Cool! This should go in the manual.
On Sep 12, 10:47 am, Ross Peoples <ross.peop...@gmail.com> wrote:
> One of the nice things about SOAP is the WDSL that gives you information
> about the methods the service supports. I recently discovered that you can
> do the same thing with XML-RPC. The trick is to document your methods
> properly, like you should be doing anyways. Lets say I have the following
> controller:
>
> @service.xmlrpc
> @service.jsonrpc
> def add(num1, num2):
> """
> Adds two numbers together.
>
> add(num1, num2) -> number
>
> Arguments:
> num1 First number
> num2 Second number
>
> Returns:
> The sum of the two numbers.
>
> Examples:
> add(2, 2) -> 4
> add(2.5, 2.5) -> 5.0
> """
> return num1 + num2
>
> @service.xmlrpc
> @service.jsonrpc
> def concat(str1, str2, str3=''):
> """
> Concatenates two or three strings.
>
> concat(str1, str2, str3='') -> string
>
> Arguments:
> str1 First string
> str2 Second string
> str3 (Optional) Third string
>
> Returns:
> The concatenated string.
>
> Examples:
> concat('hello', ' world') -> 'hello world'
> concat('hello', ' world', ' !!!') -> 'hello world !!!
> """
> return str1 + str2 + str3
>
> @service.xmlrpc
> @service.jsonrpc
> def date():
> """
> Returns the server's current date and time.
> """
> return datetime.datetime.now()
>
> Now let's connect using xmlrpclib:
>
> >>> import xmlrpclib
> >>> x =
>
> xmlrpclib.ServerProxy('http://127.0.0.1:8000/rpc_test/default/call/xmlrpc')
>
> Now, we could start calling the methods as usual, or we could do a little
> introspection to see what methods are available, and even get the docstrings
> of those methods:
>
> >>> print x.system.listMethods()
>
> ['add', 'concat', 'date', 'system.listMethods', 'system.methodHelp',
> 'system.methodSignature']
>
> >>> print x.system.methodHelp('concat')
>
> Concatenates two or three strings.
>
> concat(str1, str2, str3='') -> string
>
> Arguments:
> str1 First string
> str2 Second string
> str3 (Optional) Third string
>
> Returns:
> The concatenated string.
>
> Examples:
> concat('hello', ' world') -> 'hello world'
> concat('hello', ' world', ' !!!') -> 'hello world !!!'
>
> >>> x.concat('hello', 'web2py')
>
> 'helloweb2py'
>
> Very cool! However, you will notice that there is another method in there:
> system.methodSignature(). This would show the signature of the method (i.e.
> concat(str1, str2, str3=''), however, it seems that web2py's XMLRPC server
> implementation (or SimpleXMLRPCServer.py) doesn't support this, as it
> returns 'signatures not supported' whenever you try to call this method.
>
> I hope that someone finds this useful!
