NAME

       Frontier::Client - issue Frontier XML RPC requests to a server

SYNOPSIS

        use Frontier::Client;

        $server = Frontier::Client->new( I<OPTIONS> );

        $result = $server->call($method, @args);

        $boolean = $server->boolean($value);
        $date_time = $server->date_time($value);
        $base64 = $server->base64($value);

        $value = $boolean->value;
        $value = $date_time->value;
        $value = $base64->value;

DESCRIPTION

       Frontier::Client is an XML-RPC client over HTTP.  Frontier::Client instances are used to
       make calls to XML-RPC servers and as shortcuts for creating XML-RPC special data types.

METHODS

       new( OPTIONS )
           Returns a new instance of Frontier::Client and associates it with an XML-RPC server at
           a URL.  OPTIONS may be a list of key, value pairs or a hash containing the following
           parameters:

           url The URL of the server.  This parameter is required.  For example:

                $server = Frontier::Client->new( 'url' => 'http://betty.userland.com/RPC2' );

           proxy
               A URL of a proxy to forward XML-RPC calls through.

           encoding
               The XML encoding to be specified in the XML declaration of outgoing RPC requests.
               Incoming results may have a different encoding specified; XML::Parser will convert
               incoming data to UTF-8.  The default outgoing encoding is none, which uses XML
               1.0's default of UTF-8.  For example:

                $server = Frontier::Client->new( 'url' => 'http://betty.userland.com/RPC2',
                                                 'encoding' => 'ISO-8859-1' );

           use_objects
               If set to a non-zero value will convert incoming <i4>, <float>, and <string>
               values to objects instead of scalars.  See int(), float(), and string() below for
               more details.

           debug
               If set to a non-zero value will print the encoded XML request and the XML response
               received.

       call($method, @args)
           Forward a procedure call to the server, either returning the value returned by the
           procedure or failing with exception.  `$method' is the name of the server method, and
           `@args' is a list of arguments to pass.  Arguments may be Perl hashes, arrays, scalar
           values, or the XML-RPC special data types below.

       boolean( $value )
       date_time( $value )
       base64( $base64 )
           The methods `"boolean()"', `"date_time()"', and `"base64()"' create and return XML-
           RPC-specific datatypes that can be passed to `"call()"'.  Results from servers may
           also contain these datatypes.  The corresponding package names (for use with
           `"ref()"', for example) are `"Frontier::RPC2::Boolean"',
           `"Frontier::RPC2::DateTime::ISO8601"', and `"Frontier::RPC2::Base64"'.

           The value of boolean, date/time, and base64 data can be set or returned using the
           `"value()"' method.  For example:

             # To set a value:
             $a_boolean->value(1);

             # To retrieve a value
             $base64 = $base64_xml_rpc_data->value();

           Note: `"base64()"' does not encode or decode base64 data for you, you must use
           MIME::Base64 or similar module for that.

       int( 42 );
       float( 3.14159 );
       string( "Foo" );
           By default, you may pass ordinary Perl values (scalars) to be encoded.  RPC2
           automatically converts them to XML-RPC types if they look like an integer, float, or
           as a string.  This assumption causes problems when you want to pass a string that
           looks like "0096", RPC2 will convert that to an <i4> because it looks like an integer.
           With these methods, you could now create a string object like this:

             $part_num = $server->string("0096");

           and be confident that it will be passed as an XML-RPC string.  You can change and
           retrieve values from objects using value() as described above.

SEE ALSO

       perl(1), Frontier::RPC2(3)

       <http://www.scripting.com/frontier5/xml/code/rpc.html>

AUTHOR

       Ken MacLeod <ken@bitsko.slc.ut.us>