Ken MacLeod has implemented XML-RPC for Perl. You can find his Frontier::RPC module at his website or through CPAN.
To install Frontier::RPC, download the package and compile it in the standard fashion:
bash$ gunzip -c Frontier-RPC-0.07b1.tar.gz | tar xvf - bash$ cd Frontier-RPC-0.07b1 bash$ perl Makefile.PL bash$ make bash$ make test bash$ su -c 'make install' |
(The process will be slightly different on Windows systems, or if you don't have root access. Consult your Perl documentation for details.)
The following program shows how to call an XML-RPC server from Perl:
use Frontier::Client; # Make an object to represent the XML-RPC server. $server_url = 'http://xmlrpc-c.sourceforge.net/api/sample.php'; $server = Frontier::Client->new(url => $server_url); # Call the remote server and get our result. $result = $server->call('sample.sumAndDifference', 5, 3); $sum = $result->{'sum'}; $difference = $result->{'difference'}; print "Sum: $sum, Difference: $difference\n"; |
The following program shows how to write an XML-RPC server in Perl:
use Frontier::Daemon; sub sumAndDifference { my ($x, $y) = @_; return {'sum' => $x + $y, 'difference' => $x - $y}; } # Call me as http://localhost:8080/RPC2 $methods = {'sample.sumAndDifference' => \&sumAndDifference}; Frontier::Daemon->new(LocalPort => 8080, methods => $methods) or die "Couldn't start HTTP server: $!"; |
Frontier::RPC2 doesn't provide built-in support for CGI-based servers. It does, however, provide most of the pieces you'll need.
Save the following code as sumAndDifference.cgi in your web server's cgi-bin directory. (On Unix systems, you'll need to make it executable by typing chmod +x sumAndDifference.cgi.)
#!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict; use Frontier::RPC2; sub sumAndDifference { my ($x, $y) = @_; return {'sum' => $x + $y, 'difference' => $x - $y}; } process_cgi_call({'sample.sumAndDifference' => \&sumAndDifference}); #========================================================================== # CGI Support #========================================================================== # Simple CGI support for Frontier::RPC2. You can copy this into your CGI # scripts verbatim, or you can package it into a library. # (Based on xmlrpc_cgi.c by Eric Kidd <http://xmlrpc-c.sourceforge.net/>.) # Process a CGI call. sub process_cgi_call ($) { my ($methods) = @_; # Get our CGI request information. my $method = $ENV{'REQUEST_METHOD'}; my $type = $ENV{'CONTENT_TYPE'}; my $length = $ENV{'CONTENT_LENGTH'}; # Perform some sanity checks. http_error(405, "Method Not Allowed") unless $method eq "POST"; http_error(400, "Bad Request") unless $type eq "text/xml"; http_error(411, "Length Required") unless $length > 0; # Fetch our body. my $body; my $count = read STDIN, $body, $length; http_error(400, "Bad Request") unless $count == $length; # Serve our request. my $coder = Frontier::RPC2->new; send_xml($coder->serve($body, $methods)); } # Send an HTTP error and exit. sub http_error ($$) { my ($code, $message) = @_; print <<"EOD"; Status: $code $message Content-type: text/html <title>$code $message</title> <h1>$code $message</h1> <p>Unexpected error processing XML-RPC request.</p> EOD exit 0; } # Send an XML document (but don't exit). sub send_xml ($) { my ($xml_string) = @_; my $length = length($xml_string); print <<"EOD"; Status: 200 OK Content-type: text/xml Content-length: $length EOD # We want precise control over whitespace here. print $xml_string; } |
You can copy the utility routines into your own CGI scripts.