Chapter 7. Class documentation

Chapter 7. Class documentation
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xmlrpcval

This is where a lot of the hard work gets done. This class enables the creation and encapsulation of values for XML-RPC.

Ensure you've read the XML-RPC spec at http://www.xmlrpc.com/stories/storyReader$7 before reading on as it will make things clearer.

The xmlrpcval class can store arbitrarily complicated values using the following types: i4 int boolean string double dateTime.iso8601 base64 array struct null. You should refer to the spec for more information on what each of these types mean.

Notes on types

int

The type i4 is accepted as a synonym for int when creating xmlrpcval objects. The xml parsing code will always convert i4 to int: int is regarded by this implementation as the canonical name for this type.

base64

Base 64 encoding is performed transparently to the caller when using this type. Decoding is also transparent. Therefore you ought to consider it as a "binary" data type, for use when you want to pass data that is not 7-bit clean.

boolean

The php values true and 1 map to true. All other values (including the empty string) are converted to false.

string

Characters <, >, ', ", &, are encoded using their entity reference as < > ' " and & All other characters outside of the ASCII range are encoded using their character reference representation (e.g. &#200 for é). The XML-RPC spec recommends only encoding < & but this implementation goes further, for reasons explained by the XML 1.0 recommendation. In particular, using character reference representation has the advantage of producing XML that is valid independently of the charset encoding assumed.

null

There is no support for encoding null values in the XML-RPC spec, but at least a couple of extensions (and many toolkits) do support it. Before using null values in your messages, make sure that the responding party accepts them, and uses the same encoding convention (see ...).

Creation

The constructor is the normal way to create an xmlrpcval. The constructor can take these forms:

xmlrpcvalnew xmlrpcval( void);

xmlrpcvalnew xmlrpcval( string$stringVal);

`xmlrpcvalnew xmlrpcval(`	mixed`$scalarVal`,
	string`$scalartyp)`;

`xmlrpcvalnew xmlrpcval(`	array`$arrayVal`,
	string`$arraytyp)`;

The first constructor creates an empty value, which must be altered using the methods addScalar, addArray or addStruct before it can be used.

The second constructor creates a simple string value.

The third constructor is used to create a scalar value. The second parameter must be a name of an XML-RPC type. Valid types are: "int", "boolean", "string", "double", "dateTime.iso8601", "base64" or "null".

Examples:


$myInt = new xmlrpcvalue(1267, "int");
$myString = new xmlrpcvalue("Hello, World!", "string");
$myBool = new xmlrpcvalue(1, "boolean");
$myString2 = new xmlrpcvalue(1.24, "string"); // note: this will serialize a php float value as xmlrpc string

The fourth constructor form can be used to compose complex XML-RPC values. The first argument is either a simple array in the case of an XML-RPC array or an associative array in the case of a struct. The elements of the array must be xmlrpcval objects themselves.

The second parameter must be either "array" or "struct".

Examples:


$myArray = new xmlrpcval(
  array(
    new xmlrpcval("Tom"),
    new xmlrpcval("Dick"),
    new xmlrpcval("Harry")
  ),
  "array");

// recursive struct
$myStruct = new xmlrpcval(
  array(
    "name" => new xmlrpcval("Tom", "string"),
    "age" => new xmlrpcval(34, "int"),
    "address" => new xmlrpcval(
      array(
        "street" => new xmlrpcval("Fifht Ave", "string"),
        "city" => new xmlrpcval("NY", "string")
      ), 
      "struct")
  ), 
  "struct");

See the file vardemo.php in this distribution for more examples.

Methods

addScalar

intaddScalar( string$stringVal);

`intaddScalar(`	mixed`$scalarVal`,
	string`$scalartyp)`;

If $val is an empty xmlrpcval this method makes it a scalar value, and sets that value.

If $val is already a scalar value, then no more scalars can be added and 0 is returned.

If $val is an xmlrpcval of type array, the php value $scalarval is added as its last element.

If all went OK, 1 is returned, otherwise 0.

addArray

intaddArray( array$arrayVal);

The argument is a simple (numerically indexed) array. The elements of the array must be xmlrpcval objects themselves.

Turns an empty xmlrpcval into an array with contents as specified by $arrayVal.

If $val is an xmlrpcval of type array, the elements of $arrayVal are appended to the existing ones.

See the fourth constructor form for more information.

If all went OK, 1 is returned, otherwise 0.

addStruct

intaddStruct( array$assocArrayVal);

The argument is an associative array. The elements of the array must be xmlrpcval objects themselves.

Turns an empty xmlrpcval into a struct with contents as specified by $assocArrayVal.

If $val is an xmlrpcval of type struct, the elements of $arrayVal are merged with the existing ones.

See the fourth constructor form for more information.

If all went OK, 1 is returned, otherwise 0.

kindOf

stringkindOf( void);

Returns a string containing "struct", "array" or "scalar" describing the base type of the value. If it returns "undef" it means that the value hasn't been initialised.

serialize

stringserialize( void);

Returns a string containing the XML-RPC representation of this value.

scalarVal

mixedscalarVal( void);

If $val->kindOf() == "scalar", this method returns the actual PHP-language value of the scalar (base 64 decoding is automatically handled here).

scalarTyp

stringscalarTyp( void);

If $val->kindOf() == "scalar", this method returns a string denoting the type of the scalar. As mentioned before, i4 is always coerced to int.

arrayMem

xmlrpcvalarrayMem( int$n);

If $val->kindOf() == "array", returns the $nth element in the array represented by the value $val. The value returned is an xmlrpcval object.


// iterating over values of an array object
for ($i = 0; $i < $val->arraySize(); $i++)
{
  $v = $val->arrayMem($i);
  echo "Element $i of the array is of type ".$v->kindOf();
}

arraySize

intarraySize( void);

If $val is an array, returns the number of elements in that array.

structMem

xmlrpcvalstructMem( string$memberName);

If $val->kindOf() == "struct", returns the element called $memberName from the struct represented by the value $val. The value returned is an xmlrpcval object.

structEach

arraystructEach( void);

Returns the next (key, value) pair from the struct, when $val is a struct. $value is an xmlrpcval itself. See also structreset().


// iterating over all values of a struct object
$val->structreset();
while (list($key, $v) = $val->structEach())
{
  echo "Element $key of the struct is of type ".$v->kindOf();
}

structReset

voidstructReset( void);

Resets the internal pointer for structEach() to the beginning of the struct, where $val is a struct.

structMemExists

boolstructMemExsists( string$memberName);

Returns TRUE or FALSE depending on whether a member of the given name exists in the struct.

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