Catalyst::Plugin::Server::XMLRPC(3)

NAME
Catalyst::Plugin::Server::XMLRPC -- Catalyst XMLRPC Server Plugin

SYNOPSIS
    package MyApp;
    use Catalyst qw/Server Server::XMLRPC/;

    package MyApp::Controller::Example;
    use base 'Catalyst::Controller';

    sub echo : XMLRPC {                     # available as: example.echo
        my ( $self, $c, @args ) = @_;
        $c->stash->{xmlrpc} = join ', ', @args;
    }

    sub ping : XMLRPCPath('/ping') {        # available as: ping
        my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
        $c->stash->{xmlrpc} = 'Pong';
    }

    sub world : XMLRPCRegex(/hello/) {      # available as: *hello*
        my ($self, $c) = @_;
        $c->stash->{xmlrpc} = 'World';
    }

    sub echo : XMLRPCLocal {                # available as: example.echo
        my ( $self, $c, @args ) = @_;
        $c->stash->{xmlrpc} = join ', ', @args;
    }

    sub ping : XMLRPCGlobal {               # available as: ping
        my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
        $c->stash->{xmlrpc} = 'Pong';
    }

DESCRIPTION
XMLRPC Plugin for Catalyst which we tried to make compatible with the way Catalyst works with URLS. Main features are:

•   Split XMLRPC methodNames by STRING to find out Controller.

•   Single entrypoint for XMLRPC calls, like http://host.tld/rpc

•   DispatchTypes (attributes) which work much the same as Catalyst attrs

•   XMLRPC Parameter handling transparent to Catalyst parameter handling

HOW IT WORKS
The default behaviour will handle XMLRPC Requests sent to "/rpc" by creating an OBJECT containing XMLRPC specific parameters in "$c->req->xmlrpc".

Directly after, it will find out the Path of the Action to dispatch to, by splitting methodName by ".":

  methodName: hello.world
  path      : /hello/world

From this point, it will dispatch to '/hello/world' when it exists, like Catalyst Urls would do. What means: you will be able to set Regexes, Paths etc on subroutines to define the endpoint.

We discuss these custom XMLRPC attributes below.

When the request is dispatched, we will return $c->stash->{xmlrpc} to the xmlrpc client, or, when it is not available, it will return $c->stash to the client. There is also a way of defining $c->stash keys to be send back to the client.

ATTRIBUTES
You can mark any method in your Catalyst application as being available remotely by using one of the following attributes, which can be added to any existing attributes, except Private. Remember that one of the mentioned attributes below are automatically also Privates...

XMLRPC
    Make this method accessible via XMLRPC, the same way as Local does when using catalyst by URL.

    The following example will be accessible by method "hello.world":

      package Catalyst::Controller::Hello
      sub world : XMLRPC {}

XMLRPCLocal
    Identical version of attribute "XMLRPC"

XMLRPCGlobal
    Make this method accessible via XMLRPC, the same way as GLOBAL does when using catalyst by URL.

    The following example will be accessible by method "ping":

      package Catalyst::Controller::Hello
      sub ping : XMLRPCGlobal {}

XMLRPCPath('/say/hello')
    Make this method accessible via XMLRPC, the same way as Path does when using catalyst by URL.

    The following example will be accessible by method "say.hello":

      package Catalyst::Controller::Hello
      sub hello : XMLRPCPath('/say/hello') {}

XMLRPCRegex('foo')
    Make this method accessible via XMLRPC, the same way as Regex does when using catalyst by URL.

    The following example will be accessible by example methods: "a.foo.method" "wedoofoohere" "foo.getaround"

      package Catalyst::Controller::Hello
      sub hello : XMLRPCPath('foo') {}

ACCESSORS
Once you've used the plugin, you'll have an $c->request->xmlrpc accessor which will return an "Catalyst::Plugin::Server::XMLRPC" object.

You can query this object as follows:

$c->req->xmlrpc->is_xmlrpc_request
    Boolean indicating whether the current request has been initiated via XMLRPC

$c->req->xmlrpc->config
    Returns a "Catalyst::Plugin::Server::XMLRPC::Config" object. See the "CONFIGURATION" below on how to use and configure it.

$c->req->xmlrpc->body
    The body of the original XMLRPC call

$c->req->xmlrpc->method
    The name of the original method called via XMLRPC

$c->req->xmlrpc->args
    A list of parameters supplied by the XMLRPC call

$c->req->xmlrpc->result_as_string
    The XML body that will be sent back to the XMLRPC client

$c->req->xmlrpc->error
    Allows you to set xmlrpc fault code and message

    Example:

      $c->req->xmlrpc->error( [ 401 => 'Unauthorized' ] )

    To return status code 401 with message "Unauthorized"

    The default is to return error code 500 on error.

Server Accessors
The following accessors are always available, whether you're in a xmlrpc specific request or not

$c->server->xmlrpc->list_methods
    Returns a HASHREF containing the available xmlrpc methods in Catalyst as a key, and the "Catalyst::Action" object as a value.

CATALYST REQUEST
To make things transparent, we try to put XMLRPC params into the Request object of Catalyst. But first we will explain something about the XMLRPC specifications.

A full draft of these specifications can be found on: "http://www.xmlrpc.com/spec"

In short, a xmlrpc-request consists of a methodName, like a subroutine name, and a list of parameters. This list of parameters may contain strings (STRING), arrays (LIST) and structs (HASH). Off course, these can be nested.

$c->req->arguments
    We will put the list of arguments into $c->req->arguments, thisway you can fetch this list within your dispatched-to-subroutine:

      sub echo : XMLRPC {
          my ($self, $c, @args) = @_;
          $c->log->debug($arg[0]);              # Prints first XMLRPC parameter
                                                # to debug log
      }

$c->req->parameters
    Because XMLRPC parameters are a LIST, we can't just fill $c->req->paremeters. To keep things transparent, we made an extra config option what tells the XMLRPC server we can assume the following conditions on all XMLRPC requests: - There is only one XMLRPC parameter - This XMLRPC parameter is a struct (HASH)

    We will put this STRUCT as key-value pairs into $c->req->parameters.

$c->req->params
    Alias of $c->req->parameters

$c->req->param
    Alias of $c->req->parameters

INTERNAL XMLRPC FUNCTIONS
The following system functions are available to the public.,

system.listMethods
    returns a list of available RPC methods.

DEFINING RETURN VALUES
The XML-RPC response must contain a single parameter, which may contain an array (LIST), struct (HASH) or a string (STRING). To define the return values in your subroutine, you can alter $c->stash in three different ways.

  Defining $c->stash->{xmlrpc}
When defining $c->stash->{xmlrpc}, the XMLRPC server will return these values to the client.

  When there is no $c->stash->{xmlrpc}
When there is no "$c->stash->{xmlrpc}" set, it will return the complete "$c->stash"

CONFIGURATION
The XMLRPC Plugin accepts the following configuration options, which can be set in the standard Catalyst way (See "perldoc Catalyst" for details):

    Your::App->config( xmlrpc => { key => value } );

You can look up any of the config parameters this package uses at runtime by calling:

    $c->server->xmlrpc->config->KEY

path
    This specifies the entry point for your xmlrpc server; all requests are dispatched from there. This is the url any XMLRCP client should post to. You can change this to any "Regex" wish.

    The default is: "qr!^(/?)rpc(/|$)!i", which matches on a top-level path begining with "rpc" preceeded or followed by an optional "/", like this:

        http://your-host.tld/rpc

prefix
    This specifies the prefix of the forward url.

    For example, with a prefix of "rpc", and a method "foo", the forward path would be come "/rpc/foo".

    The default is '' (empty).

separator
    This is a STRING used to split your method on, allowing you to use a hierarchy in your method calls.

    For example, with a separator of "." the method call "demo.echo" would be forwarded to "/demo/echo". To make "demo_echo" forward to the same path, you would change the separator to "_",

    The default is ".", splitting methods on a single "."

convert_params
    Make the arguments in "$c->req->xmlrpc->params" available as "$c->req->params".

    Defaults to true.

show_errors
    Make system errors in "$c->error" public to the rpc-caller in a XML-RPC faultString. When show_errors is false, and your catalyst app generates a fault, it will return an XML-RPC fault containing error number 500 and error string: "Internal Server Error".

    Defaults to false.

xml_encoding
    Change the xml encoding send over to the client. So you could change the default encoding to "UTF-8" for instance.

    Defaults to "us-ascii" which is the default of "RPC::XML".

DIAGNOSTICS

Invalid XMLRPC request: No such method
    There is no corresponding method in your application that can be forwarded to.

Invalid XMLRPC request %s
    There was an error parsing the XMLRPC request

Invalid XMLRPC request: Unknown error
    An unexpected error occurred

TODO

Make error messages configurable/filterable
    Right now, whatever ends up on $c->error gets returned to the client. It would be nice to have a way to filter/massage these messages before they are sent back to the client.

Make stash filterable before returning
    Just like the error messages, it would be nice to be able to filter the stash before returning so you can filter out keys you don't want to return to the client, or just return a certain list of keys. This all to make transparent use of XMLRPC and web easier.

SEE ALSO
Catalyst::Plugin::Server::XMLRPC::Tutorial, Catalyst::Manual, Catalyst::Request, Catalyst::Response, RPC::XML, "bin/rpc_client"

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
For the original implementation of this module:

Marcus Ramberg, "mramberg@cpan.org" Christian Hansen Yoshinori Sano

AUTHORS
Original Authors: Jos Boumans (kane@cpan.org) and Michiel Ootjers (michiel@cpan.org)

Actually maintained by Jose Luis Martinez Torres JLMARTIN (jlmartinez@capside.com)

THANKS
Tomas Doran (BOBTFISH) for helping out with the debugging

BUG REPORTS
Please submit all bugs regarding "Catalyst::Plugin::Server" to "bug-catalyst-plugin-server@rt.cpan.org"

LICENSE
This library is free software, you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.