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RPC::XML - A set of classes for core data, message and XML handling
use RPC::XML;
$req = RPC::XML::request->new('fetch_prime_factors',
RPC::XML::int->new(985120528));
...
$resp = RPC::XML::Parser->new()->parse(STREAM);
if (ref($resp))
{
return $resp->value->value;
}
else
{
die $resp;
}
The RPC::XML package is an implementation of the XML-RPC standard.
The package provides a set of classes for creating values to pass to the constructors for requests and responses. These are lightweight objects, most of which are implemented as tied scalars so as to associate specific type information with the value. Classes are also provided for requests, responses, faults (errors) and a parser based on the the XML::Parser manpage package from CPAN.
This module does not actually provide any transport implementation or server basis. For these, see the RPC::XML::Client manpage and the RPC::XML::Server manpage, respectively.
At present, three simple functions are available for import. They must be
explicitly imported as part of the use statement, or with a direct call to
import:
time2iso8601([$time])
Convert the integer time value in $time (which defaults to calling the
built-in time if not present) to a ISO 8601 string in the UTC time
zone. This is a convenience function for occassions when the return value
needs to be of the dateTime.iso8601 type, but the value on hand is the
return from the time built-in.
smart_encode(@args)
Converts the passed-in arguments to datatype objects. Any that are already
encoded as such are passed through unchanged. The routine is called recursively
on hash and array references. Note that this routine can only deduce a certain
degree of detail about the values passed. Boolean values will be wrongly
encoded as integers. Pretty much anything not specifically recognizable will
get encoded as a string object. Thus, for types such as fault, the ISO
time value, base-64 data, etc., the program must still explicitly encode it.
However, this routine will hopefully simplify things a little bit for a
majority of the usage cases.
bytelength([$string])
Returns the length of the string passed in, in bytes rather than characters.
In Perl prior to 5.6.0 when there was little or no Unicode support, this has
no difference from the length function. if the bytes pragme is
available, then the length measured is raw bytes, even when faced with
multi-byte characters. If no argument is passed in, operates on $_.
In addition to these three, the following ``helper'' functions are also
available. They may be imported explicitly, or via a tag of :types:
RPC_BOOLEAN RPC_INT RPC_I4 RPC_DOUBLE RPC_DATETIME_ISO8601
RPC_BASE64 RPC_STRING
Each creates a data object of the appropriate type from a single value. They are merely short-hand for calling the constructors of the data classes directly.
All of the above (helpers and the first three functions) may be imported via
the tag :all.
The classes provided by this module are broken into two groups: datatype classes and message classes.
The following data classes are provided by this library. Each of these provide at least the set of methods below. Note that these classes are designed to create throw-away objects. There is currently no mechanism for changing the value stored within one of these object after the constructor returns. It is assumed that a new object would be created, instead.
The common methods to all data classes are:
new($value)
Constructor. The value passed in is the value to be encapsulated in the new object.
Returns the value kept in the object. Processes recursively for array and
struct objects.
Returns the value as a XML-RPC fragment, with the proper tags, etc.
serialize($filehandle)
Send the stringified rendition of the data to the given file handle. This allows messages with arbitrarily-large Base-64 data within them to be sent without having to hold the entire message within process memory.
Returns the length, in bytes, of the object when serialized into XML. This is used by the client and server classes to calculate message length.
Returns the type of data being stored in an object. The type matches the
XML-RPC specification, so the normalized form datetime_iso8601 comes back
as dateTime.iso8601.
All types except the fault class return false for this. This is to allow consistent testing of return values for fault status, without checking for a hash reference with specific keys defined.
The classes themselves are:
Creates an integer value. Constructor expects the integer value as an argument.
This is like the int class. Note that services written in strictly-typed
languages such as C, C++ or Java may consider the i4 and int types as
distinct and different.
Creates a floating-point value.
Creates an arbitrary string. No special encoding is done to the string (aside
from XML document encoding, covered later) with the exception of the <,
> and & characters, which are XML-escaped during object creation,
and then reverted when the value method is called.
Creates a boolean value. The value returned will always be either of 1
or 0, for true or false, respectively. When calling the constructor, the
program may specify any of: 0, no, false, 1, yes, true.
Creates an instance of the XML-RPC dateTime.iso8601 type. The specification
for ISO 8601 may be found elsewhere. No processing is done to the data.
Creates an object that encapsulates a chunk of data that will be treated as
base-64 for transport purposes. The value may be passed in as either a string
or as a scalar reference. Additionally, a second (optional) parameter may be
passed, that if true identifies the data as already base-64 encoded. If so,
the data is decoded before storage. The value method returns decoded data,
and the as_string method encodes it before stringification.
Alternately, the constructor may be given an open filehandle argument instead
of direct data. When this is the case, the data is never read into memory in
its entirety, unless the value or as_string methods are called. This
allows the manipulation of arbitrarily-large Base-64-encoded data chunks. In
these cases, the flag (optional second argument) is still relevant, but the
data is not pre-decoded if it currently exists in an encoded form. It is only
decoded as needed. Note that the filehandle passed must be open for reading,
at least. It will not be written to, but it will be read from. The position
within the file will be preserved between operations.
Because of this, this class supports a special method called to_file, that
takes one argument. The argument may be either an open, writable filehandle or
a string. If it is a string, to_file will attempt to open it as a file and
write the decoded data to it. If the argument is a an open filehandle, the
data will be written to it without any pre- or post-adjustment of the handle
position (nor will it be closed upon completion). This differs from the
serialize method in that it always writes the decoded data (where the other
always writes encoded data), and in that the XML opening and closing tags are
not written. The return value of to_file is the size of the data written
in bytes.
Creates an array object. The constructor takes zero or more data-type
instances as arguments, which are inserted into the array in the order
specified. value returns an array reference of native Perl types. If a
non-null value is passed as an argument to value(), then the array
reference will contain datatype objects (a shallow rather than deep copy).
Creates a struct object, the analogy of a hash table in Perl. The keys are
ordinary strings, and the values must all be data-type objects. The value
method returns a hash table reference, with native Perl types in the values.
Key order is not preserved. Key strings are now encoded for special XML
characters, so the use of such (<, >, etc.) should be
transparent to the user. If a non-null value is passed as an argument to
value(), then the hash reference will contain the datatype objects rather
than native Perl data (a shallow vs. deep copy, as with the array type above).
When creating RPC::XML::struct objects, there are two ways to pass the content in for the new object: Either an existing hash reference may be passed, or a series of key/value pairs may be passed. If a reference is passed, the existing data is copied (the reference is not re-blessed), with the values encoded into new objects as needed.
A fault object is a special case of the struct object that checks to ensure
that there are two keys, faultCode and faultString.
As a matter of convenience, since the contents of a RPC::XML::fault structure are specifically defined, the constructor may be called with exactly two arguments, the first of which will be taken as the code, and the second as the string. They will be converted to RPC::XML types automatically and stored by the pre-defined key names.
Also as a matter of convenience, the fault class provides the following accessor methods for directly retrieving the integer code and error string from a fault object:
Both names should be self-explanatory. The values returned are Perl values, not RPC::XML class instances.
The message classes are used both for constructing messages for outgoing communication as well as representing the parsed contents of a received message. Both implement the following methods:
This is the constructor method for the two message classes. The response class
may have only a single value (as a response is currently limited to a single
return value), and requests may have as many arguments as appropriate. In both
cases, the arguments are passed to the exported smart_encode routine
described earlier.
Returns the message object expressed as an XML document. The document will be lacking in linebreaks and indention, as it is not targeted for human reading.
serialize($filehandle)
Serialize the message to the given file-handle. This avoids creating the entire XML message within memory, which may be relevant if there is especially-large Base-64 data within the message.
Returns the total size of the message in bytes, used by the client and server classes to set the Content-Length header.
The two message-object classes are:
This creates a request object. A request object expects the first argument to
be the name of the remote routine being called, and all remaining arguments
are the arguments to that routine. Request objects have the following methods
(besides new and as_string):
The name of the remote routine that the request will call.
Returns a list reference with the arguments that will be passed. No arguments will result in a reference to an empty list.
The response object is much like the request object in most ways. It may
take only one argument, as that is all the specification allows for in a
response. Responses have the following methods (in addition to new and
as_string):
The value the response is returning. It will be a RPC::XML data-type.
A boolean test whether or not the response is signalling a fault. This is
the same as taking the value method return value and testing it, but is
provided for clarity and simplicity.
All constructors (in all data classes) return undef upon failure, with the
error message available in the package-global variable $RPC::XML::ERROR.
The following global variables may be changed to control certain behavior of
the library. All variables listed below may be imported into the application
namespace when you use RPC::XML:
This variable controls the character-set encoding reported in outgoing XML
messages. It defaults to us-ascii, but may be set to any value recognized
by XML parsers.
By default, smart_encode uses heuristics to determine what encoding
is required for a data type. For example, 123 would be encoded as int,
where 3.14 would be encoded as double. In some situations it may be
handy to turn off all these heuristics, and force encoding of string on
all data types encountered during encoding. Setting this flag to true
will do just that.
Defaults to false.
This began as a reference implementation in which clarity of process and readability of the code took precedence over general efficiency. It is now being maintained as production code, but may still have parts that could be written more efficiently.
The XML-RPC standard is Copyright (c) 1998-2001, UserLand Software, Inc. See http://www.xmlrpc.com for more information about the XML-RPC specification.
This module is licensed under the terms of the Artistic License that covers Perl. See http://www.opensource.org/licenses/artistic-license.php for the license itself.
the RPC::XML::Client manpage, the RPC::XML::Server manpage, the RPC::XML::Parser manpage, the XML::Parser manpage
Randy J. Ray <rjray@blackperl.com>