1 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
2 <?xml-stylesheet href="docbook-css/driver.css" type="text/css"?>
3 <!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.5//EN"
4 "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd">
7 $Id: xmlrpc_php.xml,v 1.27 2008/09/19 18:35:33 ggiunta Exp $
10 <title>XML-RPC for PHP</title>
12 <subtitle>version 3.0.0 beta</subtitle>
15 <date>Sep 5, 2009</date>
19 <firstname>Edd</firstname>
21 <surname>Dumbill</surname>
25 <firstname>Gaetano</firstname>
27 <surname>Giunta</surname>
31 <firstname>Miles</firstname>
33 <surname>Lott</surname>
37 <firstname>Justin R.</firstname>
39 <surname>Miller</surname>
43 <firstname>Andres</firstname>
45 <surname>Salomon</surname>
50 <year>1999,2000,2001</year>
52 <holder>Edd Dumbill, Useful Information Company</holder>
56 <para>All rights reserved.</para>
58 <para>Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
59 modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are
64 <para>Redistributions of source code must retain the above
65 copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following
70 <para>Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above
71 copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following
72 disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided
73 with the distribution.</para>
77 <para>Neither the name of the "XML-RPC for PHP" nor the names of
78 its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products
79 derived from this software without specific prior written
82 </itemizedlist></para>
84 <para>THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND
85 CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING,
86 BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND
87 FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
88 REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL,
89 SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED
90 TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR
91 PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF
92 LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING
93 NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS
94 SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.</para>
98 <chapter id="introduction">
99 <title>Introduction</title>
101 <para>XML-RPC is a format devised by <ulink
102 url="http://www.userland.com/">Userland Software</ulink> for achieving
103 remote procedure call via XML using HTTP as the transport. XML-RPC has its
105 url="http://www.xmlrpc.com/">www.xmlrpc.com</ulink></para>
107 <para>This collection of PHP classes provides a framework for writing
108 XML-RPC clients and servers in PHP.</para>
110 <para>Main goals of the project are ease of use, flexibility and
113 <para>The original author is Edd Dumbill of <ulink
114 url="http://usefulinc.com/">Useful Information Company</ulink>. As of the
115 1.0 stable release, the project was opened to wider involvement and moved
117 url="http://phpxmlrpc.sourceforge.net/">SourceForge</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>
216 <title>3.0.0 beta</title>
218 <para>This is the first release of the library to only support PHP 5.
219 Some legacy code has been removed, and support for features such as
220 exceptions and dateTime objects introduced.</para>
222 <para>The "beta" tag is meant to indicate the fact that the refactoring
223 has been more widespread than in precedent releases and that more
224 changes are likely to be introduced with time - the library is still
225 considered to be production quality.</para>
229 <para>improved: removed all usage of php functions deprecated in
230 php 5.3, usage of assign-by-ref when creating new objects
235 <para>improved: add support for the <ex:nil/> tag used by
236 the apache library, both in input and output</para>
240 <para>improved: add support for <classname>dateTime</classname>
241 objects in both in <function>php_xmlrpc_encode</function> and as
242 parameter for constructor of
243 <classname>xmlrpcval</classname></para>
247 <para>improved: add support for timestamps as parameter for
248 constructor of <classname>xmlrpcval</classname></para>
252 <para>improved: add option 'dates_as_objects' to
253 <function>php_xmlrpc_decode</function> to return
254 <classname>dateTime</classname> objects for xmlrpc
259 <para>improved: add new method
260 <methodname>SetCurlOptions</methodname> to
261 <classname>xmrlpc_client</classname> to allow extra flexibility in
262 tweaking http config, such as explicitly binding to an ip
267 <para>improved: add new method
268 <methodname>SetUserAgent</methodname> to
269 <classname>xmrlpc_client</classname> to to allow having different
270 user-agent http headers</para>
274 <para>improved: add a new member variable in server class to allow
275 fine-tuning of the encoding of returned values when the server is
276 in 'phpvals' mode</para>
280 <para>improved: allow servers in 'xmlrpcvals' mode to also
281 register plain php functions by defining them in the dispatch map
282 with an added option</para>
286 <para>improved: catch exceptions thrown during execution of php
287 functions exposed as methods by the server</para>
291 <para>fixed: bad encoding if same object is encoded twice using
292 php_xmlrpc_encode</para>
294 </itemizedlist></para>
300 <para><emphasis>Note:</emphasis> this might the last release of the
301 library that will support PHP 4. Future releases (if any) should target
302 php 5.0 as minimum supported version.</para>
306 <para>fixed: encoding of utf-8 characters outside of the BMP
311 <para>fixed: character set declarations surrounded by double
312 quotes were not recognized in http headers</para>
316 <para>fixed: be more tolerant in detection of charset in http
321 <para>fixed: fix detection of zlib.output_compression</para>
325 <para>fixed: use feof() to test if socket connections are to be
326 closed instead of the number of bytes read (rare bug when
327 communicating with some servers)</para>
331 <para>fixed: format floating point values using the correct
332 decimal separator even when php locale is set to one that uses
337 <para>fixed: improve robustness of the debugger when parsing weird
338 results from non-compliant servers</para>
342 <para>php warning when receiving 'false' in a bool value</para>
346 <para>improved: allow the add_to_map server method to add docs for
347 single params too</para>
351 <para>improved: added the possibility to wrap for exposure as
352 xmlrpc methods plain php class methods, object methods and even
355 </itemizedlist></para>
363 <para>fixed: work aroung bug in php 5.2.2 which broke support of
364 HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA</para>
368 <para>fixed: is_dir parameter of setCaCertificate() method is
373 <para>fixed: a php warning in xmlrpc_client creator method</para>
377 <para>fixed: parsing of '1e+1' as valid float</para>
381 <para>fixed: allow errorlevel 3 to work when prev. error handler was
382 a static method</para>
386 <para>fixed: usage of client::setcookie() for multiple cookies in
391 <para>improved: support for CP1252 charset is not part or the
392 library but almost possible</para>
396 <para>improved: more info when curl is enabled and debug mode is
407 <para>fixed: debugger errors on php installs with magic_quotes_gpc
412 <para>fixed: support for https connections via proxy</para>
416 <para>fixed: wrap_xmlrpc_method() generated code failed to properly
417 encode php objects</para>
421 <para>improved: slightly faster encoding of data which is internally
426 <para>improved: debugger always generates a 'null' id for jsonrpc if
431 <para>new: debugger can take advantage of a graphical value builder
432 (it has to be downloaded separately, as part of jsxmlrpc package.
433 See Appendix D for more details)</para>
437 <para>new: support for the <NIL/> xmlrpc extension. see below
438 for more details</para>
442 <para>new: server support for the system.getCapabilities xmlrpc
447 <para>new: <function><link
448 linkend="wrap_xmlrpc_method">wrap_xmlrpc_method()</link></function>
449 accepts two new options: debug and return_on_fault</para>
459 <para>The <function>wrap_php_function</function> and
460 <function>wrap_xmlrpc_method</function> functions have been moved
461 out of the base library file <filename>xmlrpc.inc</filename> into
462 a file of their own: <filename>xmlrpc_wrappers.inc</filename>. You
463 will have to include() / require() it in your scripts if you have
464 been using those functions. For increased security, the automatic
465 rebuilding of php object instances out of received xmlrpc structs
466 in <function>wrap_xmlrpc_method()</function> has been disabled
467 (but it can be optionally re-enabled). Both
468 <function>wrap_php_function()</function> and
469 <function>wrap_xmlrpc_method()</function> functions accept many
470 more options to fine tune their behaviour, including one to return
471 the php code to be saved and later used as standalone php
476 <para>The constructor of xmlrpcval() values has seen some internal
477 changes, and it will not throw a php warning anymore when invoked
478 using an unknown xmlrpc type: the error will only be written to
479 php error log. Also <code>new xmlrpcval('true', 'boolean')</code>
480 is not supported anymore</para>
484 <para>The new function
485 <function>php_xmlrpc_decode_xml()</function> will take the xml
486 representation of either an xmlrpc request, response or single
487 value and return the corresponding php-xmlrpc object
492 <para>A new function <function>wrap_xmlrpc_server()</function>has
493 been added, to wrap all (or some) of the methods exposed by a
494 remote xmlrpc server into a php class</para>
498 <para>A new file has been added:
499 <filename>verify_compat.php</filename>, to help users diagnose the
500 level of compliance of their php installation with the
505 <para>Restored compatibility with php 4.0.5 (for those poor souls
506 still stuck on it)</para>
510 <para>Method <methodname>xmlrpc_server->service()</methodname>
511 now returns a value: either the response payload or xmlrpcresp
512 object instance</para>
517 <methodname>xmlrpc_server->add_to_map()</methodname> now
518 accepts xmlrpc methods with no param definitions</para>
522 <para>Documentation for single parameters of exposed methods can
523 be added to the dispatch map (and turned into html docs in
524 conjunction with a future release of the 'extras' package)</para>
528 <para>Full response payload is saved into xmlrpcresp object for
529 further debugging</para>
533 <para>The debugger can now generate code that wraps a remote
534 method into a php function (works for jsonrpc, too); it also has
535 better support for being activated via a single GET call (e.g. for
536 integration into other tools)</para>
540 <para>Stricter parsing of incoming xmlrpc messages: two more
541 invalid cases are now detected (double <literal>data</literal>
542 element inside <literal>array</literal> and
543 <literal>struct</literal>/<literal>array</literal> after scalar
544 inside <literal>value</literal> element)</para>
548 <para>More logging of errors in a lot of situations</para>
552 <para>Javadoc documentation of lib files (almost) complete</para>
556 <para>Many performance tweaks and code cleanups, plus the usual
557 crop of bugs fixed (see NEWS file for complete list of
562 <para>Lib internals have been modified to provide better support
563 for grafting extra functionality on top of it. Stay tuned for
564 future releases of the EXTRAS package (or go read Appendix
567 </itemizedlist></para>
571 <title>2.0 final</title>
575 <para>Added to the client class the possibility to use Digest and
576 NTLM authentication methods (when using the CURL library) for
577 connecting to servers and NTLM for connecting to proxies</para>
581 <para>Added to the client class the possibility to specify
582 alternate certificate files/directories for authenticating the
583 peer with when using HTTPS communication</para>
587 <para>Reviewed all examples and added a new demo file, containing
588 a proxy to forward xmlrpc requests to other servers (useful e.g.
589 for ajax coding)</para>
593 <para>The debugger has been upgraded to reflect the new client
598 <para>All known bugs have been squashed, and the lib is more
599 tolerant than ever of commonly-found mistakes</para>
601 </itemizedlist></para>
605 <title>2.0 Release candidate 3</title>
609 <para>Added to server class the property
610 <property>functions_parameters_type</property>, that allows the
611 server to register plain php functions as xmlrpc methods (i.e.
612 functions that do not take an xmlrpcmsg object as unique
617 <para>let server and client objects serialize calls using a
618 specified character set encoding for the produced xml instead of
619 US-ASCII (ISO-8859-1 and UTF-8 supported)</para>
623 <para>let php_xmlrpc_decode accept xmlrpcmsg objects as valid
628 <para>'class::method' syntax is now accepted in the server
633 <para><function>xmlrpc_clent::SetDebug()</function> accepts
634 integer values instead of a boolean value, with debugging level 2
635 adding to the information printed to screen the complete client
638 </itemizedlist></para>
642 <title>2.0 Release candidate 2</title>
646 <para>Added a new property of the client object:
647 <code>xmlrpc_client->return_type</code>, indicating whether
648 calls to the send() method will return xmlrpcresp objects whose
649 value() is an xmlrpcval object, a php value (automatically
650 decoded) or the raw xml received from the server.</para>
654 <para>Added in the extras dir. two new library file:
655 <filename>jsonrpc.inc</filename> and
656 <filename>jsonrpcs.inc</filename> containing new classes that
657 implement support for the json-rpc protocol (alpha quality
662 <para>Added a new client method: <code>setKey($key,
663 $keypass)</code> to be used in HTTPS connections</para>
667 <para>Added a new file containing some benchmarks in the testsuite
670 </itemizedlist></para>
674 <title>2.0 Release candidate 1</title>
678 <para>Support for HTTP proxies (new method:
679 <code>xmlrpc_client::setProxy()</code>)</para>
683 <para>Support HTTP compression of both requests and responses.
684 Clients can specify what kind of compression they accept for
685 responses between deflate/gzip/any, and whether to compress the
686 requests. Servers by default compress responses to clients that
687 explicitly declare support for compression (new methods:
688 <code>xmlrpc_client::setAcceptedCompression()</code>,
689 <code>xmlrpc_client::setRequestCompression()</code>). Note that the
690 ZLIB php extension needs to be enabled in PHP to support
695 <para>Implement HTTP 1.1 connections, but only if CURL is enabled
696 (added an extra parameter to
697 <code>xmlrpc_client::xmlrpc_client</code> to set the desired HTTP
698 protocol at creation time and a new supported value for the last
699 parameter of <code>xmlrpc_client::send</code>, which now can be
700 safely omitted if it has been specified at creation time)</para>
702 <para>With PHP versions greater than 4.3.8 keep-alives are enabled
703 by default for HTTP 1.1 connections. This should yield faster
704 execution times when making multiple calls in sequence to the same
705 xml-rpc server from a single client.</para>
709 <para>Introduce support for cookies. Cookies to be sent to the
710 server with a request can be set using
711 <code>xmlrpc_client::setCookie()</code>, while cookies received from
712 the server are found in <code>xmlrpcresp::cookies()</code>. It is
713 left to the user to check for validity of received cookies and
714 decide whether they apply to successive calls or not.</para>
718 <para>Better support for detecting different character set encodings
719 of xml-rpc requests and responses: both client and server objects
720 will correctly detect the charset encoding of received xml, and use
721 an appropriate xml parser.</para>
723 <para>Supported encodings are US-ASCII, UTF-8 and ISO-8859-1.</para>
727 <para>Added one new xmlrpcmsg constructor syntax, allowing usage of
728 a single string with the complete URL of the target server</para>
732 <para>Convert xml-rpc boolean values into native php values instead
737 <para>Force the <code>php_xmlrpc_encode</code> function to properly
738 encode numerically indexed php arrays into xml-rpc arrays
739 (numerically indexed php arrays always start with a key of 0 and
740 increment keys by values of 1)</para>
744 <para>Prevent the <code>php_xmlrpc_encode</code> function from
745 further re-encoding any objects of class <code>xmlrpcval</code> that
746 are passed to it. This allows to call the function with arguments
747 consisting of mixed php values / xmlrpcval objects.</para>
751 <para>Allow a server to NOT respond to system.* method calls
752 (setting the <code>$server->allow_system_funcs</code>
757 <para>Implement a new xmlrpcval method to determine if a value of
758 type struct has a member of a given name without having to loop
759 trough all members: <code>xmlrpcval::structMemExists()</code></para>
763 <para>Expand methods <code>xmlrpcval::addArray</code>,
764 <code>addScalar</code> and <code>addStruct</code> allowing extra php
765 values to be added to xmlrpcval objects already formed.</para>
769 <para>Let the <code>xmlrpc_client::send</code> method accept an XML
770 string for sending instead of an xmlrpcmsg object, to facilitate
771 debugging and integration with the php native xmlrpc
776 <para>Extend the <code>php_xmlrpc_encode</code> and
777 <code>php_xmlrpc_decode</code> functions to allow serialization and
778 rebuilding of PHP objects. To successfully rebuild a serialized
779 object, the object class must be defined in the deserializing end of
780 the transfer. Note that object members of type resource will be
781 deserialized as NULL values.</para>
783 <para>Note that his has been implemented adding a "php_class"
784 attribute to xml representation of xmlrpcval of STRUCT type, which,
785 strictly speaking, breaks the xml-rpc spec. Other xmlrpc
786 implementations are supposed to ignore such an attribute (unless
787 they implement a brain-dead custom xml parser...), so it should be
788 safe enabling it in heterogeneous environments. The activation of
789 this feature is done by usage of an option passed as second
790 parameter to both <code>php_xmlrpc_encode</code> and
791 <code>php_xmlrpc_decode</code>.</para>
795 <para>Extend the <code>php_xmlrpc_encode</code> function to allow
796 automatic serialization of iso8601-conforming php strings as
797 datetime.iso8601 xmlrpcvals, by usage of an optional
802 <para>Added an automatic stub code generator for converting xmlrpc
803 methods to php functions and vice-versa.</para>
805 <para>This is done via two new functions:
806 <code>wrap_php_function</code> and <code>wrap_xmlrpc_method</code>,
807 and has many caveats, with php being a typeless language and
810 <para>With PHP versions lesser than 5.0.3 wrapping of php functions
811 into xmlrpc methods is not supported yet.</para>
815 <para>Allow object methods to be used in server dispatch map</para>
819 <para>Added a complete debugger solution, in the
820 <filename>debugger</filename> folder</para>
824 <para>Added configurable server-side debug messages, controlled by
825 the new method <code>xmlrpc_server::SetDebug()</code>. At level 0,
826 no debug messages are sent to the client; level 1 is the same as the
827 old behaviour; at level 2 a lot more info is echoed back to the
828 client, regarding the received call; at level 3 all warnings raised
829 during server processing are trapped (this prevents breaking the xml
830 to be echoed back to the client) and added to the debug info sent
831 back to the client</para>
835 <para>New XML parsing code, yields smaller memory footprint and
836 faster execution times, not to mention complete elimination of the
837 dreaded <filename>eval()</filename> construct, so prone to code
838 injection exploits</para>
842 <para>Rewritten most of the error messages, making text more
849 <chapter id="requirements">
850 <title>System Requirements</title>
852 <para>The library has been designed with goals of scalability and backward
853 compatibility. As such, it supports a wide range of PHP installs. Note
854 that not all features of the lib are available in every
855 configuration.</para>
857 <para>The <emphasis>minimum supported</emphasis> PHP version is
860 <para>Automatic generation of xml-rpc methods from php functions is only
861 supported with PHP version 5.0.3 and later (note that the lib will
862 generate some warnings with PHP 5 in strict error reporting mode).</para>
864 <para>If you wish to use SSL or HTTP 1.1 to communicate with remote
865 servers, you need the "curl" extension compiled into your PHP
868 <para>The "xmlrpc" native extension is not required to be compiled into
869 your PHP installation, but if it is, there will be no interference with
870 the operation of this library.</para>
873 <chapter id="manifest">
874 <title>Files in the distribution</title>
878 <glossterm>lib/xmlrpc.inc</glossterm>
881 <para>the XML-RPC classes. <function>include()</function> this in
882 your PHP files to use the classes.</para>
887 <glossterm>lib/xmlrpcs.inc</glossterm>
890 <para>the XML-RPC server class. <function>include()</function> this
891 in addition to xmlrpc.inc to get server functionality</para>
896 <glossterm>lib/xmlrpc_wrappers.inc</glossterm>
899 <para>helper functions to "automagically" convert plain php
900 functions to xmlrpc services and vice versa</para>
905 <glossterm>demo/server/proxy.php</glossterm>
908 <para>a sample server implementing xmlrpc proxy
909 functionality.</para>
914 <glossterm>demo/server/server.php</glossterm>
917 <para>a sample server hosting various demo functions, as well as a
918 full suite of functions used for interoperability testing. It is
919 used by testsuite.php (see below) for unit testing the library, and
920 is not to be copied literally into your production servers</para>
925 <glossterm>demo/client/client.php, demo/client/agesort.php,
926 demo/client/which.php</glossterm>
929 <para>client code to exercise some of the functions in server.php,
930 including the <function>interopEchoTests.whichToolkit</function>
936 <glossterm>demo/client/wrap.php</glossterm>
939 <para>client code to illustrate 'wrapping' of remote methods into
940 php functions.</para>
945 <glossterm>demo/client/introspect.php</glossterm>
948 <para>client code to illustrate usage of introspection capabilities
949 offered by server.php.</para>
954 <glossterm>demo/client/mail.php</glossterm>
957 <para>client code to illustrate usage of an xmlrpc-to-email gateway
958 using Dave Winer's XML-RPC server at userland.com.</para>
963 <glossterm>demo/client/zopetest.php</glossterm>
966 <para>example client code that queries an xmlrpc server built in
972 <glossterm>demo/vardemo.php</glossterm>
975 <para>examples of how to construct xmlrpcval types</para>
980 <glossterm>demo/demo1.txt, demo/demo2.txt, demo/demo3.txt</glossterm>
983 <para>XML-RPC responses captured in a file for testing purposes (you
984 can use these to test the
985 <function>xmlrpcmsg->parseResponse()</function> method).</para>
990 <glossterm>demo/server/discuss.php,
991 demo/client/comment.php</glossterm>
994 <para>Software used in the PHP chapter of <xref
995 linkend="jellyfish" /> to provide a comment server and allow the
996 attachment of comments to stories from Meerkat's data store.</para>
1001 <glossterm>test/testsuite.php, test/parse_args.php</glossterm>
1004 <para>A unit test suite for this software package. If you do
1005 development on this software, please consider submitting tests for
1011 <glossterm>test/benchmark.php</glossterm>
1014 <para>A (very limited) benchmarking suite for this software package.
1015 If you do development on this software, please consider submitting
1016 benchmarks for this suite.</para>
1021 <glossterm>test/phpunit.php, test/PHPUnit/*.php</glossterm>
1024 <para>An (incomplete) version PEAR's unit test framework for PHP.
1025 The complete package can be found at <ulink
1026 url="http://pear.php.net/package/PHPUnit">http://pear.php.net/package/PHPUnit</ulink></para>
1031 <glossterm>test/verify_compat.php</glossterm>
1034 <para>Script designed to help the user to verify the level of
1035 compatibility of the library with the current php install</para>
1040 <glossterm>extras/test.pl, extras/test.py</glossterm>
1043 <para>Perl and Python programs to exercise server.php to test that
1044 some of the methods work.</para>
1049 <glossterm>extras/workspace.testPhpServer.fttb</glossterm>
1052 <para>Frontier scripts to exercise the demo server. Thanks to Dave
1053 Winer for permission to include these. See <ulink
1054 url="http://www.xmlrpc.com/discuss/msgReader$853">Dave's
1055 announcement of these.</ulink></para>
1060 <glossterm>extras/rsakey.pem</glossterm>
1063 <para>A test certificate key for the SSL support, which can be used
1064 to generate dummy certificates. It has the passphrase "test."</para>
1071 <title>Known bugs and limitations</title>
1073 <para>This started out as a bare framework. Many "nice" bits haven't been
1074 put in yet. Specifically, very little type validation or coercion has been
1075 put in. PHP being a loosely-typed language, this is going to have to be
1076 done explicitly (in other words: you can call a lot of library functions
1077 passing them arguments of the wrong type and receive an error message only
1078 much further down the code, where it will be difficult to
1081 <para>dateTime.iso8601 is supported opaquely. It can't be done natively as
1082 the XML-RPC specification explicitly forbids passing of timezone
1083 specifiers in ISO8601 format dates. You can, however, use the <xref
1084 linkend="iso8601encode" /> and <xref linkend="iso8601decode" /> functions
1085 to do the encoding and decoding for you.</para>
1087 <para>Very little HTTP response checking is performed (e.g. HTTP redirects
1088 are not followed and the Content-Length HTTP header, mandated by the
1089 xml-rpc spec, is not validated); cookie support still involves quite a bit
1090 of coding on the part of the user.</para>
1092 <para>If a specific character set encoding other than US-ASCII, ISO-8859-1
1093 or UTF-8 is received in the HTTP header or XML prologue of xml-rpc request
1094 or response messages then it will be ignored for the moment, and the
1095 content will be parsed as if it had been encoded using the charset defined
1096 by <xref linkend="xmlrpc-defencoding" /></para>
1098 <para>Support for receiving from servers version 1 cookies (i.e.
1099 conforming to RFC 2965) is quite incomplete, and might cause unforeseen
1103 <chapter id="support">
1104 <title>Support</title>
1107 <title>Online Support</title>
1109 <para>XML-RPC for PHP is offered "as-is" without any warranty or
1110 commitment to support. However, informal advice and help is available
1111 via the XML-RPC for PHP website and mailing list and from
1116 <para>The <emphasis>XML-RPC for PHP</emphasis> development is hosted
1118 url="http://phpxmlrpc.sourceforge.net">phpxmlrpc.sourceforge.net</ulink>.
1119 Bugs, feature requests and patches can be posted to the <ulink
1120 url="http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpxmlrpc">project's
1121 website</ulink>.</para>
1125 <para>The <emphasis>PHP XML-RPC interest mailing list</emphasis> is
1126 run by the author. More details <ulink
1127 url="http://lists.gnomehack.com/mailman/listinfo/phpxmlrpc">can be
1128 found here</ulink>.</para>
1132 <para>For more general XML-RPC questions, there is a Yahoo! Groups
1133 <ulink url="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xml-rpc/">XML-RPC mailing
1134 list</ulink>.</para>
1139 url="http://www.xmlrpc.com/discuss">XML-RPC.com</ulink> discussion
1140 group is a useful place to get help with using XML-RPC. This group
1141 is also gatewayed into the Yahoo! Groups mailing list.</para>
1146 <sect1 id="jellyfish" xreflabel="The Jellyfish Book">
1147 <title>The Jellyfish Book</title>
1149 <para><graphic align="right" depth="190" fileref="progxmlrpc.s.gif"
1150 format="GIF" width="145" />Together with Simon St.Laurent and Joe
1151 Johnston, Edd Dumbill wrote a book on XML-RPC for O'Reilly and
1152 Associates on XML-RPC. It features a rather fetching jellyfish on the
1155 <para>Complete details of the book are <ulink
1156 url="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/progxmlrpc/">available from
1157 O'Reilly's web site.</ulink></para>
1159 <para>Edd is responsible for the chapter on PHP, which includes a worked
1160 example of creating a forum server, and hooking it up the O'Reilly's
1161 <ulink url="http://meerkat.oreillynet.com/">Meerkat</ulink> service in
1162 order to allow commenting on news stories from around the Web.</para>
1164 <para>If you've benefited from the effort that has been put into writing
1165 this software, then please consider buying the book!</para>
1169 <chapter id="apidocs">
1170 <title>Class documentation</title>
1172 <sect1 id="xmlrpcval" xreflabel="xmlrpcval">
1173 <title>xmlrpcval</title>
1175 <para>This is where a lot of the hard work gets done. This class enables
1176 the creation and encapsulation of values for XML-RPC.</para>
1178 <para>Ensure you've read the XML-RPC spec at <ulink
1179 url="http://www.xmlrpc.com/stories/storyReader$7">http://www.xmlrpc.com/stories/storyReader$7</ulink>
1180 before reading on as it will make things clearer.</para>
1182 <para>The <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> class can store arbitrarily
1183 complicated values using the following types: <literal>i4 int boolean
1184 string double dateTime.iso8601 base64 array struct</literal>
1185 <literal>null</literal>. You should refer to the <ulink
1186 url="http://www.xmlrpc.com/spec">spec</ulink> for more information on
1187 what each of these types mean.</para>
1190 <title>Notes on types</title>
1195 <para>The type <classname>i4</classname> is accepted as a synonym
1196 for <classname>int</classname> when creating xmlrpcval objects. The
1197 xml parsing code will always convert <classname>i4</classname> to
1198 <classname>int</classname>: <classname>int</classname> is regarded
1199 by this implementation as the canonical name for this type.</para>
1203 <title>base64</title>
1205 <para>Base 64 encoding is performed transparently to the caller when
1206 using this type. Decoding is also transparent. Therefore you ought
1207 to consider it as a "binary" data type, for use when you want to
1208 pass data that is not 7-bit clean.</para>
1212 <title>boolean</title>
1214 <para>The php values <literal>true</literal> and
1215 <literal>1</literal> map to <literal>true</literal>. All other
1216 values (including the empty string) are converted to
1217 <literal>false</literal>.</para>
1221 <title>string</title>
1223 <para>Characters <, >, ', ", &, are encoded using their
1224 entity reference as &lt; &gt; &apos; &quot; and
1225 &amp; All other characters outside of the ASCII range are
1226 encoded using their character reference representation (e.g.
1227 &#200 for é). The XML-RPC spec recommends only encoding
1228 <literal>< &</literal> but this implementation goes further,
1229 for reasons explained by <ulink
1230 url="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml#syntax">the XML 1.0
1231 recommendation</ulink>. In particular, using character reference
1232 representation has the advantage of producing XML that is valid
1233 independently of the charset encoding assumed.</para>
1239 <para>There is no support for encoding <literal>null</literal>
1240 values in the XML-RPC spec, but at least a couple of extensions (and
1241 many toolkits) do support it. Before using <literal>null</literal>
1242 values in your messages, make sure that the responding party accepts
1243 them, and uses the same encoding convention (see ...).</para>
1247 <sect2 id="xmlrpcval-creation" xreflabel="xmlrpcval constructors">
1248 <title>Creation</title>
1250 <para>The constructor is the normal way to create an
1251 <classname>xmlrpcval</classname>. The constructor can take these
1256 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type>new
1257 <function>xmlrpcval</function></funcdef>
1263 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type>new
1264 <function>xmlrpcval</function></funcdef>
1266 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$stringVal</parameter></paramdef>
1270 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type>new
1271 <function>xmlrpcval</function></funcdef>
1273 <paramdef><type>mixed</type><parameter>$scalarVal</parameter></paramdef>
1275 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$scalartyp</parameter></paramdef>
1279 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type>new
1280 <function>xmlrpcval</function></funcdef>
1282 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$arrayVal</parameter></paramdef>
1284 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$arraytyp</parameter></paramdef>
1288 <para>The first constructor creates an empty value, which must be
1289 altered using the methods <function>addScalar</function>,
1290 <function>addArray</function> or <function>addStruct</function> before
1291 it can be used.</para>
1293 <para>The second constructor creates a simple string value.</para>
1295 <para>The third constructor is used to create a scalar value. The
1296 second parameter must be a name of an XML-RPC type. Valid types are:
1297 "<literal>int</literal>", "<literal>boolean</literal>",
1298 "<literal>string</literal>", "<literal>double</literal>",
1299 "<literal>dateTime.iso8601</literal>", "<literal>base64</literal>" or
1302 <para>Examples:</para>
1304 <programlisting language="php">
1305 $myInt = new xmlrpcvalue(1267, "int");
1306 $myString = new xmlrpcvalue("Hello, World!", "string");
1307 $myBool = new xmlrpcvalue(1, "boolean");
1308 $myString2 = new xmlrpcvalue(1.24, "string"); // note: this will serialize a php float value as xmlrpc string
1311 <para>The fourth constructor form can be used to compose complex
1312 XML-RPC values. The first argument is either a simple array in the
1313 case of an XML-RPC <classname>array</classname> or an associative
1314 array in the case of a <classname>struct</classname>. The elements of
1315 the array <emphasis>must be <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> objects
1316 themselves</emphasis>.</para>
1318 <para>The second parameter must be either "<literal>array</literal>"
1319 or "<literal>struct</literal>".</para>
1321 <para>Examples:</para>
1323 <programlisting language="php">
1324 $myArray = new xmlrpcval(
1326 new xmlrpcval("Tom"),
1327 new xmlrpcval("Dick"),
1328 new xmlrpcval("Harry")
1333 $myStruct = new xmlrpcval(
1335 "name" => new xmlrpcval("Tom", "string"),
1336 "age" => new xmlrpcval(34, "int"),
1337 "address" => new xmlrpcval(
1339 "street" => new xmlrpcval("Fifht Ave", "string"),
1340 "city" => new xmlrpcval("NY", "string")
1347 <para>See the file <literal>vardemo.php</literal> in this distribution
1348 for more examples.</para>
1351 <sect2 id="xmlrpcval-methods" xreflabel="xmlrpcval methods">
1352 <title>Methods</title>
1355 <title>addScalar</title>
1359 <funcdef><type>int</type><function>addScalar</function></funcdef>
1361 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$stringVal</parameter></paramdef>
1365 <funcdef><type>int</type><function>addScalar</function></funcdef>
1367 <paramdef><type>mixed</type><parameter>$scalarVal</parameter></paramdef>
1369 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$scalartyp</parameter></paramdef>
1373 <para>If <parameter>$val</parameter> is an empty
1374 <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> this method makes it a scalar
1375 value, and sets that value.</para>
1377 <para>If <parameter>$val</parameter> is already a scalar value, then
1378 no more scalars can be added and <literal>0</literal> is
1381 <para>If <parameter>$val</parameter> is an xmlrpcval of type array,
1382 the php value <parameter>$scalarval</parameter> is added as its last
1385 <para>If all went OK, <literal>1</literal> is returned, otherwise
1386 <literal>0</literal>.</para>
1390 <title>addArray</title>
1394 <funcdef><type>int</type><function>addArray</function></funcdef>
1396 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$arrayVal</parameter></paramdef>
1400 <para>The argument is a simple (numerically indexed) array. The
1401 elements of the array <emphasis>must be
1402 <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> objects
1403 themselves</emphasis>.</para>
1405 <para>Turns an empty <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> into an
1406 <classname>array</classname> with contents as specified by
1407 <parameter>$arrayVal</parameter>.</para>
1409 <para>If <parameter>$val</parameter> is an xmlrpcval of type array,
1410 the elements of <parameter>$arrayVal</parameter> are appended to the
1411 existing ones.</para>
1413 <para>See the fourth constructor form for more information.</para>
1415 <para>If all went OK, <literal>1</literal> is returned, otherwise
1416 <literal>0</literal>.</para>
1420 <title>addStruct</title>
1424 <funcdef><type>int</type><function>addStruct</function></funcdef>
1426 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$assocArrayVal</parameter></paramdef>
1430 <para>The argument is an associative array. The elements of the
1431 array <emphasis>must be <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> objects
1432 themselves</emphasis>.</para>
1434 <para>Turns an empty <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> into a
1435 <classname>struct</classname> with contents as specified by
1436 <parameter>$assocArrayVal</parameter>.</para>
1438 <para>If <parameter>$val</parameter> is an xmlrpcval of type struct,
1439 the elements of <parameter>$arrayVal</parameter> are merged with the
1440 existing ones.</para>
1442 <para>See the fourth constructor form for more information.</para>
1444 <para>If all went OK, <literal>1</literal> is returned, otherwise
1445 <literal>0</literal>.</para>
1449 <title>kindOf</title>
1453 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>kindOf</function></funcdef>
1459 <para>Returns a string containing "struct", "array" or "scalar"
1460 describing the base type of the value. If it returns "undef" it
1461 means that the value hasn't been initialised.</para>
1465 <title>serialize</title>
1469 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>serialize</function></funcdef>
1475 <para>Returns a string containing the XML-RPC representation of this
1480 <title>scalarVal</title>
1484 <funcdef><type>mixed</type><function>scalarVal</function></funcdef>
1490 <para>If <function>$val->kindOf() == "scalar"</function>, this
1491 method returns the actual PHP-language value of the scalar (base 64
1492 decoding is automatically handled here).</para>
1496 <title>scalarTyp</title>
1500 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>scalarTyp</function></funcdef>
1506 <para>If <function>$val->kindOf() == "scalar"</function>, this
1507 method returns a string denoting the type of the scalar. As
1508 mentioned before, <literal>i4</literal> is always coerced to
1509 <literal>int</literal>.</para>
1513 <title>arrayMem</title>
1517 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><function>arrayMem</function></funcdef>
1519 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$n</parameter></paramdef>
1523 <para>If <function>$val->kindOf() == "array"</function>, returns
1524 the <parameter>$n</parameter>th element in the array represented by
1525 the value <parameter>$val</parameter>. The value returned is an
1526 <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> object.</para>
1528 <para><programlisting language="php">
1529 // iterating over values of an array object
1530 for ($i = 0; $i < $val->arraySize(); $i++)
1532 $v = $val->arrayMem($i);
1533 echo "Element $i of the array is of type ".$v->kindOf();
1535 </programlisting></para>
1539 <title>arraySize</title>
1543 <funcdef><type>int</type><function>arraySize</function></funcdef>
1549 <para>If <parameter>$val</parameter> is an
1550 <classname>array</classname>, returns the number of elements in that
1555 <title>structMem</title>
1559 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><function>structMem</function></funcdef>
1561 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$memberName</parameter></paramdef>
1565 <para>If <function>$val->kindOf() == "struct"</function>, returns
1566 the element called <parameter>$memberName</parameter> from the
1567 struct represented by the value <parameter>$val</parameter>. The
1568 value returned is an <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> object.</para>
1572 <title>structEach</title>
1576 <funcdef><type>array</type><function>structEach</function></funcdef>
1582 <para>Returns the next (key, value) pair from the struct, when
1583 <parameter>$val</parameter> is a struct.
1584 <parameter>$value</parameter> is an xmlrpcval itself. See also <xref
1585 linkend="structreset" />.</para>
1587 <para><programlisting language="php">
1588 // iterating over all values of a struct object
1589 $val->structreset();
1590 while (list($key, $v) = $val->structEach())
1592 echo "Element $key of the struct is of type ".$v->kindOf();
1594 </programlisting></para>
1597 <sect3 id="structreset" xreflabel="structreset()">
1598 <title>structReset</title>
1602 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>structReset</function></funcdef>
1608 <para>Resets the internal pointer for
1609 <function>structEach()</function> to the beginning of the struct,
1610 where <parameter>$val</parameter> is a struct.</para>
1613 <sect3 id="structmemexists" xreflabel="structmemexists()">
1614 <title>structMemExists</title>
1618 <funcdef><type>bool</type><function>structMemExsists</function></funcdef>
1620 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$memberName</parameter></paramdef>
1624 <para>Returns <constant>TRUE</constant> or
1625 <constant>FALSE</constant> depending on whether a member of the
1626 given name exists in the struct.</para>
1631 <sect1 id="xmlrpcmsg" xreflabel="xmlrpcmsg">
1632 <title>xmlrpcmsg</title>
1634 <para>This class provides a representation for a request to an XML-RPC
1635 server. A client sends an <classname>xmlrpcmsg</classname> to a server,
1636 and receives back an <classname>xmlrpcresp</classname> (see <xref
1637 linkend="xmlrpc-client-send" />).</para>
1640 <title>Creation</title>
1642 <para>The constructor takes the following forms:</para>
1646 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcmsg</type>new
1647 <function>xmlrpcmsg</function></funcdef>
1649 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$methodName</parameter></paramdef>
1651 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$parameterArray</parameter><initializer>null</initializer></paramdef>
1655 <para>Where <parameter>methodName</parameter> is a string indicating
1656 the name of the method you wish to invoke, and
1657 <parameter>parameterArray</parameter> is a simple php
1658 <classname>Array</classname> of <classname>xmlrpcval</classname>
1659 objects. Here's an example message to the <emphasis>US state
1660 name</emphasis> server:</para>
1662 <programlisting language="php">
1663 $msg = new xmlrpcmsg("examples.getStateName", array(new xmlrpcval(23, "int")));
1666 <para>This example requests the name of state number 23. For more
1667 information on <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> objects, see <xref
1668 linkend="xmlrpcval" />.</para>
1670 <para>Note that the <parameter>parameterArray</parameter> parameter is
1671 optional and can be omitted for methods that take no input parameters
1672 or if you plan to add parameters one by one.</para>
1676 <title>Methods</title>
1679 <title>addParam</title>
1683 <funcdef><type>bool</type><function>addParam</function></funcdef>
1685 <paramdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><parameter>$xmlrpcVal</parameter></paramdef>
1689 <para>Adds the <classname>xmlrpcval</classname>
1690 <parameter>xmlrpcVal</parameter> to the parameter list for this
1691 method call. Returns TRUE or FALSE on error.</para>
1695 <title>getNumParams</title>
1699 <funcdef><type>int</type><function>getNumParams</function></funcdef>
1705 <para>Returns the number of parameters attached to this
1710 <title>getParam</title>
1714 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><function>getParam</function></funcdef>
1716 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$n</parameter></paramdef>
1720 <para>Gets the <parameter>n</parameter>th parameter in the message
1721 (with the index zero-based). Use this method in server
1722 implementations to retrieve the values sent by the client.</para>
1726 <title>method</title>
1730 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>method</function></funcdef>
1736 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>method</function></funcdef>
1738 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$methName</parameter></paramdef>
1742 <para>Gets or sets the method contained in the XML-RPC
1747 <title>parseResponse</title>
1751 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcresp</type><function>parseResponse</function></funcdef>
1753 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$xmlString</parameter></paramdef>
1757 <para>Given an incoming XML-RPC server response contained in the
1758 string <parameter>$xmlString</parameter>, this method constructs an
1759 <classname>xmlrpcresp</classname> response object and returns it,
1760 setting error codes as appropriate (see <xref
1761 linkend="xmlrpc-client-send" />).</para>
1763 <para>This method processes any HTTP/MIME headers it finds.</para>
1767 <title>parseResponseFile</title>
1771 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcresp</type><function>parseResponseFile</function></funcdef>
1773 <paramdef><type>file handle
1774 resource</type><parameter>$fileHandle</parameter></paramdef>
1778 <para>Given an incoming XML-RPC server response on the open file
1779 handle <parameter>fileHandle</parameter>, this method reads all the
1780 data it finds and passes it to
1781 <function>parseResponse.</function></para>
1783 <para>This method is useful to construct responses from pre-prepared
1784 files (see files <literal>demo1.txt, demo2.txt, demo3.txt</literal>
1785 in this distribution). It processes any HTTP headers it finds, and
1786 does not close the file handle.</para>
1790 <title>serialize</title>
1794 <funcdef><type>string
1795 </type><function>serialize</function></funcdef>
1801 <para>Returns the an XML string representing the XML-RPC
1807 <sect1 id="xmlrpc-client" xreflabel="xmlrpc_client">
1808 <title>xmlrpc_client</title>
1810 <para>This is the basic class used to represent a client of an XML-RPC
1814 <title>Creation</title>
1816 <para>The constructor accepts one of two possible syntaxes:</para>
1820 <funcdef><type>xmlrpc_client</type>new
1821 <function>xmlrpc_client</function></funcdef>
1823 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$server_url</parameter></paramdef>
1827 <funcdef><type>xmlrpc_client</type>new
1828 <function>xmlrpc_client</function></funcdef>
1830 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$server_path</parameter></paramdef>
1832 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$server_hostname</parameter></paramdef>
1834 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$server_port</parameter><initializer>80</initializer></paramdef>
1836 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$transport</parameter><initializer>'http'</initializer></paramdef>
1840 <para>Here are a couple of usage examples of the first form:</para>
1842 <programlisting language="php">
1843 $client = new xmlrpc_client("http://phpxmlrpc.sourceforge.net/server.php");
1844 $another_client = new xmlrpc_client("https://james:bond@secret.service.com:443/xmlrpcserver?agent=007");
1847 <para>The second syntax does not allow to express a username and
1848 password to be used for basic HTTP authorization as in the second
1849 example above, but instead it allows to choose whether xmlrpc calls
1850 will be made using the HTTP 1.0 or 1.1 protocol.</para>
1852 <para>Here's another example client set up to query Userland's XML-RPC
1853 server at <emphasis>betty.userland.com</emphasis>:</para>
1855 <programlisting language="php">
1856 $client = new xmlrpc_client("/RPC2", "betty.userland.com", 80);
1859 <para>The <parameter>server_port</parameter> parameter is optional,
1860 and if omitted will default to 80 when using HTTP and 443 when using
1861 HTTPS (see the <xref linkend="xmlrpc-client-send" /> method
1864 <para>The <parameter>transport</parameter> parameter is optional, and
1865 if omitted will default to 'http'. Allowed values are either
1866 '<symbol>http'</symbol>, '<symbol>https</symbol>' or
1867 '<symbol>http11'</symbol>. Its value can be overridden with every call
1868 to the <methodname>send</methodname> method. See the
1869 <methodname>send</methodname> method below for more details about the
1870 meaning of the different values.</para>
1874 <title>Methods</title>
1876 <para>This class supports the following methods.</para>
1878 <sect3 id="xmlrpc-client-send" xreflabel="xmlrpc_client->send">
1881 <para>This method takes the forms:</para>
1885 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcresp</type><function>send</function></funcdef>
1887 <paramdef><type>xmlrpcmsg</type><parameter>$xmlrpc_message</parameter></paramdef>
1889 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$timeout</parameter></paramdef>
1891 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$transport</parameter></paramdef>
1895 <funcdef><type>array</type><function>send</function></funcdef>
1897 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$xmlrpc_messages</parameter></paramdef>
1899 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$timeout</parameter></paramdef>
1901 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$transport</parameter></paramdef>
1905 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcresp</type><function>send</function></funcdef>
1907 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$xml_payload</parameter></paramdef>
1909 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$timeout</parameter></paramdef>
1911 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$transport</parameter></paramdef>
1915 <para>Where <parameter>xmlrpc_message</parameter> is an instance of
1916 <classname>xmlrpcmsg</classname> (see <xref linkend="xmlrpcmsg" />),
1917 and <parameter>response</parameter> is an instance of
1918 <classname>xmlrpcresp</classname> (see <xref
1919 linkend="xmlrpcresp" />).</para>
1921 <para><parameter>If xmlrpc_messages</parameter> is an array of
1922 message instances, <code>responses</code> will be an array of
1923 response instances. The client will try to make use of a single
1924 <code>system.multicall</code> xml-rpc method call to forward to the
1925 server all the messages in a single HTTP round trip, unless
1926 <code>$client->no_multicall</code> has been previously set to
1927 <code>TRUE</code> (see the multicall method below), in which case
1928 many consecutive xmlrpc requests will be sent.</para>
1930 <para>The third syntax allows to build by hand (or any other means)
1931 a complete xmlrpc request message, and send it to the server.
1932 <parameter>xml_payload</parameter> should be a string containing the
1933 complete xml representation of the request. It is e.g. useful when,
1934 for maximal speed of execution, the request is serialized into a
1935 string using the native php xmlrpc functions (see <ulink
1936 url="http://www.php.net/xmlrpc">the php manual on
1937 xmlrpc</ulink>).</para>
1939 <para>The <parameter>timeout</parameter> is optional, and will be
1940 set to <literal>0</literal> (wait for platform-specific predefined
1941 timeout) if omitted. This timeout value is passed to
1942 <function>fsockopen()</function>. It is also used for detecting
1943 server timeouts during communication (i.e. if the server does not
1944 send anything to the client for <parameter>timeout</parameter>
1945 seconds, the connection will be closed).</para>
1947 <para>The <parameter>transport</parameter> parameter is optional,
1948 and if omitted will default to the transport set using instance
1949 creator or 'http' if omitted. The only other valid values are
1950 'https', which will use an SSL HTTP connection to connect to the
1951 remote server, and 'http11'. Note that your PHP must have the "curl"
1952 extension compiled in order to use both these features. Note that
1953 when using SSL you should normally set your port number to 443,
1954 unless the SSL server you are contacting runs at any other
1958 <para>PHP 4.0.6 has a bug which prevents SSL working.</para>
1961 <para>In addition to low-level errors, the XML-RPC server you were
1962 querying may return an error in the
1963 <classname>xmlrpcresp</classname> object. See <xref
1964 linkend="xmlrpcresp" /> for details of how to handle these
1968 <sect3 id="multicall" xreflabel="xmlrpc_client->multicall">
1969 <title>multiCall</title>
1971 <para>This method takes the form:</para>
1975 <funcdef><type>array</type><function>multiCall</function></funcdef>
1977 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$messages</parameter></paramdef>
1979 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$timeout</parameter></paramdef>
1981 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$transport</parameter></paramdef>
1983 <paramdef><type>bool</type><parameter>$fallback</parameter></paramdef>
1987 <para>This method is used to boxcar many method calls in a single
1988 xml-rpc request. It will try first to make use of the
1989 <code>system.multicall</code> xml-rpc method call, and fall back to
1990 executing many separate requests if the server returns any
1993 <para><parameter>msgs</parameter> is an array of
1994 <classname>xmlrpcmsg</classname> objects (see <xref
1995 linkend="xmlrpcmsg" />), and <parameter>response</parameter> is an
1996 array of <classname>xmlrpcresp</classname> objects (see <xref
1997 linkend="xmlrpcresp" />).</para>
1999 <para>The <parameter>timeout</parameter> and
2000 <parameter>transport</parameter> parameters are optional, and behave
2001 as in the <methodname>send</methodname> method above.</para>
2003 <para>The <parameter>fallback</parameter> parameter is optional, and
2004 defaults to <constant>TRUE</constant>. When set to
2005 <constant>FALSE</constant> it will prevent the client to try using
2006 many single method calls in case of failure of the first multicall
2007 request. It should be set only when the server is known to support
2008 the multicall extension.</para>
2012 <title>setAcceptedCompression</title>
2016 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setAcceptedCompression</function></funcdef>
2018 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$compressionmethod</parameter></paramdef>
2022 <para>This method defines whether the client will accept compressed
2023 xml payload forming the bodies of the xmlrpc responses received from
2024 servers. Note that enabling reception of compressed responses merely
2025 adds some standard http headers to xmlrpc requests. It is up to the
2026 xmlrpc server to return compressed responses when receiving such
2027 requests. Allowed values for
2028 <parameter>compressionmethod</parameter> are: 'gzip', 'deflate',
2029 'any' or null (with any meaning either gzip or deflate).</para>
2031 <para>This requires the "zlib" extension to be enabled in your php
2032 install. If it is, by default <classname>xmlrpc_client</classname>
2033 instances will enable reception of compressed content.</para>
2037 <title>setCaCertificate</title>
2041 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setCaCertificate</function></funcdef>
2043 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$certificate</parameter></paramdef>
2045 <paramdef><type>bool</type><parameter>$is_dir</parameter></paramdef>
2049 <para>This method sets an optional certificate to be used in
2050 SSL-enabled communication to validate a remote server with (when the
2051 <parameter>server_method</parameter> is set to 'https' in the
2052 client's construction or in the send method and
2053 <methodname>SetSSLVerifypeer</methodname> has been set to
2054 <constant>TRUE</constant>).</para>
2056 <para>The <parameter>certificate</parameter> parameter must be the
2057 filename of a PEM formatted certificate, or a directory containing
2058 multiple certificate files. The <parameter>is_dir</parameter>
2059 parameter defaults to <constant>FALSE</constant>, set it to
2060 <constant>TRUE</constant> to specify that
2061 <parameter>certificate</parameter> indicates a directory instead of
2062 a single file.</para>
2064 <para>This requires the "curl" extension to be compiled into your
2065 installation of PHP. For more details see the man page for the
2066 <function>curl_setopt</function> function.</para>
2070 <title>setCertificate</title>
2074 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setCertificate</function></funcdef>
2076 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$certificate</parameter></paramdef>
2078 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$passphrase</parameter></paramdef>
2082 <para>This method sets the optional certificate and passphrase used
2083 in SSL-enabled communication with a remote server (when the
2084 <parameter>server_method</parameter> is set to 'https' in the
2085 client's construction or in the send method).</para>
2087 <para>The <parameter>certificate</parameter> parameter must be the
2088 filename of a PEM formatted certificate. The
2089 <parameter>passphrase</parameter> parameter must contain the
2090 password required to use the certificate.</para>
2092 <para>This requires the "curl" extension to be compiled into your
2093 installation of PHP. For more details see the man page for the
2094 <function>curl_setopt</function> function.</para>
2096 <para>Note: to retrieve information about the client certificate on
2097 the server side, you will need to look into the environment
2098 variables which are set up by the webserver. Different webservers
2099 will typically set up different variables.</para>
2103 <title>setCookie</title>
2107 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setCookie</function></funcdef>
2109 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$name</parameter></paramdef>
2111 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$value</parameter></paramdef>
2113 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$path</parameter></paramdef>
2115 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$domain</parameter></paramdef>
2117 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$port</parameter></paramdef>
2121 <para>This method sets a cookie that will be sent to the xmlrpc
2122 server along with every further request (useful e.g. for keeping
2123 session info outside of the xml-rpc payload).</para>
2125 <para><parameter>$value</parameter> is optional, and defaults to
2128 <para><parameter>$path, $domain and $port</parameter> are optional,
2129 and will be omitted from the cookie header if unspecified. Note that
2130 setting any of these values will turn the cookie into a 'version 1'
2131 cookie, that might not be fully supported by the server (see RFC2965
2132 for more details).</para>
2136 <title>setCredentials</title>
2140 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setCredentials</function></funcdef>
2142 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$username</parameter></paramdef>
2144 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$password</parameter></paramdef>
2146 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$authtype</parameter></paramdef>
2150 <para>This method sets the username and password for authorizing the
2151 client to a server. With the default (HTTP) transport, this
2152 information is used for HTTP Basic authorization. Note that username
2153 and password can also be set using the class constructor. With HTTP
2154 1.1 and HTTPS transport, NTLM and Digest authentication protocols
2155 are also supported. To enable them use the constants
2156 <constant>CURLAUTH_DIGEST</constant> and
2157 <constant>CURLAUTH_NTLM</constant> as values for the authtype
2162 <title>setCurlOptions</title>
2164 <para><funcsynopsis>
2166 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setCurlOptions</function></funcdef>
2168 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$options</parameter></paramdef>
2170 </funcsynopsis>This method allows to directly set any desired
2171 option to manipulate the usage of the cURL client (when in cURL
2172 mode). It can be used eg. to explicitly bind to an outgoing ip
2173 address when the server is multihomed</para>
2177 <title>setDebug</title>
2181 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setDebug</function></funcdef>
2183 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$debugLvl</parameter></paramdef>
2187 <para><parameter>debugLvl</parameter> is either <literal>0,
2188 1</literal> or 2 depending on whether you require the client to
2189 print debugging information to the browser. The default is not to
2190 output this information (0).</para>
2192 <para>The debugging information at level 1includes the raw data
2193 returned from the XML-RPC server it was querying (including bot HTTP
2194 headers and the full XML payload), and the PHP value the client
2195 attempts to create to represent the value returned by the server. At
2196 level2, the complete payload of the xmlrpc request is also printed,
2197 before being sent t the server.</para>
2199 <para>This option can be very useful when debugging servers as it
2200 allows you to see exactly what the client sends and the server
2205 <title>setKey</title>
2209 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setKey</function></funcdef>
2211 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$key</parameter></paramdef>
2213 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$keypass</parameter></paramdef>
2217 <para>This method sets the optional certificate key and passphrase
2218 used in SSL-enabled communication with a remote server (when the
2219 <parameter>transport</parameter> is set to 'https' in the client's
2220 construction or in the send method).</para>
2222 <para>This requires the "curl" extension to be compiled into your
2223 installation of PHP. For more details see the man page for the
2224 <function>curl_setopt</function> function.</para>
2228 <title>setProxy</title>
2232 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setProxy</function></funcdef>
2234 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$proxyhost</parameter></paramdef>
2236 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$proxyport</parameter></paramdef>
2238 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$proxyusername</parameter></paramdef>
2240 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$proxypassword</parameter></paramdef>
2242 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$authtype</parameter></paramdef>
2246 <para>This method enables calling servers via an HTTP proxy. The
2247 <parameter>proxyusername</parameter>,<parameter>
2248 proxypassword</parameter> and <parameter>authtype</parameter>
2249 parameters are optional. <parameter>Authtype</parameter> defaults to
2250 <constant>CURLAUTH_BASIC</constant> (Basic authentication protocol);
2251 the only other valid value is the constant
2252 <constant>CURLAUTH_NTLM</constant>, and has effect only when the
2253 client uses the HTTP 1.1 protocol.</para>
2255 <para>NB: CURL versions before 7.11.10 cannot use a proxy to
2256 communicate with https servers.</para>
2260 <title>setRequestCompression</title>
2264 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setRequestCompression</function></funcdef>
2266 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$compressionmethod</parameter></paramdef>
2270 <para>This method defines whether the xml payload forming the
2271 request body will be sent to the server in compressed format, as per
2272 the HTTP specification. This is particularly useful for large
2273 request parameters and over slow network connections. Allowed values
2274 for <parameter>compressionmethod</parameter> are: 'gzip', 'deflate',
2275 'any' or null (with any meaning either gzip or deflate). Note that
2276 there is no automatic fallback mechanism in place for errors due to
2277 servers not supporting receiving compressed request bodies, so make
2278 sure that the particular server you are querying does accept
2279 compressed requests before turning it on.</para>
2281 <para>This requires the "zlib" extension to be enabled in your php
2286 <title>setSSLVerifyHost</title>
2290 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setSSLVerifyHost</function></funcdef>
2292 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$i</parameter></paramdef>
2296 <para>This method defines whether connections made to XML-RPC
2297 backends via HTTPS should verify the remote host's SSL certificate's
2298 common name (CN). By default, only the existence of a CN is checked.
2299 <parameter><parameter>$i</parameter></parameter> should be an
2300 integer value; 0 to not check the CN at all, 1 to merely check for
2301 its existence, and 2 to check that the CN on the certificate matches
2302 the hostname that is being connected to.</para>
2306 <title>setSSLVerifyPeer</title>
2310 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>setSSLVerifyPeer</function></funcdef>
2312 <paramdef><type>bool</type><parameter>$i</parameter></paramdef>
2316 <para>This method defines whether connections made to XML-RPC
2317 backends via HTTPS should verify the remote host's SSL certificate,
2318 and cause the connection to fail if the cert verification fails.
2319 <parameter><parameter>$i</parameter></parameter> should be a boolean
2320 value. Default value: <constant>TRUE</constant>. To specify custom
2321 SSL certificates to validate the server with, use the
2322 <methodname>setCaCertificate</methodname> method.</para>
2326 <title>setUserAgent</title>
2328 <para><funcsynopsis>
2330 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>Useragent</function></funcdef>
2332 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$useragent</parameter></paramdef>
2334 </funcsynopsis>This method sets a custom user-agent that will be
2335 used by the client in the http headers sent with the request. The
2336 default value is built using the library name and version
2342 <title>Variables</title>
2344 <para>NB: direct manipulation of these variables is only recommended
2345 for advanced users.</para>
2348 <title>no_multicall</title>
2350 <para>This member variable determines whether the multicall() method
2351 will try to take advantage of the system.multicall xmlrpc method to
2352 dispatch to the server an array of requests in a single http
2353 roundtrip or simply execute many consecutive http calls. Defaults to
2354 FALSE, but it will be enabled automatically on the first failure of
2355 execution of system.multicall.</para>
2359 <title>request_charset_encoding</title>
2361 <para>This is the charset encoding that will be used for serializing
2362 request sent by the client.</para>
2364 <para>If defaults to NULL, which means using US-ASCII and encoding
2365 all characters outside of the ASCII range using their xml character
2366 entity representation (this has the benefit that line end characters
2367 will not be mangled in the transfer, a CR-LF will be preserved as
2368 well as a singe LF).</para>
2370 <para>Valid values are 'US-ASCII', 'UTF-8' and 'ISO-8859-1'</para>
2373 <sect3 id="return-type" xreflabel="return_type">
2374 <title>return_type</title>
2376 <para>This member variable determines whether the value returned
2377 inside an xmlrpcresp object as results of calls to the send() and
2378 multicall() methods will be an xmlrpcval object, a plain php value
2379 or a raw xml string. Allowed values are 'xmlrpcvals' (the default),
2380 'phpvals' and 'xml'. To allow the user to differentiate between a
2381 correct and a faulty response, fault responses will be returned as
2382 xmlrpcresp objects in any case. Note that the 'phpvals' setting will
2383 yield faster execution times, but some of the information from the
2384 original response will be lost. It will be e.g. impossible to tell
2385 whether a particular php string value was sent by the server as an
2386 xmlrpc string or base64 value.</para>
2388 <para>Example usage:</para>
2390 <programlisting language="php">
2391 $client = new xmlrpc_client("phpxmlrpc.sourceforge.net/server");
2392 $client->return_type = 'phpvals';
2393 $message = new xmlrpcmsg("examples.getStateName", array(new xmlrpcval(23, "int")));
2394 $resp = $client->send($message);
2395 if ($resp->faultCode()) echo 'KO. Error: '.$resp->faultString(); else echo 'OK: got '.$resp->value();
2398 <para>For more details about usage of the 'xml' value, see Appendix
2404 <sect1 id="xmlrpcresp" xreflabel="xmlrpcresp">
2405 <title>xmlrpcresp</title>
2407 <para>This class is used to contain responses to XML-RPC requests. A
2408 server method handler will construct an
2409 <classname>xmlrpcresp</classname> and pass it as a return value. This
2410 same value will be returned by the result of an invocation of the
2411 <function>send</function> method of the
2412 <classname>xmlrpc_client</classname> class.</para>
2415 <title>Creation</title>
2419 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcresp</type>new
2420 <function>xmlrpcresp</function></funcdef>
2422 <paramdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><parameter>$xmlrpcval</parameter></paramdef>
2426 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcresp</type>new
2427 <function>xmlrpcresp</function></funcdef>
2429 <paramdef><parameter>0</parameter></paramdef>
2431 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$errcode</parameter></paramdef>
2433 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$err_string</parameter></paramdef>
2437 <para>The first syntax is used when execution has happened without
2438 difficulty: <parameter>$xmlrpcval</parameter> is an
2439 <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> value with the result of the method
2440 execution contained in it. Alternatively it can be a string containing
2441 the xml serialization of the single xml-rpc value result of method
2444 <para>The second type of constructor is used in case of failure.
2445 <parameter>errcode</parameter> and <parameter>err_string</parameter>
2446 are used to provide indication of what has gone wrong. See <xref
2447 linkend="xmlrpc-server" /> for more information on passing error
2452 <title>Methods</title>
2455 <title>faultCode</title>
2459 <funcdef><type>int</type><function>faultCode</function></funcdef>
2465 <para>Returns the integer fault code return from the XML-RPC
2466 response. A zero value indicates success, any other value indicates
2467 a failure response.</para>
2471 <title>faultString</title>
2475 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>faultString</function></funcdef>
2481 <para>Returns the human readable explanation of the fault indicated
2482 by <function>$resp->faultCode</function>().</para>
2486 <title>value</title>
2490 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><function>value</function></funcdef>
2496 <para>Returns an <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> object containing
2497 the return value sent by the server. If the response's
2498 <function>faultCode</function> is non-zero then the value returned
2499 by this method should not be used (it may not even be an
2502 <para>Note: if the xmlrpcresp instance in question has been created
2503 by an <classname>xmlrpc_client</classname> object whose
2504 <varname>return_type</varname> was set to 'phpvals', then a plain
2505 php value will be returned instead of an
2506 <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> object. If the
2507 <varname>return_type</varname> was set to 'xml', an xml string will
2508 be returned (see the return_type member var above for more
2513 <title>serialize</title>
2517 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>serialize</function></funcdef>
2523 <para>Returns an XML string representation of the response (xml
2524 prologue not included).</para>
2529 <sect1 id="xmlrpc-server" xreflabel="xmlrpc_server">
2530 <title>xmlrpc_server</title>
2532 <para>The implementation of this class has been kept as simple to use as
2533 possible. The constructor for the server basically does all the work.
2534 Here's a minimal example:</para>
2536 <programlisting language="php">
2537 function foo ($xmlrpcmsg) {
2539 return new xmlrpcresp($some_xmlrpc_val);
2543 function foobar($xmlrpcmsg) {
2545 return new xmlrpcresp($some_xmlrpc_val);
2549 $s = new xmlrpc_server(
2551 "examples.myFunc1" => array("function" => "foo"),
2552 "examples.myFunc2" => array("function" => "bar::foobar"),
2556 <para>This performs everything you need to do with a server. The single
2557 constructor argument is an associative array from xmlrpc method names to
2558 php function names. The incoming request is parsed and dispatched to the
2559 relevant php function, which is responsible for returning a
2560 <classname>xmlrpcresp</classname> object, that will be serialized back
2561 to the caller.</para>
2564 <title>Method handler functions</title>
2566 <para>Both php functions and class methods can be registered as xmlrpc
2567 method handlers.</para>
2569 <para>The synopsis of a method handler function is:</para>
2571 <para><synopsis>xmlrpcresp $resp = function (xmlrpcmsg $msg)</synopsis></para>
2573 <para>No text should be echoed 'to screen' by the handler function, or
2574 it will break the xml response sent back to the client. This applies
2575 also to error and warning messages that PHP prints to screen unless
2576 the appropriate parameters have been set in the php.in file. Another
2577 way to prevent echoing of errors inside the response and facilitate
2578 debugging is to use the server SetDebug method with debug level 3 (see
2579 ...). Exceptions thrown duting execution of handler functions are
2580 caught by default and a XML-RPC error reponse is generated instead.
2581 This behaviour can be finetuned by usage of the
2582 <varname>exception_handling</varname> member variable (see
2585 <para>Note that if you implement a method with a name prefixed by
2586 <code>system.</code> the handler function will be invoked by the
2587 server with two parameters, the first being the server itself and the
2588 second being the <classname>xmlrpcmsg</classname> object.</para>
2590 <para>The same php function can be registered as handler of multiple
2591 xmlrpc methods.</para>
2593 <para>Here is a more detailed example of what the handler function
2594 <function>foo</function> may do:</para>
2596 <programlisting language="php">
2597 function foo ($xmlrpcmsg) {
2598 global $xmlrpcerruser; // import user errcode base value
2600 $meth = $xmlrpcmsg->method(); // retrieve method name
2601 $par = $xmlrpcmsg->getParam(0); // retrieve value of first parameter - assumes at least one param received
2602 $val = $par->scalarval(); // decode value of first parameter - assumes it is a scalar value
2607 // this is an error condition
2608 return new xmlrpcresp(0, $xmlrpcerruser+1, // user error 1
2609 "There's a problem, Captain");
2611 // this is a successful value being returned
2612 return new xmlrpcresp(new xmlrpcval("All's fine!", "string"));
2617 <para>See <filename>server.php</filename> in this distribution for
2618 more examples of how to do this.</para>
2620 <para>Since release 2.0RC3 there is a new, even simpler way of
2621 registering php functions with the server. See section 5.7
2626 <title>The dispatch map</title>
2628 <para>The first argument to the <function>xmlrpc_server</function>
2629 constructor is an array, called the <emphasis>dispatch map</emphasis>.
2630 In this array is the information the server needs to service the
2631 XML-RPC methods you define.</para>
2633 <para>The dispatch map takes the form of an associative array of
2634 associative arrays: the outer array has one entry for each method, the
2635 key being the method name. The corresponding value is another
2636 associative array, which can have the following members:</para>
2640 <para><function><literal>function</literal></function> - this
2641 entry is mandatory. It must be either a name of a function in the
2642 global scope which services the XML-RPC method, or an array
2643 containing an instance of an object and a static method name (for
2644 static class methods the 'class::method' syntax is also
2649 <para><function><literal>signature</literal></function> - this
2650 entry is an array containing the possible signatures (see <xref
2651 linkend="signatures" />) for the method. If this entry is present
2652 then the server will check that the correct number and type of
2653 parameters have been sent for this method before dispatching
2658 <para><function><literal>docstring</literal></function> - this
2659 entry is a string containing documentation for the method. The
2660 documentation may contain HTML markup.</para>
2664 <para><literal>signature_docs</literal> - this entry can be used
2665 to provide documentation for the single parameters. It must match
2666 in structure the 'signature' member. By default, only the
2667 <classname>documenting_xmlrpc_server</classname> class in the
2668 extras package will take advantage of this, since the
2669 "system.methodHelp" protocol does not support documenting method
2670 parameters individually.</para>
2674 <para><literal>parameters_type</literal> - this entry can be used
2675 when the server is working in 'xmlrpcvals' mode (see ...) to
2676 define one or more entries in the dispatch map as being functions
2677 that follow the 'phpvals' calling convention. The only useful
2678 value is currently the string <literal>phpvals</literal>.</para>
2682 <para>Look at the <filename>server.php</filename> example in the
2683 distribution to see what a dispatch map looks like.</para>
2686 <sect2 id="signatures" xreflabel="Signatures">
2687 <title>Method signatures</title>
2689 <para>A signature is a description of a method's return type and its
2690 parameter types. A method may have more than one signature.</para>
2692 <para>Within a server's dispatch map, each method has an array of
2693 possible signatures. Each signature is an array of types. The first
2694 entry is the return type. For instance, the method <programlisting
2695 language="php">string examples.getStateName(int)
2696 </programlisting> has the signature <programlisting language="php">array($xmlrpcString, $xmlrpcInt)
2697 </programlisting> and, assuming that it is the only possible signature for the
2698 method, it might be used like this in server creation: <programlisting
2700 $findstate_sig = array(array($xmlrpcString, $xmlrpcInt));
2702 $findstate_doc = 'When passed an integer between 1 and 51 returns the
2703 name of a US state, where the integer is the index of that state name
2704 in an alphabetic order.';
2706 $s = new xmlrpc_server( array(
2707 "examples.getStateName" => array(
2708 "function" => "findstate",
2709 "signature" => $findstate_sig,
2710 "docstring" => $findstate_doc
2712 </programlisting></para>
2714 <para>Note that method signatures do not allow to check nested
2715 parameters, e.g. the number, names and types of the members of a
2716 struct param cannot be validated.</para>
2718 <para>If a method that you want to expose has a definite number of
2719 parameters, but each of those parameters could reasonably be of
2720 multiple types, the array of acceptable signatures will easily grow
2721 into a combinatorial explosion. To avoid such a situation, the lib
2722 defines the global var <varname>$xmlrpcValue</varname>, which can be
2723 used in method signatures as a placeholder for 'any xmlrpc
2726 <para><programlisting language="php">
2727 $echoback_sig = array(array($xmlrpcValue, $xmlrpcValue));
2729 $findstate_doc = 'Echoes back to the client the received value, regardless of its type';
2731 $s = new xmlrpc_server( array(
2732 "echoBack" => array(
2733 "function" => "echoback",
2734 "signature" => $echoback_sig, // this sig guarantees that the method handler will be called with one and only one parameter
2735 "docstring" => $echoback_doc
2737 </programlisting></para>
2739 <para>Methods <methodname>system.listMethods</methodname>,
2740 <methodname>system.methodHelp</methodname>,
2741 <methodname>system.methodSignature</methodname> and
2742 <methodname>system.multicall</methodname> are already defined by the
2743 server, and should not be reimplemented (see Reserved Methods
2748 <title>Delaying the server response</title>
2750 <para>You may want to construct the server, but for some reason not
2751 fulfill the request immediately (security verification, for instance).
2752 If you omit to pass to the constructor the dispatch map or pass it a
2753 second argument of <literal>0</literal> this will have the desired
2754 effect. You can then use the <function>service()</function> method of
2755 the server class to service the request. For example:</para>
2757 <programlisting language="php">
2758 $s = new xmlrpc_server($myDispMap, 0); // second parameter = 0 prevents automatic servicing of request
2760 // ... some code that does other stuff here
2765 <para>Note that the <methodname>service</methodname> method will print
2766 the complete result payload to screen and send appropriate HTTP
2767 headers back to the client, but also return the response object. This
2768 permits further manipulation of the response, possibly in combination
2769 with output buffering.</para>
2771 <para>To prevent the server from sending HTTP headers back to the
2772 client, you can pass a second parameter with a value of
2773 <literal>TRUE</literal> to the <methodname>service</methodname>
2774 method. In this case, the response payload will be returned instead of
2775 the response object.</para>
2777 <para>Xmlrpc requests retrieved by other means than HTTP POST bodies
2778 can also be processed. For example:</para>
2780 <programlisting language="php">
2781 $s = new xmlrpc_server(); // not passing a dispatch map prevents automatic servicing of request
2783 // ... some code that does other stuff here, including setting dispatch map into server object
2785 $resp = $s->service($xmlrpc_request_body, true); // parse a variable instead of POST body, retrieve response payload
2787 // ... some code that does other stuff with xml response $resp here
2792 <title>Modifying the server behaviour</title>
2794 <para>A couple of methods / class variables are available to modify
2795 the behaviour of the server. The only way to take advantage of their
2796 existence is by usage of a delayed server response (see above)</para>
2799 <title>setDebug()</title>
2801 <para>This function controls weather the server is going to echo
2802 debugging messages back to the client as comments in response body.
2803 Valid values: 0,1,2,3, with 1 being the default. At level 0, no
2804 debug info is returned to the client. At level 2, the complete
2805 client request is added to the response, as part of the xml
2806 comments. At level 3, a new PHP error handler is set when executing
2807 user functions exposed as server methods, and all non-fatal errors
2808 are trapped and added as comments into the response.</para>
2812 <title>allow_system_funcs</title>
2814 <para>Default_value: TRUE. When set to FALSE, disables support for
2815 <methodname>System.xxx</methodname> functions in the server. It
2816 might be useful e.g. if you do not wish the server to respond to
2817 requests to <methodname>System.ListMethods</methodname>.</para>
2821 <title>compress_response</title>
2823 <para>When set to TRUE, enables the server to take advantage of HTTP
2824 compression, otherwise disables it. Responses will be transparently
2825 compressed, but only when an xmlrpc-client declares its support for
2826 compression in the HTTP headers of the request.</para>
2828 <para>Note that the ZLIB php extension must be installed for this to
2829 work. If it is, <varname>compress_response</varname> will default to
2834 <title>exception_handling</title>
2836 <para>This variable controls the behaviour of the server when an
2837 exception is thrown by a method handler php function. Valid values:
2838 0,1,2, with 0 being the default. At level 0, the server catches the
2839 exception and return an 'internal error' xmlrpc response; at 1 it
2840 catches the exceptions and return an xmlrpc response with the error
2841 code and error message corresponding to the exception that was
2842 thron; at 2 = the exception is floated to the upper layers in the
2847 <title>response_charset_encoding</title>
2849 <para>Charset encoding to be used for response (only affects string
2852 <para>If it can, the server will convert the generated response from
2853 internal_encoding to the intended one.</para>
2855 <para>Valid values are: a supported xml encoding (only UTF-8 and
2856 ISO-8859-1 at present, unless mbstring is enabled), null (leave
2857 charset unspecified in response and convert output stream to
2858 US_ASCII), 'default' (use xmlrpc library default as specified in
2859 xmlrpc.inc, convert output stream if needed), or 'auto' (use
2860 client-specified charset encoding or same as request if request
2861 headers do not specify it (unless request is US-ASCII: then use
2862 library default anyway).</para>
2867 <title>Fault reporting</title>
2869 <para>Fault codes for your servers should start at the value indicated
2870 by the global <literal>$xmlrpcerruser</literal> + 1.</para>
2872 <para>Standard errors returned by the server include:</para>
2876 <term><literal>1</literal> <phrase>Unknown method</phrase></term>
2879 <para>Returned if the server was asked to dispatch a method it
2880 didn't know about</para>
2885 <term><literal>2</literal> <phrase>Invalid return
2886 payload</phrase></term>
2889 <para>This error is actually generated by the client, not
2890 server, code, but signifies that a server returned something it
2891 couldn't understand. A more detailed error report is sometimes
2892 added onto the end of the phrase above.</para>
2897 <term><literal>3</literal> <phrase>Incorrect
2898 parameters</phrase></term>
2901 <para>This error is generated when the server has signature(s)
2902 defined for a method, and the parameters passed by the client do
2903 not match any of signatures.</para>
2908 <term><literal>4</literal> <phrase>Can't introspect: method
2909 unknown</phrase></term>
2912 <para>This error is generated by the builtin
2913 <function>system.*</function> methods when any kind of
2914 introspection is attempted on a method undefined by the
2920 <term><literal>5</literal> <phrase>Didn't receive 200 OK from
2921 remote server</phrase></term>
2924 <para>This error is generated by the client when a remote server
2925 doesn't return HTTP/1.1 200 OK in response to a request. A more
2926 detailed error report is added onto the end of the phrase
2932 <term><literal>6</literal> <phrase>No data received from
2933 server</phrase></term>
2936 <para>This error is generated by the client when a remote server
2937 returns HTTP/1.1 200 OK in response to a request, but no
2938 response body follows the HTTP headers.</para>
2943 <term><literal>7</literal> <phrase>No SSL support compiled
2947 <para>This error is generated by the client when trying to send
2948 a request with HTTPS and the CURL extension is not available to
2954 <term><literal>8</literal> <phrase>CURL error</phrase></term>
2957 <para>This error is generated by the client when trying to send
2958 a request with HTTPS and the HTTPS communication fails.</para>
2963 <term><literal>9-14</literal> <phrase>multicall
2964 errors</phrase></term>
2967 <para>These errors are generated by the server when something
2968 fails inside a system.multicall request.</para>
2973 <term><literal>100-</literal> <phrase>XML parse
2974 errors</phrase></term>
2977 <para>Returns 100 plus the XML parser error code for the fault
2978 that occurred. The <function>faultString</function> returned
2979 explains where the parse error was in the incoming XML
2987 <title>'New style' servers</title>
2989 <para>In the same spirit of simplification that inspired the
2990 <varname>xmlrpc_client::return_type</varname> class variable, a new
2991 class variable has been added to the server class:
2992 <varname>functions_parameters_type</varname>. When set to 'phpvals',
2993 the functions registered in the server dispatch map will be called
2994 with plain php values as parameters, instead of a single xmlrpcmsg
2995 instance parameter. The return value of those functions is expected to
2996 be a plain php value, too. An example is worth a thousand
2997 words:<programlisting language="php">
2998 function foo($usr_id, $out_lang='en') {
2999 global $xmlrpcerruser;
3003 if ($someErrorCondition)
3004 return new xmlrpcresp(0, $xmlrpcerruser+1, 'DOH!');
3009 'picture' => new xmlrpcval(file_get_contents($picOfTheGuy), 'base64')
3013 $s = new xmlrpc_server(
3015 "examples.myFunc" => array(
3016 "function" => "bar::foobar",
3017 "signature" => array(
3018 array($xmlrpcString, $xmlrpcInt),
3019 array($xmlrpcString, $xmlrpcInt, $xmlrpcString)
3023 $s->functions_parameters_type = 'phpvals';
3025 </programlisting>There are a few things to keep in mind when using this
3026 simplified syntax:</para>
3028 <para>to return an xmlrpc error, the method handler function must
3029 return an instance of <classname>xmlrpcresp</classname>. The only
3030 other way for the server to know when an error response should be
3031 served to the client is to throw an exception and set the server's
3032 <varname>exception_handling</varname> memeber var to 1;</para>
3034 <para>to return a base64 value, the method handler function must
3035 encode it on its own, creating an instance of an xmlrpcval
3038 <para>the method handler function cannot determine the name of the
3039 xmlrpc method it is serving, unlike standard handler functions that
3040 can retrieve it from the message object;</para>
3042 <para>when receiving nested parameters, the method handler function
3043 has no way to distinguish a php string that was sent as base64 value
3044 from one that was sent as a string value;</para>
3046 <para>this has a direct consequence on the support of
3047 system.multicall: a method whose signature contains datetime or base64
3048 values will not be available to multicall calls;</para>
3050 <para>last but not least, the direct parsing of xml to php values is
3051 much faster than using xmlrpcvals, and allows the library to handle
3052 much bigger messages without allocating all available server memory or
3053 smashing PHP recursive call stack.</para>
3058 <chapter id="globalvars">
3059 <title>Global variables</title>
3061 <para>Many global variables are defined in the xmlrpc.inc file. Some of
3062 those are meant to be used as constants (and modifying their value might
3063 cause unpredictable behaviour), while some others can be modified in your
3064 php scripts to alter the behaviour of the xml-rpc client and
3068 <title>"Constant" variables</title>
3071 <title>$xmlrpcerruser</title>
3073 <para><fieldsynopsis>
3074 <varname>$xmlrpcerruser</varname>
3076 <initializer>800</initializer>
3077 </fieldsynopsis>The minimum value for errors reported by user
3078 implemented XML-RPC servers. Error numbers lower than that are
3079 reserved for library usage.</para>
3083 <title>$xmlrpcI4, $xmlrpcInt, $xmlrpcBoolean, $xmlrpcDouble,
3084 $xmlrpcString, $xmlrpcDateTime, $xmlrpcBase64, $xmlrpcArray,
3085 $xmlrpcStruct, $xmlrpcValue, $xmlrpcNull</title>
3087 <para>For convenience the strings representing the XML-RPC types have
3088 been encoded as global variables:<programlisting language="php">
3091 $xmlrpcBoolean="boolean";
3092 $xmlrpcDouble="double";
3093 $xmlrpcString="string";
3094 $xmlrpcDateTime="dateTime.iso8601";
3095 $xmlrpcBase64="base64";
3096 $xmlrpcArray="array";
3097 $xmlrpcStruct="struct";
3098 $xmlrpcValue="undefined";
3100 </programlisting></para>
3104 <title>$xmlrpcTypes, $xmlrpc_valid_parents, $xmlrpcerr, $xmlrpcstr,
3105 $xmlrpcerrxml, $xmlrpc_backslash, $_xh, $xml_iso88591_Entities,
3106 $xmlEntities, $xmlrpcs_capabilities</title>
3108 <para>Reserved for internal usage.</para>
3113 <title>Variables whose value can be modified</title>
3115 <sect2 id="xmlrpc-defencoding" xreflabel="xmlrpc_defencoding">
3116 <title xreflabel="">xmlrpc_defencoding</title>
3119 <varname>$xmlrpc_defencoding</varname>
3121 <initializer>"UTF8"</initializer>
3124 <para>This variable defines the character set encoding that will be
3125 used by the xml-rpc client and server to decode the received messages,
3126 when a specific charset declaration is not found (in the messages sent
3127 non-ascii chars are always encoded using character references, so that
3128 the produced xml is valid regardless of the charset encoding
3131 <para>Allowed values: <literal>"UTF8"</literal>,
3132 <literal>"ISO-8859-1"</literal>, <literal>"ASCII".</literal></para>
3134 <para>Note that the appropriate RFC actually mandates that XML
3135 received over HTTP without indication of charset encoding be treated
3136 as US-ASCII, but many servers and clients 'in the wild' violate the
3137 standard, and assume the default encoding is UTF-8.</para>
3141 <title>xmlrpc_internalencoding</title>
3143 <para><fieldsynopsis>
3144 <varname>$xmlrpc_internalencoding</varname>
3146 <initializer>"ISO-8859-1"</initializer>
3147 </fieldsynopsis>This variable defines the character set encoding
3148 that the library uses to transparently encode into valid XML the
3149 xml-rpc values created by the user and to re-encode the received
3150 xml-rpc values when it passes them to the PHP application. It only
3151 affects xml-rpc values of string type. It is a separate value from
3152 xmlrpc_defencoding, allowing e.g. to send/receive xml messages encoded
3153 on-the-wire in US-ASCII and process them as UTF-8. It defaults to the
3154 character set used internally by PHP (unless you are running an
3155 MBString-enabled installation), so you should change it only in
3156 special situations, if e.g. the string values exchanged in the xml-rpc
3157 messages are directly inserted into / fetched from a database
3158 configured to return UTF8 encoded strings to PHP. Example
3161 <para><programlisting language="php">
3164 include('xmlrpc.inc');
3165 $xmlrpc_internalencoding = 'UTF-8'; // this has to be set after the inclusion above
3166 $v = new xmlrpcval('κόÏ
\83με'); // This xmlrpc value will be correctly serialized as the greek word 'kosme'
3167 </programlisting></para>
3171 <title>xmlrpcName</title>
3173 <para><fieldsynopsis>
3174 <varname>$xmlrpcName</varname>
3176 <initializer>"XML-RPC for PHP"</initializer>
3177 </fieldsynopsis>The string representation of the name of the XML-RPC
3178 for PHP library. It is used by the client for building the User-Agent
3179 HTTP header that is sent with every request to the server. You can
3180 change its value if you need to customize the User-Agent
3185 <title>xmlrpcVersion</title>
3187 <para><fieldsynopsis>
3188 <varname>$xmlrpcVersion</varname>
3190 <initializer>"2.2"</initializer>
3191 </fieldsynopsis>The string representation of the version number of
3192 the XML-RPC for PHP library in use. It is used by the client for
3193 building the User-Agent HTTP header that is sent with every request to
3194 the server. You can change its value if you need to customize the
3195 User-Agent string.</para>
3199 <title>xmlrpc_null_extension</title>
3201 <para>When set to <constant>TRUE</constant>, the lib will enable
3202 support for the <NIL/> (and <EX:NIL/>) xmlrpc value, as
3203 per the extension to the standard proposed here. This means that
3204 <NIL/> and <EX:NIL/> tags received will be parsed as valid
3205 xmlrpc, and the corresponding xmlrpcvals will return "null" for
3206 <methodname>scalarTyp()</methodname>.</para>
3210 <title>xmlrpc_null_apache_encoding</title>
3212 <para>When set to <literal>TRUE</literal>, php NULL values encoded
3213 into <classname>xmlrpcval</classname> objects get serialized using the
3214 <literal><EX:NIL/></literal> tag instead of
3215 <literal><NIL/></literal>. Please note that both forms are
3216 always accepted as input regardless of the value of this
3222 <chapter id="helpers">
3223 <title>Helper functions</title>
3225 <para>XML-RPC for PHP contains some helper functions which you can use to
3226 make processing of XML-RPC requests easier.</para>
3229 <title>Date functions</title>
3231 <para>The XML-RPC specification has this to say on dates:</para>
3234 <para id="wrap_xmlrpc_method">Don't assume a timezone. It should be
3235 specified by the server in its documentation what assumptions it makes
3236 about timezones.</para>
3239 <para>Unfortunately, this means that date processing isn't
3240 straightforward. Although XML-RPC uses ISO 8601 format dates, it doesn't
3241 use the timezone specifier.</para>
3243 <para>We strongly recommend that in every case where you pass dates in
3244 XML-RPC calls, you use UTC (GMT) as your timezone. Most computer
3245 languages include routines for handling GMT times natively, and you
3246 won't have to translate between timezones.</para>
3248 <para>For more information about dates, see <ulink
3249 url="http://www.uic.edu/year2000/datefmt.html">ISO 8601: The Right
3250 Format for Dates</ulink>, which has a handy link to a PDF of the ISO
3251 8601 specification. Note that XML-RPC uses exactly one of the available
3252 representations: CCYYMMDDTHH:MM:SS.</para>
3254 <sect2 id="iso8601encode" xreflabel="iso8601_encode()">
3255 <title>iso8601_encode</title>
3259 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>iso8601_encode</function></funcdef>
3261 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$time_t</parameter></paramdef>
3264 choice="opt"><type>int</type><parameter>$utc</parameter><initializer>0</initializer></paramdef>
3268 <para>Returns an ISO 8601 formatted date generated from the UNIX
3269 timestamp <parameter>$time_t</parameter>, as returned by the PHP
3270 function <function>time()</function>.</para>
3272 <para>The argument <parameter>$utc</parameter> can be omitted, in
3273 which case it defaults to <literal>0</literal>. If it is set to
3274 <literal>1</literal>, then the function corrects the time passed in
3275 for UTC. Example: if you're in the GMT-6:00 timezone and set
3276 <parameter>$utc</parameter>, you will receive a date representation
3277 six hours ahead of your local time.</para>
3279 <para>The included demo program <filename>vardemo.php</filename>
3280 includes a demonstration of this function.</para>
3283 <sect2 id="iso8601decode" xreflabel="iso8601_decode()">
3284 <title>iso8601_decode</title>
3288 <funcdef><type>int</type><function>iso8601_decode</function></funcdef>
3290 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$isoString</parameter></paramdef>
3292 <paramdef><type>int</type><parameter>$utc</parameter><initializer>0</initializer></paramdef>
3296 <para>Returns a UNIX timestamp from an ISO 8601 encoded time and date
3297 string passed in. If <parameter>$utc</parameter> is
3298 <literal>1</literal> then <parameter>$isoString</parameter> is assumed
3299 to be in the UTC timezone, and thus the result is also UTC: otherwise,
3300 the timezone is assumed to be your local timezone and you receive a
3301 local timestamp.</para>
3305 <sect1 id="arrayuse">
3306 <title>Easy use with nested PHP values</title>
3308 <para>Dan Libby was kind enough to contribute two helper functions that
3309 make it easier to translate to and from PHP values. This makes it easier
3310 to deal with complex structures. At the moment support is limited to
3311 <type>int</type>, <type>double</type>, <type>string</type>,
3312 <type>array</type>, <type>datetime</type> and <type>struct</type>
3313 datatypes; note also that all PHP arrays are encoded as structs, except
3314 arrays whose keys are integer numbers starting with 0 and incremented by
3317 <para>These functions reside in <filename>xmlrpc.inc</filename>.</para>
3319 <sect2 id="phpxmlrpcdecode">
3320 <title>php_xmlrpc_decode</title>
3324 <funcdef><type>mixed</type><function>php_xmlrpc_decode</function></funcdef>
3326 <paramdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><parameter>$xmlrpc_val</parameter></paramdef>
3328 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$options</parameter></paramdef>
3332 <funcdef><type>array</type><function>php_xmlrpc_decode</function></funcdef>
3334 <paramdef><type>xmlrpcmsg</type><parameter>$xmlrpcmsg_val</parameter></paramdef>
3336 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$options</parameter></paramdef>
3340 <para>Returns a native PHP value corresponding to the values found in
3341 the <type>xmlrpcval</type> <parameter>$xmlrpc_val</parameter>,
3342 translated into PHP types. Base-64 and datetime values are
3343 automatically decoded to strings.</para>
3345 <para>In the second form, returns an array containing the parameters
3347 <parameter><classname>xmlrpcmsg</classname>_val</parameter>, decoded
3348 to php types.</para>
3350 <para>The <parameter>options</parameter> parameter is optional. If
3351 specified, it must consist of an array of options to be enabled in the
3352 decoding process. At the moment the only valid option are
3353 <symbol>decode_php_objs</symbol> and
3354 <literal>dates_as_objects</literal>. When the first is set, php
3355 objects that have been converted to xml-rpc structs using the
3356 <function>php_xmlrpc_encode</function> function and a corresponding
3357 encoding option will be converted back into object values instead of
3358 arrays (provided that the class definition is available at
3359 reconstruction time). When the second is set, XML-RPC datetime values
3360 will be converted into native <classname>dateTime</classname> objects
3361 instead of strings.</para>
3363 <para><emphasis><emphasis>WARNING</emphasis>:</emphasis> please take
3364 extreme care before enabling the <symbol>decode_php_objs</symbol>
3365 option: when php objects are rebuilt from the received xml, their
3366 constructor function will be silently invoked. This means that you are
3367 allowing the remote end to trigger execution of uncontrolled PHP code
3368 on your server, opening the door to code injection exploits. Only
3369 enable this option when you have complete trust of the remote
3370 server/client.</para>
3372 <para>Example:<programlisting language="php">
3373 // wrapper to expose an existing php function as xmlrpc method handler
3374 function foo_wrapper($m)
3376 $params = php_xmlrpc_decode($m);
3377 $retval = call_user_func_array('foo', $params);
3378 return new xmlrpcresp(new xmlrpcval($retval)); // foo return value will be serialized as string
3381 $s = new xmlrpc_server(array(
3382 "examples.myFunc1" => array(
3383 "function" => "foo_wrapper",
3384 "signatures" => ...
3386 </programlisting></para>
3389 <sect2 id="phpxmlrpcencode">
3390 <title>php_xmlrpc_encode</title>
3394 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><function>php_xmlrpc_encode</function></funcdef>
3396 <paramdef><type>mixed</type><parameter>$phpval</parameter></paramdef>
3398 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$options</parameter></paramdef>
3402 <para>Returns an <type>xmlrpcval</type> object populated with the PHP
3403 values in <parameter>$phpval</parameter>. Works recursively on arrays
3404 and objects, encoding numerically indexed php arrays into array-type
3405 xmlrpcval objects and non numerically indexed php arrays into
3406 struct-type xmlrpcval objects. Php objects are encoded into
3407 struct-type xmlrpcvals, excepted for php values that are already
3408 instances of the xmlrpcval class or descendants thereof, which will
3409 not be further encoded. Note that there's no support for encoding php
3410 values into base-64 values. Encoding of date-times is optionally
3411 carried on on php strings with the correct format.</para>
3413 <para>The <parameter>options</parameter> parameter is optional. If
3414 specified, it must consist of an array of options to be enabled in the
3415 encoding process. At the moment the only valid options are
3416 <symbol>encode_php_objs</symbol>, <literal>null_extension</literal>
3417 and <symbol>auto_dates</symbol>.</para>
3419 <para>The first will enable the creation of 'particular' xmlrpcval
3420 objects out of php objects, that add a "php_class" xml attribute to
3421 their serialized representation. This attribute allows the function
3422 php_xmlrpc_decode to rebuild the native php objects (provided that the
3423 same class definition exists on both sides of the communication). The
3424 second allows to encode php <literal>NULL</literal> values to the
3425 <literal><NIL/></literal> (or
3426 <literal><EX:NIL/></literal>, see ...) tag. The last encodes any
3427 string that matches the ISO8601 format into an XML-RPC
3430 <para>Example:<programlisting language="php">
3431 // the easy way to build a complex xml-rpc struct, showing nested base64 value and datetime values
3432 $val = php_xmlrpc_encode(array(
3433 'first struct_element: an int' => 666,
3434 'second: an array' => array ('apple', 'orange', 'banana'),
3435 'third: a base64 element' => new xmlrpcval('hello world', 'base64'),
3436 'fourth: a datetime' => '20060107T01:53:00'
3437 ), array('auto_dates'));
3438 </programlisting></para>
3442 <title>php_xmlrpc_decode_xml</title>
3446 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval | xmlrpcresp |
3447 xmlrpcmsg</type><function>php_xmlrpc_decode_xml</function></funcdef>
3449 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$xml</parameter></paramdef>
3451 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$options</parameter></paramdef>
3455 <para>Decodes the xml representation of either an xmlrpc request,
3456 response or single value, returning the corresponding php-xmlrpc
3457 object, or <literal>FALSE</literal> in case of an error.</para>
3459 <para>The <parameter>options</parameter> parameter is optional. If
3460 specified, it must consist of an array of options to be enabled in the
3461 decoding process. At the moment, no option is supported.</para>
3463 <para>Example:<programlisting language="php">
3464 $text = '<value><array><data><value>Hello world</value></data></array></value>';
3465 $val = php_xmlrpc_decode_xml($text);
3466 if ($val) echo 'Found a value of type '.$val->kindOf(); else echo 'Found invalid xml';
3467 </programlisting></para>
3472 <title>Automatic conversion of php functions into xmlrpc methods (and
3475 <para>For the extremely lazy coder, helper functions have been added
3476 that allow to convert a php function into an xmlrpc method, and a
3477 remotely exposed xmlrpc method into a local php function - or a set of
3478 methods into a php class. Note that these comes with many caveat.</para>
3481 <title>wrap_xmlrpc_method</title>
3485 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>wrap_xmlrpc_method</function></funcdef>
3487 <paramdef>$client</paramdef>
3489 <paramdef>$methodname</paramdef>
3491 <paramdef>$extra_options</paramdef>
3495 <funcdef><type>string</type><function>wrap_xmlrpc_method</function></funcdef>
3497 <paramdef>$client</paramdef>
3499 <paramdef>$methodname</paramdef>
3501 <paramdef>$signum</paramdef>
3503 <paramdef>$timeout</paramdef>
3505 <paramdef>$protocol</paramdef>
3507 <paramdef>$funcname</paramdef>
3511 <para>Given an xmlrpc server and a method name, creates a php wrapper
3512 function that will call the remote method and return results using
3513 native php types for both params and results. The generated php
3514 function will return an xmlrpcresp object for failed xmlrpc
3517 <para>The second syntax is deprecated, and is listed here only for
3518 backward compatibility.</para>
3520 <para>The server must support the
3521 <methodname>system.methodSignature</methodname> xmlrpc method call for
3522 this function to work.</para>
3524 <para>The <parameter>client</parameter> param must be a valid
3525 xmlrpc_client object, previously created with the address of the
3526 target xmlrpc server, and to which the preferred communication options
3527 have been set.</para>
3529 <para>The optional parameters can be passed as array key,value pairs
3530 in the <parameter>extra_options</parameter> param.</para>
3532 <para>The <parameter>signum</parameter> optional param has the purpose
3533 of indicating which method signature to use, if the given server
3534 method has multiple signatures (defaults to 0).</para>
3536 <para>The <parameter>timeout</parameter> and
3537 <parameter>protocol</parameter> optional params are the same as in the
3538 <methodname>xmlrpc_client::send()</methodname> method.</para>
3540 <para>If set, the optional <parameter>new_function_name</parameter>
3541 parameter indicates which name should be used for the generated
3542 function. In case it is not set the function name will be
3543 auto-generated.</para>
3545 <para>If the <literal>return_source</literal> optional parameter is
3546 set, the function will return the php source code to build the wrapper
3547 function, instead of evaluating it (useful to save the code and use it
3548 later as stand-alone xmlrpc client).</para>
3550 <para>If the <literal>encode_php_objs</literal> optional parameter is
3551 set, instances of php objects later passed as parameters to the newly
3552 created function will receive a 'special' treatment that allows the
3553 server to rebuild them as php objects instead of simple arrays. Note
3554 that this entails using a "slightly augmented" version of the xmlrpc
3555 protocol (ie. using element attributes), which might not be understood
3556 by xmlrpc servers implemented using other libraries.</para>
3558 <para>If the <literal>decode_php_objs</literal> optional parameter is
3559 set, instances of php objects that have been appropriately encoded by
3560 the server using a coordinate option will be deserialized as php
3561 objects instead of simple arrays (the same class definition should be
3562 present server side and client side).</para>
3564 <para><emphasis>Note that this might pose a security risk</emphasis>,
3565 since in order to rebuild the object instances their constructor
3566 method has to be invoked, and this means that the remote server can
3567 trigger execution of unforeseen php code on the client: not really a
3568 code injection, but almost. Please enable this option only when you
3569 trust the remote server.</para>
3571 <para>In case of an error during generation of the wrapper function,
3572 FALSE is returned, otherwise the name (or source code) of the new
3575 <para>Known limitations: server must support
3576 <methodname>system.methodsignature</methodname> for the wanted xmlrpc
3577 method; for methods that expose multiple signatures, only one can be
3578 picked; for remote calls with nested xmlrpc params, the caller of the
3579 generated php function has to encode on its own the params passed to
3580 the php function if these are structs or arrays whose (sub)members
3581 include values of type base64.</para>
3583 <para>Note: calling the generated php function 'might' be slow: a new
3584 xmlrpc client is created on every invocation and an xmlrpc-connection
3585 opened+closed. An extra 'debug' param is appended to the parameter
3586 list of the generated php function, useful for debugging
3589 <para>Example usage:</para>
3591 <programlisting language="php">
3592 $c = new xmlrpc_client('http://phpxmlrpc.sourceforge.net/server.php');
3594 $function = wrap_xmlrpc_method($client, 'examples.getStateName');
3597 die('Cannot introspect remote method');
3600 $statename = $function($a);
3601 if (is_a($statename, 'xmlrpcresp')) // call failed
3603 echo 'Call failed: '.$statename->faultCode().'. Calling again with debug on';
3604 $function($a, true);
3607 echo "OK, state nr. $stateno is $statename";
3612 <sect2 id="wrap_php_function">
3613 <title>wrap_php_function</title>
3617 <funcdef><type>array</type><function>wrap_php_function</function></funcdef>
3619 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$funcname</parameter></paramdef>
3621 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$wrapper_function_name</parameter></paramdef>
3623 <paramdef><type>array</type><parameter>$extra_options</parameter></paramdef>
3627 <para>Given a user-defined PHP function, create a PHP 'wrapper'
3628 function that can be exposed as xmlrpc method from an xmlrpc_server
3629 object and called from remote clients, and return the appropriate
3630 definition to be added to a server's dispatch map.</para>
3632 <para>The optional <parameter>$wrapper_function_name</parameter>
3633 specifies the name that will be used for the auto-generated
3636 <para>Since php is a typeless language, to infer types of input and
3637 output parameters, it relies on parsing the javadoc-style comment
3638 block associated with the given function. Usage of xmlrpc native types
3639 (such as datetime.dateTime.iso8601 and base64) in the docblock @param
3640 tag is also allowed, if you need the php function to receive/send data
3641 in that particular format (note that base64 encoding/decoding is
3642 transparently carried out by the lib, while datetime vals are passed
3643 around as strings).</para>
3645 <para>Known limitations: requires PHP 5.0.3 +; only works for
3646 user-defined functions, not for PHP internal functions (reflection
3647 does not support retrieving number/type of params for those); the
3648 wrapped php function will not be able to programmatically return an
3649 xmlrpc error response.</para>
3651 <para>If the <literal>return_source</literal> optional parameter is
3652 set, the function will return the php source code to build the wrapper
3653 function, instead of evaluating it (useful to save the code and use it
3654 later in a stand-alone xmlrpc server). It will be in the stored in the
3655 <literal>source</literal> member of the returned array.</para>
3657 <para>If the <literal>suppress_warnings</literal> optional parameter
3658 is set, any runtime warning generated while processing the
3659 user-defined php function will be catched and not be printed in the
3660 generated xml response.</para>
3662 <para>If the <parameter>extra_options</parameter> array contains the
3663 <literal>encode_php_objs</literal> value, wrapped functions returning
3664 php objects will generate "special" xmlrpc responses: when the xmlrpc
3665 decoding of those responses is carried out by this same lib, using the
3666 appropriate param in php_xmlrpc_decode(), the objects will be
3669 <para>In short: php objects can be serialized, too (except for their
3670 resource members), using this function. Other libs might choke on the
3671 very same xml that will be generated in this case (i.e. it has a
3672 nonstandard attribute on struct element tags)</para>
3674 <para>If the <literal>decode_php_objs</literal> optional parameter is
3675 set, instances of php objects that have been appropriately encoded by
3676 the client using a coordinate option will be deserialized and passed
3677 to the user function as php objects instead of simple arrays (the same
3678 class definition should be present server side and client
3681 <para><emphasis>Note that this might pose a security risk</emphasis>,
3682 since in order to rebuild the object instances their constructor
3683 method has to be invoked, and this means that the remote client can
3684 trigger execution of unforeseen php code on the server: not really a
3685 code injection, but almost. Please enable this option only when you
3686 trust the remote clients.</para>
3688 <para>Example usage:</para>
3690 <para><programlisting language="php">/**
3691 * State name from state number decoder. NB: do NOT remove this comment block.
3692 * @param integer $stateno the state number
3693 * @return string the name of the state (or error description)
3695 function findstate($stateno)
3698 if (isset($stateNames[$stateno-1]))
3700 return $stateNames[$stateno-1];
3704 return "I don't have a state for the index '" . $stateno . "'";
3708 // wrap php function, build xmlrpc server
3710 $findstate_sig = wrap_php_function('findstate');
3712 $methods['examples.getStateName'] = $findstate_sig;
3713 $srv = new xmlrpc_server($methods);
3714 </programlisting></para>
3718 <sect1 id="deprecated">
3719 <title>Functions removed from the library</title>
3721 <para>The following two functions have been deprecated in version 1.1 of
3722 the library, and removed in version 2, in order to avoid conflicts with
3723 the EPI xml-rpc library, which also defines two functions with the same
3726 <para>To ease the transition to the new naming scheme and avoid breaking
3727 existing implementations, the following scheme has been adopted:
3730 <para>If EPI-XMLRPC is not active in the current PHP installation,
3731 the constant <literal>XMLRPC_EPI_ENABLED</literal> will be set to
3732 <literal>'0'</literal></para>
3736 <para>If EPI-XMLRPC is active in the current PHP installation, the
3737 constant <literal>XMLRPC_EPI_ENABLED</literal> will be set to
3738 <literal>'1'</literal></para>
3740 </itemizedlist></para>
3742 <para>The following documentation is kept for historical
3745 <sect2 id="xmlrpcdecode">
3746 <title>xmlrpc_decode</title>
3750 <funcdef><type>mixed</type><function>xmlrpc_decode</function></funcdef>
3752 <paramdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><parameter>$xmlrpc_val</parameter></paramdef>
3756 <para>Alias for php_xmlrpc_decode.</para>
3759 <sect2 id="xmlrpcencode">
3760 <title>xmlrpc_encode</title>
3764 <funcdef><type>xmlrpcval</type><function>xmlrpc_encode</function></funcdef>
3766 <paramdef><type>mixed</type><parameter>$phpval</parameter></paramdef>
3770 <para>Alias for php_xmlrpc_encode.</para>
3774 <sect1 id="debugging">
3775 <title>Debugging aids</title>
3778 <title>xmlrpc_debugmsg</title>
3782 <funcdef><type>void</type><function>xmlrpc_debugmsg</function></funcdef>
3784 <paramdef><type>string</type><parameter>$debugstring</parameter></paramdef>
3788 <para>Sends the contents of <parameter>$debugstring</parameter> in XML
3789 comments in the server return payload. If a PHP client has debugging
3790 turned on, the user will be able to see server debug
3793 <para>Use this function in your methods so you can pass back
3794 diagnostic information. It is only available from
3795 <filename>xmlrpcs.inc</filename>.</para>
3800 <chapter id="reserved" xreflabel="Reserved methods">
3801 <title>Reserved methods</title>
3803 <para>In order to extend the functionality offered by XML-RPC servers
3804 without impacting on the protocol, reserved methods are supported in this
3807 <para>All methods starting with <function>system.</function> are
3808 considered reserved by the server. PHP for XML-RPC itself provides four
3809 special methods, detailed in this chapter.</para>
3811 <para>Note that all server objects will automatically respond to clients
3812 querying these methods, unless the property
3813 <property>allow_system_funcs</property> has been set to
3814 <constant>false</constant> before calling the
3815 <methodname>service()</methodname> method. This might pose a security risk
3816 if the server is exposed to public access, e.g. on the internet.</para>
3819 <title>system.getCapabilities</title>
3825 <title>system.listMethods</title>
3827 <para>This method may be used to enumerate the methods implemented by
3828 the XML-RPC server.</para>
3830 <para>The <function>system.listMethods</function> method requires no
3831 parameters. It returns an array of strings, each of which is the name of
3832 a method implemented by the server.</para>
3835 <sect1 id="sysmethodsig">
3836 <title>system.methodSignature</title>
3838 <para>This method takes one parameter, the name of a method implemented
3839 by the XML-RPC server.</para>
3841 <para>It returns an array of possible signatures for this method. A
3842 signature is an array of types. The first of these types is the return
3843 type of the method, the rest are parameters.</para>
3845 <para>Multiple signatures (i.e. overloading) are permitted: this is the
3846 reason that an array of signatures are returned by this method.</para>
3848 <para>Signatures themselves are restricted to the top level parameters
3849 expected by a method. For instance if a method expects one array of
3850 structs as a parameter, and it returns a string, its signature is simply
3851 "string, array". If it expects three integers, its signature is "string,
3852 int, int, int".</para>
3854 <para>For parameters that can be of more than one type, the "undefined"
3855 string is supported.</para>
3857 <para>If no signature is defined for the method, a not-array value is
3858 returned. Therefore this is the way to test for a non-signature, if
3859 <parameter>$resp</parameter> below is the response object from a method
3860 call to <function>system.methodSignature</function>:</para>
3862 <programlisting language="php">
3863 $v = $resp->value();
3864 if ($v->kindOf() != "array") {
3865 // then the method did not have a signature defined
3869 <para>See the <filename>introspect.php</filename> demo included in this
3870 distribution for an example of using this method.</para>
3873 <sect1 id="sysmethhelp">
3874 <title>system.methodHelp</title>
3876 <para>This method takes one parameter, the name of a method implemented
3877 by the XML-RPC server.</para>
3879 <para>It returns a documentation string describing the use of that
3880 method. If no such string is available, an empty string is
3883 <para>The documentation string may contain HTML markup.</para>
3887 <title>system.multicall</title>
3889 <para>This method takes one parameter, an array of 'request' struct
3890 types. Each request struct must contain a
3891 <parameter>methodName</parameter> member of type string and a
3892 <parameter>params</parameter> member of type array, and corresponds to
3893 the invocation of the corresponding method.</para>
3895 <para>It returns a response of type array, with each value of the array
3896 being either an error struct (containing the faultCode and faultString
3897 members) or the successful response value of the corresponding single
3902 <chapter id="examples" xreflabel="Examples">
3903 <title>Examples</title>
3905 <para>The best examples are to be found in the sample files included with
3906 the distribution. Some are included here.</para>
3908 <sect1 id="statename">
3909 <title>XML-RPC client: state name query</title>
3911 <para>Code to get the corresponding state name from a number (1-50) from
3912 the demo server available on SourceForge</para>
3914 <programlisting language="php">
3915 $m = new xmlrpcmsg('examples.getStateName',
3916 array(new xmlrpcval($HTTP_POST_VARS["stateno"], "int")));
3917 $c = new xmlrpc_client("/server.php", "phpxmlrpc.sourceforge.net", 80);
3918 $r = $c->send($m);
3919 if (!$r->faultCode()) {
3920 $v = $r->value();
3921 print "State number " . htmlentities($HTTP_POST_VARS["stateno"]) . " is " .
3922 htmlentities($v->scalarval()) . "<BR>";
3923 print "<HR>I got this value back<BR><PRE>" .
3924 htmlentities($r->serialize()) . "</PRE><HR>\n";
3926 print "Fault <BR>";
3927 print "Code: " . htmlentities($r->faultCode()) . "<BR>" .
3928 "Reason: '" . htmlentities($r->faultString()) . "'<BR>";
3934 <title>Executing a multicall call</title>
3936 <para>To be documented...</para>
3941 <title>Frequently Asked Questions</title>
3944 <title>How to send custom XML as payload of a method call</title>
3946 <para>Unfortunately, at the time the XML-RPC spec was designed, support
3947 for namespaces in XML was not as ubiquitous as it is now. As a
3948 consequence, no support was provided in the protocol for embedding XML
3949 elements from other namespaces into an xmlrpc request.</para>
3951 <para>To send an XML "chunk" as payload of a method call or response,
3952 two options are available: either send the complete XML block as a
3953 string xmlrpc value, or as a base64 value. Since the '<' character in
3954 string values is encoded as '&lt;' in the xml payload of the method
3955 call, the XML string will not break the surrounding xmlrpc, unless
3956 characters outside of the assumed character set are used. The second
3957 method has the added benefits of working independently of the charset
3958 encoding used for the xml to be transmitted, and preserving exactly
3959 whitespace, whilst incurring in some extra message length and cpu load
3960 (for carrying out the base64 encoding/decoding).</para>
3964 <title>Is there any limitation on the size of the requests / responses
3965 that can be successfully sent?</title>
3967 <para>Yes. But I have no hard figure to give; it most likely will depend
3968 on the version of PHP in usage and its configuration.</para>
3970 <para>Keep in mind that this library is not optimized for speed nor for
3971 memory usage. Better alternatives exist when there are strict
3972 requirements on throughput or resource usage, such as the php native
3973 xmlrpc extension (see the PHP manual for more information).</para>
3975 <para>Keep in mind also that HTTP is probably not the best choice in
3976 such a situation, and XML is a deadly enemy. CSV formatted data over
3977 socket would be much more efficient.</para>
3979 <para>If you really need to move a massive amount of data around, and
3980 you are crazy enough to do it using phpxmlrpc, your best bet is to
3981 bypass usage of the xmlrpcval objects, at least in the decoding phase,
3982 and have the server (or client) object return to the calling function
3983 directly php values (see <varname>xmlrpc_client::return_type</varname>
3984 and <varname>xmlrpc_server::functions_parameters_type</varname> for more
3989 <title>My server (client) returns an error whenever the client (server)
3990 returns accented characters</title>
3992 <para>To be documented...</para>
3996 <title>How to enable long-lasting method calls</title>
3998 <para>To be documented...</para>
4002 <title>My client returns "XML-RPC Fault #2: Invalid return payload:
4003 enable debugging to examine incoming payload": what should I do?</title>
4005 <para>The response you are seeing is a default error response that the
4006 client object returns to the php application when the server did not
4007 respond to the call with a valid xmlrpc response.</para>
4009 <para>The most likely cause is that you are not using the correct URL
4010 when creating the client object, or you do not have appropriate access
4011 rights to the web page you are requesting, or some other common http
4012 misconfiguration.</para>
4014 <para>To find out what the server is really returning to your client,
4015 you have to enable the debug mode of the client, using
4016 $client->setdebug(1);</para>
4020 <title>How can I save to a file the xml of the xmlrpc responses received
4021 from servers?</title>
4023 <para>If what you need is to save the responses received from the server
4024 as xml, you have two options:</para>
4026 <para>1- use the serialize() method on the response object.</para>
4028 <programlisting language="php">
4029 $resp = $client->send($msg);
4030 if (!$resp->faultCode())
4031 $data_to_be_saved = $resp->serialize();
4034 <para>Note that this will not be 100% accurate, since the xml generated
4035 by the response object can be different from the xml received,
4036 especially if there is some character set conversion involved, or such
4037 (eg. if you receive an empty string tag as <string/>, serialize()
4038 will output <string></string>), or if the server sent back
4039 as response something invalid (in which case the xml generated client
4040 side using serialize() will correspond to the error response generated
4041 internally by the lib).</para>
4043 <para>2 - set the client object to return the raw xml received instead
4044 of the decoded objects:</para>
4046 <programlisting language="php">
4047 $client = new xmlrpc_client($url);
4048 $client->return_type = 'xml';
4049 $resp = $client->send($msg);
4050 if (!$resp->faultCode())
4051 $data_to_be_saved = $resp->value();
4054 <para>Note that using this method the xml response response will not be
4055 parsed at all by the library, only the http communication protocol will
4056 be checked. This means that xmlrpc responses sent by the server that
4057 would have generated an error response on the client (eg. malformed xml,
4058 responses that have faultcode set, etc...) now will not be flagged as
4059 invalid, and you might end up saving not valid xml but random
4064 <title>Can I use the ms windows character set?</title>
4066 <para>If the data your application is using comes from a Microsoft
4067 application, there are some chances that the character set used to
4068 encode it is CP1252 (the same might apply to data received from an
4069 external xmlrpc server/client, but it is quite rare to find xmlrpc
4070 toolkits that encode to CP1252 instead of UTF8). It is a character set
4071 which is "almost" compatible with ISO 8859-1, but for a few extra
4074 <para>PHP-XMLRPC only supports the ISO 8859-1 and UTF8 character sets.
4075 The net result of this situation is that those extra characters will not
4076 be properly encoded, and will be received at the other end of the
4077 XML-RPC tranmission as "garbled data". Unfortunately the library cannot
4078 provide real support for CP1252 because of limitations in the PHP 4 xml
4079 parser. Luckily, we tried our best to support this character set anyway,
4080 and, since version 2.2.1, there is some form of support, left commented
4083 <para>To properly encode outgoing data that is natively in CP1252, you
4084 will have to uncomment all relative code in the file
4085 <filename>xmlrpc.inc</filename> (you can search for the string "1252"),
4086 then set <code>$GLOBALS['xmlrpc_internalencoding']='CP1252';</code>
4087 Please note that all incoming data will then be fed to your application
4088 as UTF-8 to avoid any potentail data loss.</para>
4092 <title>Does the library support using cookies / http sessions?</title>
4094 <para>In short: yes, but a little coding is needed to make it
4097 <para>The code below uses sessions to e.g. let the client store a value
4098 on the server and retrieve it later.</para>
4100 <para><programlisting>
4101 $resp = $client->send(new xmlrpcmsg('registervalue', array(new xmlrpcval('foo'), new xmlrpcval('bar'))));
4102 if (!$resp->faultCode())
4104 $cookies = $resp->cookies();
4105 if (array_key_exists('PHPSESSID', $cookies)) // nb: make sure to use the correct session cookie name
4107 $session_id = $cookies['PHPSESSID']['value'];
4109 // do some other stuff here...
4111 $client->setcookie('PHPSESSID', $session_id);
4112 $val = $client->send(new xmlrpcmsg('getvalue', array(new xmlrpcval('foo')));
4115 </programlisting>Server-side sessions are handled normally like in any other
4116 php application. Please see the php manual for more information about
4119 <para>NB: unlike web browsers, not all xmlrpc clients support usage of
4120 http cookies. If you have troubles with sessions and control only the
4121 server side of the communication, please check with the makers of the
4122 xmlrpc client in use.</para>
4126 <appendix id="integration">
4127 <title>Integration with the PHP xmlrpc extension</title>
4129 <para>To be documented more...</para>
4131 <para>In short: for the fastest execution possible, you can enable the php
4132 native xmlrpc extension, and use it in conjunction with phpxmlrpc. The
4133 following code snippet gives an example of such integration</para>
4135 <programlisting language="php">
4136 /*** client side ***/
4137 $c = new xmlrpc_client('http://phpxmlrpc.sourceforge.net/server.php');
4139 // tell the client to return raw xml as response value
4140 $c->return_type = 'xml';
4142 // let the native xmlrpc extension take care of encoding request parameters
4143 $r = $c->send(xmlrpc_encode_request('examples.getStateName', $_POST['stateno']));
4145 if ($r->faultCode())
4146 // HTTP transport error
4147 echo 'Got error '.$r->faultCode();
4150 // HTTP request OK, but XML returned from server not parsed yet
4151 $v = xmlrpc_decode($r->value());
4152 // check if we got a valid xmlrpc response from server
4154 echo 'Got invalid response';
4156 // check if server sent a fault response
4157 if (xmlrpc_is_fault($v))
4158 echo 'Got xmlrpc fault '.$v['faultCode'];
4160 echo'Got response: '.htmlentities($v);
4165 <appendix id="substitution">
4166 <title>Substitution of the PHP xmlrpc extension</title>
4168 <para>Yet another interesting situation is when you are using a ready-made
4169 php application, that provides support for the XMLRPC protocol via the
4170 native php xmlrpc extension, but the extension is not available on your
4171 php install (e.g. because of shared hosting constraints).</para>
4173 <para>Since version 2.1, the PHP-XMLRPC library provides a compatibility
4174 layer that aims to be 100% compliant with the xmlrpc extension API. This
4175 means that any code written to run on the extension should obtain the
4176 exact same results, albeit using more resources and a longer processing
4177 time, using the PHP-XMLRPC library and the extension compatibility module.
4178 The module is part of the EXTRAS package, available as a separate download
4179 from the sourceforge.net website, since version 0.2</para>
4182 <appendix id="enough">
4183 <title>'Enough of xmlrpcvals!': new style library usage</title>
4185 <para>To be documented...</para>
4187 <para>In the meantime, see docs about xmlrpc_client::return_type and
4188 xmlrpc_server::functions_parameters_types, as well as php_xmlrpc_encode,
4189 php_xmlrpc_decode and php_xmlrpc_decode_xml</para>
4192 <appendix id="debugger">
4193 <title>Usage of the debugger</title>
4195 <para>A webservice debugger is included in the library to help during
4196 development and testing.</para>
4198 <para>The interface should be self-explicative enough to need little
4199 documentation.</para>
4201 <para><graphic align="center" fileref="debugger.gif"
4202 format="GIF" /></para>
4204 <para>The most useful feature of the debugger is without doubt the "Show
4205 debug info" option. It allows to have a screen dump of the complete http
4206 communication between client and server, including the http headers as
4207 well as the request and response payloads, and is invaluable when
4208 troubleshooting problems with charset encoding, authentication or http
4211 <para>The debugger can take advantage of the JSONRPC library extension, to
4212 allow debugging of JSON-RPC webservices, and of the JS-XMLRPC library
4213 visual editor to allow easy mouse-driven construction of the payload for
4214 remote methods. Both components have to be downloaded separately from the
4215 sourceforge.net web pages and copied to the debugger directory to enable
4216 the extra functionality:</para>
4218 <para><itemizedlist>
4220 <para>to enable jsonrpc functionality, download the PHP-XMLRPC
4221 EXTRAS package, and copy the file <filename>jsonrpc.inc</filename>
4222 either to the same directory as the debugger or somewhere in your
4223 php include path</para>
4225 </itemizedlist><itemizedlist>
4227 <para>to enable the visual value editing dialog, download the
4228 JS-XMLRPC library, and copy somewhere in the web root files
4229 <filename>visualeditor.php</filename>,
4230 <filename>visualeditor.css</filename> and the folders
4231 <filename>yui</filename> and <filename>img</filename>. Then edit the
4232 debugger file <filename>controller.php</filename> and set
4233 appropriately the variable <varname>$editorpath</varname>.</para>
4235 </itemizedlist></para>
4238 <!-- Keep this comment at the end of the file
4243 sgml-minimize-attributes:nil
4244 sgml-always-quote-attributes:t
4247 sgml-parent-document:nil
4248 sgml-exposed-tags:nil
4249 sgml-local-catalogs:nil
4250 sgml-local-ecat-files:nil
4251 sgml-namecase-general:t
4252 sgml-general-insert-case:lower
git://git.onelab.eu / plcapi.git / blob