/ 
Catalyst-Plugin-Server-JSONRPC-0.03
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/ Catalyst::Plugin::Server::JSONRPC

NAME

Catalyst::Plugin::Server::JSONRPC -- Catalyst JSONRPC Server Plugin

SYNOPSIS

package MyApp;
use Catalyst qw/Server Server::JSONRPC/;

package MyApp::Controller::Example;
use base 'Catalyst::Controller';

sub echo : JSONRPC {                     # available as: example.echo
    my ( $self, $c, @args ) = @_;
    $c->stash->{jsonrpc} = join ', ', @args;
}

sub ping : JSONRPCPath('/ping') {        # available as: ping
    my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
    $c->stash->{jsonrpc} = 'Pong';
}

sub world : JSONRPCRegex(/hello/) {      # available as: *hello*
    my ($self, $c) = @_;
    $c->stash->{jsonrpc} = 'World';
}

sub echo : JSONRPCLocal {                # available as: example.echo
    my ( $self, $c, @args ) = @_;
    $c->stash->{jsonrpc} = join ', ', @args;
}

sub ping : JSONRPCGlobal {               # available as: ping
    my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
    $c->stash->{jsonrpc} = 'Pong';
}

DESCRIPTION

JSONRPC Plugin for Catalyst which we tried to make compatible with the way Catalyst works with URLS. Main features are:

  • Split JSONRPC methodNames by STRING to find out Controller.

  • Single entrypoint for JSONRPC calls, like http://host.tld/rpc

  • DispatchTypes (attributes) which work much the same as Catalyst attrs

  • JSONRPC Parameter handling transparent to Catalyst parameter handling

HOW IT WORKS

The default behaviour will handle JSONRPC Requests sent to /rpc by creating an OBJECT containing JSONRPC specific parameters in $c->req->jsonrpc.

Directly after, it will find out the Path of the Action to dispatch to, by splitting methodName by .:

methodName: hello.world
path      : /hello/world

From this point, it will dispatch to '/hello/world' when it exists, like Catalyst Urls would do. What means: you will be able to set Regexes, Paths etc on subroutines to define the endpoint.

We discuss these custom JSONRPC attributes below.

When the request is dispatched, we will return $c->stash->{jsonrpc} to the jsonrpc client, or, when it is not available, it will return $c->stash to the client. There is also a way of defining $c->stash keys to be send back to the client.

ATTRIBUTES

You can mark any method in your Catalyst application as being available remotely by using one of the following attributes, which can be added to any existing attributes, except Private. Remember that one of the mentioned attributes below are automatically also Privates...

JSONRPC

Make this method accessible via JSONRPC, the same way as Local does when using catalyst by URL.

The following example will be accessible by method hello.world:

package Catalyst::Controller::Hello
sub world : JSONRPC {}
JSONRPCLocal

Identical version of attribute JSONRPC

JSONRPCGlobal

Make this method accessible via JSONRPC, the same way as GLOBAL does when using catalyst by URL.

The following example will be accessible by method ping:

package Catalyst::Controller::Hello
sub ping : JSONRPCGlobal {}
JSONRPCPath('/say/hello')

Make this method accessible via JSONRPC, the same way as Path does when using catalyst by URL.

The following example will be accessible by method say.hello:

package Catalyst::Controller::Hello
sub hello : JSONRPCPath('/say/hello') {}
JSONRPCRegex('foo')

Make this method accessible via JSONRPC, the same way as Regex does when using catalyst by URL.

The following example will be accessible by example methods: a.foo.method wedoofoohere foo.getaround

package Catalyst::Controller::Hello
sub hello : JSONRPCPath('foo') {}

ACCESSORS

Once you've used the plugin, you'll have an $c->request->jsonrpc accessor which will return an Catalyst::Plugin::Server::JSONRPC object.

You can query this object as follows:

$c->req->jsonrpc->is_jsonrpc_request

Boolean indicating whether the current request has been initiated via JSONRPC

$c->req->jsonrpc->config

Returns a Catalyst::Plugin::Server::JSONRPC::Config object. See the CONFIGURATION below on how to use and configure it.

$c->req->jsonrpc->body

The body of the original JSONRPC call

$c->req->jsonrpc->method

The name of the original method called via JSONRPC

$c->req->jsonrpc->args

A list of parameters supplied by the JSONRPC call

$c->req->jsonrpc->result_as_string

The JSON body that will be sent back to the JSONRPC client

$c->req->jsonrpc->error

Allows you to set jsonrpc fault code and message

Server Accessors

The following accessors are always available, whether you're in a jsonrpc specific request or not

$c->server->jsonrpc->list_methods

Returns a HASHREF containing the available jsonrpc methods in Catalyst as a key, and the Catalyst::Action object as a value.

CATALYST REQUEST

To make things transparent, we try to put JSONRPC params into the Request object of Catalyst. But first we will explain something about the JSONRPC specifications.

A full draft of these specifications can be found on: http://www.jsonrpc.com/spec

In short, a jsonrpc-request consists of a methodName, like a subroutine name, and a list of parameters. This list of parameters may contain strings (STRING), arrays (LIST) and structs (HASH). Off course, these can be nested.

$c->req->arguments

We will put the list of arguments into $c->req->arguments, thisway you can fetch this list within your dispatched-to-subroutine:

sub echo : JSONRPC {
    my ($self, $c, @args) = @_;
    $c->log->debug($arg[0]);              # Prints first JSONRPC parameter
                                          # to debug log
}
$c->req->parameters

Because JSONRPC parameters are a LIST, we can't just fill $c->req->paremeters. To keep things transparent, we made an extra config option what tells the JSONRPC server we can assume the following conditions on all JSONRPC requests: - There is only one JSONRPC parameter - This JSONRPC parameter is a struct (HASH)

We will put this STRUCT as key-value pairs into $c->req->parameters.

$c->req->params

Alias of $c->req->parameters

$c->req->param

Alias of $c->req->parameters

INTERNAL JSONRPC FUNCTIONS

The following system functions are available to the public.,

system.listMethods

returns a list of available RPC methods.

DEFINING RETURN VALUES

The JSON-RPC response must contain a single parameter, which may contain an array (LIST), struct (HASH) or a string (STRING). To define the return values in your subroutine, you can alter $c->stash in three different ways.

Defining $c->stash->{jsonrpc}

When defining $c->stash->{jsonrpc}, the JSONRPC server will return these values to the client.

When there is no $c->stash->{jsonrpc}

When there is no $c->stash->{jsonrpc} set, it will return the complete $c->stash

CONFIGURATION

The JSONRPC Plugin accepts the following configuration options, which can be set in the standard Catalyst way (See perldoc Catalyst for details):

Your::App->config( jsonrpc => { key => value } );

You can look up any of the config parameters this package uses at runtime by calling:

$c->server->jsonrpc->config->KEY
path

This specifies the entry point for your jsonrpc server; all requests are dispatched from there. This is the url any JSONRCP client should post to. You can change this to any Regex wish.

The default is: qr!^(/?)rpc(/|$)!i, which matches on a top-level path begining with rpc preceeded or followed by an optional /, like this:

http://your-host.tld/rpc
prefix

This specifies the prefix of the forward url.

For example, with a prefix of rpc, and a method foo, the forward path would be come /rpc/foo.

The default is '' (empty).

seperator

This is a STRING used to split your method on, allowing you to use a hierarchy in your method calls.

For example, with a seperator of . the method call demo.echo would be forwarded to /demo/echo. To make demo_echo forward to the same path, you would change the seperator to _,

The default is ., splitting methods on a single .

convert_params

Make the arguments in $c->req->jsonrpc->params available as $c->req->params.

Defaults to true.

show_errors

Make system errors in $c->error public to the rpc-caller in a JSON-RPC faultString. When show_errors is false, and your catalyst app generates a fault, it will return an JSON-RPC fault containing error number 500 and error string: "Internal Server Error".

Defaults to false.

DIAGNOSTICS

Invalid JSONRPC request: No such method

There is no corresponding method in your application that can be forwarded to.

Invalid JSONRPC request %s

There was an error parsing the JSONRPC request

Invalid JSONRPC request: Unknown error

An unexpected error occurred

TODO

Make error messages configurable/filterable

Right now, whatever ends up on $c->error gets returned to the client. It would be nice to have a way to filter/massage these messages before they are sent back to the client.

Make stash filterable before returning

Just like the error messages, it would be nice to be able to filter the stash before returning so you can filter out keys you don't want to return to the client, or just return a certain list of keys. This all to make transparent use of JSONRPC and web easier.

SEE ALSO

Catalyst::Manual, Catalyst::Request, Catalyst::Response, JSON::RPC::Common,

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

For the original implementation of this module:

Marcus Ramberg mramberg@cpan.org Christian Hansen Yoshinori Sano Jos Boumans (kane@cpan.org) Michiel Ootjers (michiel@cpan.org)

AUTHORS

Sergey Nosenko (darknos@cpan.org)

BUG REPORTS

Please submit all bugs regarding Catalyst::Plugin::Server::JSONRPC to bug-catalyst-plugin-server-jsonrpc@rt.cpan.org

LICENSE

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