11.23.1 SimpleXMLRPCServer Objects

The SimpleXMLRPCServer class is based on SocketServer.TCPServer and provides a means of creating simple, stand alone XML-RPC servers.

register_function( function[, name])

Register a function that can respond to XML-RPC requests. If name is given, it will be the method name associated with function, otherwise function.__name__ will be used. name can be either a normal or Unicode string, and may contain characters not legal in Python identifiers, including the period character.

register_instance( instance[, allow_dotted_names])

Register an object which is used to expose method names which have not been registered using register_function(). If instance contains a _dispatch() method, it is called with the requested method name and the parameters from the request. Its API is def _dispatch(self, method, params) (note that params does not represent a variable argument list). If it calls an underlying function to perform its task, that function is called as func(*params), expanding the parameter list. The return value from _dispatch() is returned to the client as the result. If instance does not have a _dispatch() method, it is searched for an attribute matching the name of the requested method.

If the optional allow_dotted_names argument is true and the instance does not have a _dispatch() method, then if the requested method name contains periods, each component of the method name is searched for individually, with the effect that a simple hierarchical search is performed. The value found from this search is then called with the parameters from the request, and the return value is passed back to the client.

Warning: Enabling the allow_dotted_names option allows intruders to access your module's global variables and may allow intruders to execute arbitrary code on your machine. Only use this option on a secure, closed network.

Changed in version 2.3.5, 2.4.1: allow_dotted_names was added to plug a security hole; prior versions are insecure.

register_introspection_functions( )

Registers the XML-RPC introspection functions system.listMethods, system.methodHelp and system.methodSignature. New in version 2.3.

register_multicall_functions( )

Registers the XML-RPC multicall function system.multicall.

Example:

from SimpleXMLRPCServer import SimpleXMLRPCServer

# Create server
server = SimpleXMLRPCServer(("localhost", 8000))
server.register_introspection_functions()

# Register pow() function; this will use the value of 
# pow.__name__ as the name, which is just 'pow'.
server.register_function(pow)

# Register a function under a different name
def adder_function(x,y):
    return x + y
server.register_function(adder_function, 'add')

# Register an instance; all the methods of the instance are 
# published as XML-RPC methods (in this case, just 'div').
class MyFuncs:
    def div(self, x, y): 
        return x // y
    
server.register_instance(MyFuncs())

# Run the server's main loop
server.serve_forever()

The following client code will call the methods made available by the preceding server:

import xmlrpclib

s = xmlrpclib.Server('http://localhost:8000')
print s.pow(2,3)  # Returns 2**3 = 8
print s.add(2,3)  # Returns 5
print s.div(5,2)  # Returns 5//2 = 2

# Print list of available methods
print s.system.listMethods()

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