XML-RPC (was: Re: [Oz] Calling a Mozart procedure from C)

[Andreas Franke]

Denys Duchier wrote:

>    What we need is to capitalize on such techniques as DCOM, SOAP,
>    XML-RPC, the Oz marshaling protocol, or some other protocol to
>    provide easy and transparent ways to invoke remote Oz services from
>    arbitrary applications (C++ or other).

We are already using an Oz-implementation of XML-RPC here at ags.uni-sb.de
. It it not particularly fast (in fact, it's dog slow :), but if works fine
for us so far. We're using it to communicate with the helma xmlrpc-library
for Java. Hopefully I will find the time to add it to MOGUL soon. In the
meantime, please contact me by email if you want to try it out, or use our
CVS:
> mkdir mathweb
> cd mathweb
> cvs -d :pserver:anonymous at cvs.mathweb.org:/CVS/mathweb login
> .....: omega
>  cvs -d :pserver:anonymous at cvs.mathweb.org:/CVS/mathweb co share html
httpd xmlparser xmlrpc
> cd share && ./configure && gmake install
> cd ../html && ./configure && gmake install
> cd ../httpd && ./configure && gmake install
> cd ../xmlparser && ./configure && gmake install
> cd ../xmlrpc && ./configure && gmake install
(There may be a step that requires duchier-inputsource from MOGUL.)

Then you should be able to import XmlrpcClient at
    x-ozlib://mathweb/xmlrpc/XmlrpcClient.ozf
so that you can do
    {XmlrpcClient.execute URL MethodName Params ?Result}
e.g.
    {Browse {XmlrpcClient.execute "http://foo:8080/demo" add [2 3]}}

There is also an xmlrpcd server program, but that hasn't been cleaned up
yet. It is pretty much a work-in-progress for an xmlrpc interface to our
mathweb services. But it works for us.

This XML-RPC library should be compliant with the spec. I'd be happy to
hear of any other existing implementations that may be better, faster, etc.

If you are interested in a CORBA interface for Oz, please contact Juergen
Zimmer (jzimmer at ags.uni-sb.de). He is interested in that, too.

Cheers,
Andreas

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