xmlrpc_encode_request

(PHP 4 >= 4.1.0, PHP 5, PHP 7)

xmlrpc_encode_request — Generates XML for a method request

Description

string xmlrpc_encode_request ( string $method , mixed $params [, array $output_options ] )

Warning

This function is EXPERIMENTAL. The behaviour of this function, its name, and surrounding documentation may change without notice in a future release of PHP. This function should be used at your own risk.

Parameters

method

Name of the method to call.

params

Method parameters compatible with method signature.

output_options

Array specifying output options may contain (default values are emphasised):

output_type: php, xml
verbosity: no_white_space, newlines_only, pretty
escaping: cdata, non-ascii, non-print, markup (may be a string with one value or an array with multiple values)
version: simple, xmlrpc, soap 1.1, auto
encoding: iso-8859-1, other character set supported by iconv

Return Values

Returns a string containing the XML representation of the request.

Examples

Example #1 XMLRPC client functions example


<?php
$request = xmlrpc_encode_request("method", array(1, 2, 3));
$context = stream_context_create(array('http' => array(
    'method' => "POST",
    'header' => "Content-Type: text/xml",
    'content' => $request
)));
$file = file_get_contents("http://www.example.com/xmlrpc", false, $context);
$response = xmlrpc_decode($file);
if ($response && xmlrpc_is_fault($response)) {
    trigger_error("xmlrpc: $response[faultString] ($response[faultCode])");
} else {
    print_r($response);
}
?>

User Contributed Notes

fredrik at it dot cdon dot com

8 years ago


It should be noted that encoding does not seem to encode anything, just specify what goes into the XML header.

We had problems with double-encoded UTF strings being saved to database when using this function, sending it of to a apache xml-rpc servlet and storing it in mysql database. It was solved by setting 'escaping' to just 'markup' and 'encoding' to 'UTF-8' (don't forget to set 'utf-8' in xmlrpc_decode too).

It seems that UTF-8 encoded strings gets escaped with their bytes as entities instead of their characters as entites.

cometfish at hotmail dot com

7 years ago


The example above is incorrect - the header needs to be an array, see post by "chris dot vigelius at gmx dot net": http://au.php.net/manual/en/function.stream-context-create.php#74431

His post also shows how to do browser authentication, as below:

<?php

   $request = xmlrpc_encode_request("methodName", array("methodParam"));

   $auth = base64_encode($username.":".$password);

   $header = (version_compare(phpversion(), '5.2.8'))

     ? array("Content-Type: text/xml","Authorization: Basic $auth")

     : "Content-Type: text/xml\r\nAuthorization: Basic $auth" ; //[1]

   $context = stream_context_create(array('http' => array(

      'method' => "POST",

      'header' => $header,

      'content' => $request

   )));

   $webservice="http://www.example.com/rpc";

   $file = file_get_contents($webservice, false, $context);

   $response = xmlrpc_decode($file);

   if (xmlrpc_is_fault($response)) {

      return "xmlrpc: $response[faultString] ($response[faultCode])";

   } else {

      return $response;

   }

?>



1 - EDITOR NOTE: THIS IS A FIX FROM "SandersWang dt php at gmail dot com"

handco at gmail dot com

9 years ago


Simple OO client with function Overload : 

the php metho test_helloworld is translated to xmlrpc method test.helloworld.

class RpcClient {
    
    private $_methods;
    private $_context;
    private $_url;
    
    function __construct ($url, $user, $passwd) {
        $auth = base64_encode(sprintf('%s:%s', $user,$passwd));
        $this->_context = stream_context_create(array(
            'http' => array(
                'method' => 'POST',
                'header' => "Content-Type: text/xml\r\n".
                            "Authorization: Basic $auth" ,
                
            )
        ));
        $this->_url = $url;
        
        $this->registerMethod ("Test_HelloWorld");
        
    }
    
    
    function __call($methodName, $params) {
        if (array_key_exists($methodName,$this->_methods)) {
            // on appelle la fonction RPC
            $m = str_replace('_', '.', $methodName);
            $r = xmlrpc_encode_request($m, $params,array('verbosity'=>'newlines_only'));
            $c = $this->_context;
            stream_context_set_option($c,'http','content',$r);
            $f = file_get_contents($this->_url,false,$c);
            $resp = xmlrpc_decode($f);
            return $resp;
        } else {
            // on appelle la fonction de l'objet
            call_user_method_array($methodName, $this,$params);
        }
    }
    
    private function registerMethod ($method) {
        $this->_methods[$method] = true;
    }
    
}

kelly at seankelly dot biz

13 years ago


Binary strings (set with xmlrpc_set_type) go into a <base64>...</base64> block like you'd expect. But after every 80th character, this function inserts the XML entity "&#10;", which is a Unicode newline, as if to cause a line-wrap, which is admittedly silly.

Silly though it may be, it causes real problems for some XML-RPC servers, such as http://jakarta.apache.org/xmlrpc/ (nee Helma). Stripping out those entities with something like

$req = preg_replace('/&#10;/', '', xmlrpc_encode_request("my.method", $args));

works around the problem.

<URL:http://www.dlitz.net/go/contact/>

11 years ago


Note that as far as I can tell, the &#10; characters generated by PHP in the base64 fields don't appear to violate the XML-RPC standard at all.  XML-RPC messages *are* in XML format, and as such, the XML entities should be getting decoded before being passed to a base64 decoder.  So, the previously-mentioned Jakarta-based XML-RPC server appears to violate the XML spec.  i.e. There's nothing here that needs to be "fixed" in PHP.

Anonymous

6 years ago


ever tried transmitting an array like the following with xmlrpc?
$var1=array(7=>14,9=>18);

The output array looks quite different! It will look like that:
$var2=array(14,18);

The only solution i found is to prepend a space to the index:
$var3=array(' 7'=>14,' 9'=>18);

Using that method you'll get the right result. ($var1)

giunta dot gaetano at sea-aeroportimilano dot it

9 years ago


Take care that this function will generate invalid xmlrpc content when invoked with certain parameters (said content will be happily parsed by the lib itself, but not by other implementations).

xmlrpc_encode_request(null, null)
will generate a response without a value

xmlrpc_encode_request('myfunc', array('faultCode' => 666, 'faultString' => 'hello world')
will generated a request containing a <fault> member instead of <params>

php at hendrik dash krauss dot de

10 years ago


For examples / documentation of the array output_options, see http://xmlrpc-epi.sourceforge.net/main.php?t=php_api#output_options

In short, output_options lets you send compact xmlrpc (without all the "pretty whitespace" xmlrpc_encode adds normally), apply an own escaping table prior to sending, set the encoding, and a couple of other things (the page even says something about soap 1.1 ... I don't know details).

hfuecks at pinkgoblin dot com