The What

The xmlrpc module is a pure JavaScript XML-RPC server and client for node.js.

Pure JavaScript means that the XML parsing and XML building use pure JavaScript libraries, so no extra C dependencies or build requirements. The xmlrpc module can be used as an XML-RPC server, receiving method calls and responding with method responses, or as an XML-RPC client, making method calls and receiving method responses, or as both.

The How

To Install

npm install xmlrpc

To Use

The file client_server.js in the example directory has a nicely commented example of using xmlrpc as an XML-RPC server and client (they even talk to each other!).

A brief example:

varxmlrpc=require('xmlrpc')// Creates an XML-RPC server to listen to XML-RPC method callsvarserver=xmlrpc.createServer({host: 'localhost',port: 9090})// Handle methods not foundserver.on('NotFound',function(method,params){console.log('Method '+method+' does not exist');})// Handle method calls by listening for events with the method call nameserver.on('anAction',function(err,params,callback){console.log('Method call params for \'anAction\': '+params)// ...perform an action...// Send a method response with a valuecallback(null,'aResult')})console.log('XML-RPC server listening on port 9091')// Waits briefly to give the XML-RPC server time to start up and start// listeningsetTimeout(function(){// Creates an XML-RPC client. Passes the host information on where to// make the XML-RPC calls.varclient=xmlrpc.createClient({host: 'localhost',port: 9090,path: '/'})// Sends a method call to the XML-RPC serverclient.methodCall('anAction',['aParam'],function(error,value){// Results of the method responseconsole.log('Method response for \'anAction\': '+value)})},1000)

Output from the example:

XML-RPC server listening on port 9090
Method call params for 'anAction': aParam
Method response for 'anAction': aResult

Date/Time Formatting

XML-RPC dates are formatted according to ISO 8601. There are a number of formatting options within the boundaries of the standard. The decoder detects those formats and parses them automatically, but for encoding dates to ISO 8601 some options can be specified to match your specific implementation.

The formatting options can be set through xmlrpc.dateFormatter.setOpts(options);, where the options parameter is an object, with the following (optional) boolean members:

• colons - enables/disables formatting the time portion with a colon as separator (default: true)
• hyphens - enables/disables formatting the date portion with a hyphen as separator (default: false)
• local - encode as local time instead of UTC (true = local, false = utc, default: true)
• ms - enables/disables output of milliseconds (default: false)
• offset - enables/disables output of UTC offset in case of local time (default: false)

Default format: 20140101T11:20:00

UTC Example:

xmlrpc.dateFormatter.setOpts({colons: true,hyphens: true,local: false,ms: true})// encoding output: '2014-01-01T16:20:00.000Z'

Local date + offset example:

xmlrpc.dateFormatter.setOpts({colons: true,hyphens: true,local: true,ms: false,offset: true})// encoding output: '2014-01-01T11:20:00-05:00'

Cookies support

It is possible to turn on cookies support for XML-RPC client by special options flag. If turned on then all the cookies received from server will be bounced back with subsequent calls to the server. You also may manipulate cookies manually by the setCookie/getCookie call.

varclient=xmlrpc.createClient({host: 'localhost',port: 9090,cookies: true});client.setCookie('login','bilbo');//This call will send provided cookie to the serverclient.methodCall('someAction',[],function(error,value){//Here we may get cookie received from server if we know its nameconsole.log(client.getCookie('session'));});

Custom Types

If you need to parse to a specific format or need to handle custom data types that are not supported by default, it is possible to extend the serializer with a user-defined type for your specific needs.

A custom type can be defined as follows:

varxmlrpc=require('xmlrpc');varutil=require('util');// create your custom classvarYourType=function(raw){xmlrpc.CustomType.call(this,raw);};// inherit everythingutil.inherits(YourType,xmlrpc.CustomType);// set a custom tagName (defaults to 'customType')YourType.prototype.tagName='yourType';// optionally, override the serializerYourType.prototype.serialize=function(xml){varvalue=somefunction(this.raw);returnxml.ele(this.tagName).txt(value);}

and then make your method calls, wrapping your variables inside your new type definition:

varclient=xmlrpc.createClient('YOUR_ENDPOINT');client.methodCall('YOUR_METHOD',[newYourType(yourVariable)],yourCallback);

To Debug (client-side)

Error callbacks on the client are enriched with request and response information and the returned body as long as a http connection was made, to aide with request debugging. Example:

varclient=xmlrpc.createClient({host: 'example.com',port: 80});client.methodCall('FAULTY_METHOD',[],function(error,value){if(error){console.log('error:',error);console.log('req headers:',error.req&&error.req._header);console.log('res code:',error.res&&error.res.statusCode);console.log('res body:',error.body);}else{console.log('value:',value);}});// error: [Error: Unknown XML-RPC tag 'TITLE']// req headers: POST / HTTP/1.1// User-Agent: NodeJS XML-RPC Client// ...// res code: 200// res body: <!doctype html>// ...

To Test

XML-RPC must be precise so there are an extensive set of test cases in the test directory. Vows is the testing framework and Travis CI is used for Continuous Integration.

To run the test suite:

npm test

If submitting a bug fix, please update the appropriate test file too.

The License (MIT)

Released under the MIT license. See the LICENSE file for the complete wording.

Contributors

Thank you to all the authors and everyone who has filed an issue to help make xmlrpc better.