Programming Tutorials

XMLRPC for PHP - A simple client and server program

By: Emiley J in PHP Tutorials on 2010-06-30  

Here is an example of using xmlrpc for PHP with a complete client and a server php files. You can use this to test your xml-rpc for php installations.

/* clienttest.php */ 

<?php 
function do_call($host, $port, $request) { 

   $fp = fsockopen($host, $port, $errno, $errstr); 
   $query = "POST /home/servertest.php HTTP/1.0\nUser_Agent: My Egg Client\nHost: ".$host."\nContent-Type: text/xml\nContent-Length: ".strlen($request)."\n\n".$request."\n"; 

   if (!fputs($fp, $query, strlen($query))) { 
       $errstr = "Write error"; 
       return 0; 
   } 

   $contents = ''; 
   while (!feof($fp)) { 
       $contents .= fgets($fp); 
   } 

   fclose($fp); 
   return $contents; 
} 

$host = 'localhost'; 
$port = 80; 
$request = xmlrpc_encode_request('cycle', 'egg'); 
$response = do_call($host, $port, $request); 
/* do something with $response, e.g. print it */ 
?> 

/* servertest.php */ 

<?php 
function lifecycle($method, $params) { 
/* $method = 'cycle', $params = (array of) request parameter(s); $data is also passed from xmlrpc_server_call_method, if we had any data to pass */ 
   switch($params[0]) { 
       case 'egg': 
           $reply = 'All eggs will be birds one day.'; 
       break; 
       default: 
           $reply = 'That must have been an otheregg'; 
   } 
   return $reply; 
} 

$server = xmlrpc_server_create(); 

/* register the 'external' name and then the 'internal' name */ 
xmlrpc_server_register_method($server, "cycle", "lifecycle"); 

$request = $HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA; // no you don't need 'always on', and no $_POST doesn't work. 

/* the parameters here are 'server, xml-string and user data'.  There's supposed to be an optional 'output options' array too, but I can't get it working :( hence header() call */ 
$response = xmlrpc_server_call_method($server, $request, null); 
header('Content-Type: text/xml'); 
print $response; 

xmlrpc_server_destroy($server); 
?>