NAME

Frontier::Client - issue Frontier XML RPC requests to a server

SYNOPSIS

 use Frontier::Client;

 $server = Frontier::Client->new( I<OPTIONS> );

 $result = $server->call($method, @args);

 $boolean = $server->boolean($value);
 $date_time = $server->date_time($value);
 $base64 = $server->base64($value);

 $value = $boolean->value;
 $value = $date_time->value;
 $value = $base64->value;

DESCRIPTION

Frontier::Client is an XML-RPC client over HTTP. Frontier::Client instances are used to make calls to XML-RPC servers and as shortcuts for creating XML-RPC special data types.

METHODS

new( OPTIONS )

Returns a new instance of Frontier::Client and associates it with an XML-RPC server at a URL. OPTIONS may be a list of key, value pairs or a hash containing the following parameters:

url

The URL of the server. This parameter is required. For example:

 $server = Frontier::Client->new( 'url' => 'http://betty.userland.com/RPC2' );

proxy

A URL of a proxy to forward XML-RPC calls through.

encoding

The XML encoding to be specified in the XML declaration of outgoing RPC requests. Incoming results may have a different encoding specified; XML::Parser will convert incoming data to UTF-8. The default outgoing encoding is none, which uses XML 1.0's default of UTF-8. For example:

 $server = Frontier::Client->new( 'url' => 'http://betty.userland.com/RPC2',
                                  'encoding' => 'ISO-8859-1' );

use_objects

If set to a non-zero value will convert incoming <i4>, <float>, and <string> values to objects instead of scalars. See int(), float(), and string() below for more details.

debug

If set to a non-zero value will print the encoded XML request and the XML response received.

call($method, @args)

Forward a procedure call to the server, either returning the value returned by the procedure or failing with exception. `$method' is the name of the server method, and `@args' is a list of arguments to pass. Arguments may be Perl hashes, arrays, scalar values, or the XML-RPC special data types below.

boolean( $value )

date_time( $value )

base64( $base64 )

The methods `boolean()', `date_time()', and `base64()' create and return XML-RPC-specific datatypes that can be passed to `call()'. Results from servers may also contain these datatypes. The corresponding package names (for use with `ref()', for example) are `Frontier::RPC2::Boolean', `Frontier::RPC2::DateTime::ISO8601', and `Frontier::RPC2::Base64'.

The value of boolean, date/time, and base64 data can be set or returned using the `value()' method. For example:

  # To set a value:
  $a_boolean->value(1);

  # To retrieve a value
  $base64 = $base64_xml_rpc_data->value();

Note: `base64()' does not encode or decode base64 data for you, you must use MIME::Base64 or similar module for that.

int( 42 );

float( 3.14159 );

string( "Foo" );

By default, you may pass ordinary Perl values (scalars) to be encoded. RPC2 automatically converts them to XML-RPC types if they look like an integer, float, or as a string. This assumption causes problems when you want to pass a string that looks like "0096", RPC2 will convert that to an <i4> because it looks like an integer. With these methods, you could now create a string object like this:

  $part_num = $server->string("0096");

and be confident that it will be passed as an XML-RPC string. You can change and retrieve values from objects using value() as described above.

SEE ALSO

perl(1), Frontier::RPC2(3)

<http://www.scripting.com/frontier5/xml/code/rpc.html>

AUTHOR

Ken MacLeod <ken@bitsko.slc.ut.us>