NAME

       Event::RPC - Event based transparent Client/Server RPC framework

SYNOPSIS

         #-- Server Code
         use Event::RPC::Server;
         use My::TestModule;
         my $server = Event::RPC::Server->new (
             port    => 5555,
             classes => { "My::TestModule" => { ... } },
         );
         $server->start;

         ----------------------------------------------------------

         #-- Client Code
         use Event::RPC::Client;
         my $client = Event::RPC::Client->new (
             server   => "localhost",
             port     => 5555,
         );
         $client->connect;

         #-- Call methods of My::TestModule on the server
         my $obj = My::TestModule->new ( foo => "bar" );
         my $foo = $obj->get_foo;

ABSTRACT

       Event::RPC supports you in developing Event based networking client/server applications
       with transparent object/method access from the client to the server. Network communication
       is optionally encrypted using IO::Socket::SSL. Several event loop managers are supported
       due to an extensible API. Currently Event, Glib and AnyEvent are implemented. The latter
       lets you use nearly every event loop implementation available for Perl. AnyEvent was
       invented after Event::RPC was created and thus Event::RPC started using it's own
       abstraction model.

DESCRIPTION

       Event::RPC consists of a server and a client library. The server exports a list of classes
       and methods, which are allowed to be called over the network. More specific it acts as a
       proxy for objects created on the server side (on demand of the connected clients) which
       handles client side methods calls with transport of method arguments and return values.

       The object proxy handles refcounting and destruction of objects created by clients
       properly. Objects as method parameters and return values are handled as well (although
       with some limitations, see below).

       For the client the whole thing is totally transparent - once connected to the server it
       doesn't know whether it calls methods on local or remote objects.

       Also the methods on the server newer know whether they are called locally or from a
       connected client. Your application logic is not affected by Event::RPC at all, at least if
       it has a rudimentary clean OO design.

       For details on implementing servers and clients please refer to the man pages of
       Event::RPC::Server and Event::RPC::Client.

REQUIREMENTS

       Event::RPC needs either one of the following modules on the server (they're not necessary
       on the client):

         Event
         Glib
         AnyEvent

       They're needed for event handling resp. mainloop implementation.  If you like to use SSL
       encryption you need to install

         IO::Socket::SSL

       As well Event::RPC makes heavy use of the

         Storable

       module, which is part of the Perl standard library. It's important that both client and
       server use exactly the same version of the Storable module! Otherwise Event::RPC
       client/server communication will fail badly.

INSTALLATION

       You get the latest installation tarballs and online documentation at this location:

         http://www.exit1.org/Event-RPC/

       If your system meets the requirements mentioned above, installation is just:

         perl Makefile.PL
         make test
         make install

       To test a specific Event loop implementation, export the variable EVENT_RPC_LOOP:

         export EVENT_RPC_LOOP=Event::RPC::Loop::Glib
         make test

       Otherwise Event::RPC will fallback to the most appropriate module installed on your
       system.

EXAMPLES

       The tarball includes an examples/ directory which contains two programs:

         server.pl
         client.pl

       Just execute them with --help to get the usage. They do some very simple communication but
       are good to test your setup, in particular in a mixed environment.

LIMITATIONS

       Although the classes and objects on the server are accessed transparently by the client
       there are some limitations should be aware of. With a clean object oriented design these
       should be no problem in real applications:

   Direct object data manipulation is forbidden
       All objects reside on the server and they keep there! The client just has specially
       wrapped proxy objects, which trigger the necessary magic to access the object's methods on
       the server. Complete objects are never transferred from the server to the client, so
       something like this does not work:

         $object->{data} = "changed data";

       (assuming $object is a hash ref on the server).

       Only method calls are transferred to the server, so even for "simple" data manipulation a
       method call is necessary:

         $object->set_data ("changed data");

       As well for reading an object attribute. Accessing a hash key will fail:

         my $data = $object->{data};

       Instead call a method which returns the 'data' member:

         my $data = $object->get_data;

   Methods may exchange objects, but not in a too complex structure
       Event::RPC handles methods which return objects. The only requirement is that they are
       declared as a Object returner on the server (refer to Event::RPC::Server for details), but
       not if the object is hidden inside a deep complex data structure.

       An array or hash ref of objects is Ok, but not more. This would require to much expensive
       runtime data inspection.

       Object receiving parameters are more restrictive, since even hiding them inside one array
       or hash ref is not allowed.  They must be passed as a direkt argument of the method
       subroutine.

AUTHORS

         Joern Reder <joern at zyn dot de>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

       Copyright (C) 2002-2006 by Joern Reder, All Rights Reserved.

       This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same
       terms as Perl itself.