Frontier::Client(3)					User Contributed Perl Documentation				       Frontier::Client(3)

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 exam-
	   ple) 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>

perl v5.8.0							    2003-01-27						       Frontier::Client(3)