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XML - Managing Data Exchange
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XMLRPC - Serializing and Deserializing Datatypes [edit]
As a lightweight alternative to SOAP, Dave Winer came up with XMLRPC as a means to make remote method calls and exchange data between servers. The spec for this format is located at http://www.xmlrpc.com/spec.
It works well for its intended use. Well, unless you are coding in PHP and using the built-in, undocumented functions to generate XMLRPC. You may have to build your own, just to be on the safe side.
Just a quick example of what it looks like. In xmlrpc, a <struct> is what we would call in php an 'associative array', whereas an <array> is a 'list' or an array with only numerical indices (or in some languages, no indices). A complex array datatype with the following structure:
Array
(
[0] => dogs
[1] => cats
[animals] => Array(
[0] => FALSE
[1] => little_dogs
[2] => little_cats
[3] => 5
[4] => 2.3
[5] => 1
),
)
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Becomes the following XMLRPC:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<methodResponse>
<params>
<param>
<value>
<struct>
<member>
<name>0
</name>
<value><string>dogs</string>
</value>
</member>
<member>
<name>1
</name>
<value><string>cats</string>
</value>
</member>
<member>
<name>animals
</name>
<value>
<array>
<data>
<value><boolean>0</boolean>
</value>
<value><string>little_dogs</string>
</value>
<value><string>little_cats</string>
</value>
<value><i4>5</i4>
</value>
<value><double>2.3</double>
</value>
<value><boolean>1</boolean>
</value>
</data>
</array>
</value>
</member>
</struct>
</value>
</param>
</params>
</methodResponse>
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