Using XML-RPC with PHP

I was writing to the guys at Devshed an email, about how neat would be a XML-RPC tutorial, specifically with PHP. While I'm at it, I open my browser and check Devshed and I find this.

Creepy. Nifty, but creepy :)

great job..
this one really rocks!
gives me something to do for the next 3 hrs
ssh-ing.... mug handy...

Great, I was waiting for something like this!!!

The reason i constantly come back to the devshed site is because of articles like this -- that introduce topics that books and other websites would have you believe very difficult to understand/get started with, in a dead straightforward way!

Keep up the great work!

(Oh, as a side comment... any chance ye want to follow on from this with something on SOAP? ;p).

In the XML-RPC client example the result of the request is stored in a PHP variable. Since the returned data may also be a struct (in case of a fault), my questions are:

How would the struct data plug into a PHP variable ($result in this case)?

What would be the right way to check what the data realy is (type not value) before you use it further in your script?

Let me know if those are good or stupid questions (I dunno)..

Thanks,

ursus

I actually wanted to ask this question here, but meanwhile I found a good answer. I thought I'd post it here then.. Note that PHP supports WDDX as well. Here it is:

"RPC stands for Remote Procedure Call, a mechanism used by distributed object systems such as DCOM and CORBA. XML-RPC mechanisms, such as DataChannel's WebBroker, are focused on providing a full distributed object protocol using XML and HTTP. Alternatively, WDDX is focused on providing a simple, light-weight data exchange mechanism for Web programming languages. However, it is straightforward to layer an RPC style capability on top of WDDX/HTTP based interactions. A number of developers are doing this already, and we expect standard semantics to emerge to support this kind of application of WDDX. "

I use Hailstone PHP XML_RPC server
found at http://www.codepunk.com

Excellent interface libraries.

Particularly if you cannot compile
own brand of PHP with options.

Use a cache for compiled PHP script
to improve speed.

IB

The article presented here is ok and not a bad introduction. Still, all the
mentioned examples are a bad copy from the original website
http://xmlrpc-epi.sourceforge.net/ Dan Libby has written a great documentation
and even more complex examples.
The author of this article has just replace a few strings. Except that
the examples here are just the same on the original website.
The introduction to XMLRPC itself is also nothing more than just a copy of http://www.xmlrpc.com/spec.
Furthermore, all the introspection functions for documenting RPCs have been
omitted. This leads to bad documentation and bad coding style which new programmers of this topic will learn.

Sorry, his is not meant to be offending, but two links:
o http://www.xmlrpc.com/spec
o http://xmlrpc-epi.sourceforge.net/main.php?t=php_about
would have covered all and more!

I hope the author of this article does not delete my comment!
-Richard

perhaps so, but i think the point is that me, and others too will browse devshed, and see a simplified article like this, then try to find out more ourselves - without this article, i may never have discovered this subject!
Perhaps the best thing would be a simple introduction, THEN have the links you mentioned for a bit more in depth stuff.

I was put off xmlrpc-epi by the need to install a new PHP module... so, I wrote my own library :) IXR is an easy-to-use, object oriented XML-RPC library (both client and server) written in pure PHP. There's plenty of documentation on the web site and so far it has had a positive reception from everyone who has used it.

http://scripts.incutio.com/xmlrpc/

Using XML-RPC with PHP

December 20, 2001 - Do you want your Perl code on one server to call your PHP functions on another? "Impossible!" you say? Not with XML-RPC. XML-RPC is a standard way for any application to make requests and recieve responses from methods written in any language. Interested? I knew you would be.

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