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<H1><A NAME="SECTION00132000000000000000000">
11.20 <tt class="module">xmlrpclib</tt> -- XML-RPC client access</A>
</H1>
<P>
<P>
<span class="versionnote">New in version 2.2.</span>
<P>
XML-RPC is a Remote Procedure Call method that uses XML passed via
HTTP as a transport. With it, a client can call methods with
parameters on a remote server (the server is named by a URI) and get back
structured data. This module supports writing XML-RPC client code; it
handles all the details of translating between conformable Python
objects and XML on the wire.
<P>
<dl><dt><b><span class="typelabel">class</span> <a name="l2h-2709"><tt class="class">Server</tt></a></b>(<var>uri</var><big>[</big><var>, transport</var><big>[</big><var>,
encoding</var><big>[</big><var>, verbose</var><big>]</big><big>]</big><big>]</big>)
<dd>
A <tt class="class">Server</tt> instance is a server proxy that manages communication
with a remote XML-RPC server. The required first argument is a URI
(Uniform Resource Indicator), and will normally be the URL of the
server. The optional second argument is a transport factory instance;
by default it is an internal <tt class="class">SafeTransport</tt> instance for https:
URLs and an internal HTTP <tt class="class">Transport</tt> instance otherwise. The
optional third argument is an encoding, by default UTF-8. The optional
fourth argument is a debugging flag.
<P>
The returned instance is a proxy object with methods that can be used
to invoke corresponding RPC calls on the remote server. If the remote
server supports the introspection API, the proxy can also be used to query
the remote server for the methods it supports (service discovery) and
fetch other server-associated metadata.
<P>
<tt class="class">Server</tt> instance methods take Python basic types and objects as
arguments and return Python basic types and classes. Types that are
conformable (e.g. that can be marshalled through XML), include the
following (and except where noted, they are unmarshalled as the same
Python type):
<P>
<table border align="center" style="border-collapse: collapse">
<thead>
<tr class="tableheader">
<th align="left"><b>Name</b> </th>
<th align="left"><b>Meaning</b> </th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody valign="baseline">
<tr><td align="left" valign="baseline"><tt class="constant">boolean</tt></td>
<td align="left">The <tt class="constant">True</tt> and <tt class="constant">False</tt> constants</td>
<tr><td align="left" valign="baseline"><tt class="constant">integers</tt></td>
<td align="left">Pass in directly</td>
<tr><td align="left" valign="baseline"><tt class="constant">floating-point numbers</tt></td>
<td align="left">Pass in directly</td>
<tr><td align="left" valign="baseline"><tt class="constant">strings</tt></td>
<td align="left">Pass in directly</td>
<tr><td align="left" valign="baseline"><tt class="constant">arrays</tt></td>
<td align="left">Any Python sequence type containing conformable
elements. Arrays are returned as lists</td>
<tr><td align="left" valign="baseline"><tt class="constant">structures</tt></td>
<td align="left">A Python dictionary. Keys must be strings,
values may be any conformable type.</td>
<tr><td align="left" valign="baseline"><tt class="constant">dates</tt></td>
<td align="left">in seconds since the epoch; pass in an instance of the
<tt class="class">DateTime</tt> wrapper class</td>
<tr><td align="left" valign="baseline"><tt class="constant">binary data</tt></td>
<td align="left">pass in an instance of the <tt class="class">Binary</tt>
wrapper class</td></tbody>
</table>
<P>
This is the full set of data types supported by XML-RPC. Method calls
may also raise a special <tt class="exception">Fault</tt> instance, used to signal
XML-RPC server errors, or <tt class="exception">ProtocolError</tt> used to signal an
error in the HTTP/HTTPS transport layer.
</dl>
<P>
<div class="seealso">
<p class="heading"><b>See Also:</b></p>
<dl compact class="seetitle">
<dt><em class="citetitle"><a href="http://xmlrpc-c.sourceforge.net/xmlrpc-howto/xmlrpc-howto.html"
>XML-RPC HOWTO</a></em>
<dd>A good description of XML operation and
client software in several languages. Contains pretty much
everything an XML-RPC client developer needs to know.
</dl>
<dl compact class="seetitle">
<dt><em class="citetitle"><a href="http://xmlrpc-c.sourceforge.net/hacks.php"
>XML-RPC-Hacks page</a></em>
<dd>Extensions for various open-source
libraries to support instrospection and multicall.
</dl>
</div>
<P>
<p><hr>
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<A NAME="CHILD_LINKS"><STRONG>Subsections</STRONG></a>
<UL CLASS="ChildLinks">
<LI><A href="server-objects.html">11.20.1 Server Objects</a>
<LI><A href="boolean-objects.html">11.20.2 Boolean Objects</a>
<LI><A href="datetime-objects.html">11.20.3 DateTime Objects</a>
<LI><A href="binary-objects.html">11.20.4 Binary Objects</a>
<LI><A href="fault-objects.html">11.20.5 Fault Objects</a>
<LI><A href="protocol-error-objects.html">11.20.6 ProtocolError Objects</a>
<LI><A href="node365.html">11.20.7 Convenience Functions</a>
<LI><A href="xmlrpc-client-example.html">11.20.8 Example of Client Usage</a>
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<span class="release-info">Release 2.2, documentation updated on December 21, 2001.</span>
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