 'Got xmlrpc fault '.$v['faultCode'];
4180 echo'Got response: '.htmlentities($v);
4185 <appendix id="substitution">
4186 <title>Substitution of the PHP xmlrpc extension</title>
4188 <para>Yet another interesting situation is when you are using a ready-made
4189 php application, that provides support for the XMLRPC protocol via the
4190 native php xmlrpc extension, but the extension is not available on your
4191 php install (e.g. because of shared hosting constraints).</para>
4193 <para>Since version 2.1, the PHP-XMLRPC library provides a compatibility
4194 layer that aims to be 100% compliant with the xmlrpc extension API. This
4195 means that any code written to run on the extension should obtain the
4196 exact same results, albeit using more resources and a longer processing
4197 time, using the PHP-XMLRPC library and the extension compatibility module.
4198 The module is part of the EXTRAS package, available as a separate download
4199 from the sourceforge.net website, since version 0.2</para>
4202 <appendix id="enough">
4203 <title>'Enough of xmlrpcvals!': new style library usage</title>
4205 <para>To be documented...</para>
4207 <para>In the meantime, see docs about xmlrpc_client::return_type and
4208 xmlrpc_server::functions_parameters_types, as well as php_xmlrpc_encode,
4209 php_xmlrpc_decode and php_xmlrpc_decode_xml</para>
4212 <appendix id="debugger">
4213 <title>Usage of the debugger</title>
4215 <para>A webservice debugger is included in the library to help during
4216 development and testing.</para>
4218 <para>The interface should be self-explicative enough to need little
4219 documentation.</para>
4221 <para><graphic align="center" fileref="debugger.gif"
4222 format="GIF" /></para>
4224 <para>The most useful feature of the debugger is without doubt the "Show
4225 debug info" option. It allows to have a screen dump of the complete http
4226 communication between client and server, including the http headers as
4227 well as the request and response payloads, and is invaluable when
4228 troubleshooting problems with charset encoding, authentication or http
4231 <para>The debugger can take advantage of the JSONRPC library extension, to
4232 allow debugging of JSON-RPC webservices, and of the JS-XMLRPC library
4233 visual editor to allow easy mouse-driven construction of the payload for
4234 remote methods. Both components have to be downloaded separately from the
4235 sourceforge.net web pages and copied to the debugger directory to enable
4236 the extra functionality:</para>
4238 <para><itemizedlist>
4240 <para>to enable jsonrpc functionality, download the PHP-XMLRPC
4241 EXTRAS package, and copy the file <filename>jsonrpc.inc</filename>
4242 either to the same directory as the debugger or somewhere in your
4243 php include path</para>
4245 </itemizedlist><itemizedlist>
4247 <para>to enable the visual value editing dialog, download the
4248 JS-XMLRPC library, and copy somewhere in the web root files
4249 <filename>visualeditor.php</filename>,
4250 <filename>visualeditor.css</filename> and the folders
4251 <filename>yui</filename> and <filename>img</filename>. Then edit the
4252 debugger file <filename>controller.php</filename> and set
4253 appropriately the variable <varname>$editorpath</varname>.</para>
4255 </itemizedlist></para>
4258 <!-- Keep this comment at the end of the file
4263 sgml-minimize-attributes:nil
4264 sgml-always-quote-attributes:t
4267 sgml-parent-document:nil
4268 sgml-exposed-tags:nil
4269 sgml-local-catalogs:nil
4270 sgml-local-ecat-files:nil
4271 sgml-namecase-general:t
4272 sgml-general-insert-case:lower