Re: [phpGroupWare-developers] how to access phpgw via xml-rpc

[Dave Hall]

On Wed, 2007-04-18 at 15:16 -0700, David wrote:
> 
> Hi phpgw people,
> 
> I've got a Python-based web framework that I would really like to
> integrate with the phpgw database tables.
> 
> Three options:
>
>  port my framework to php - totally not an option, sorry
>  model the phpgw tables as SQLObject classes - prefer not to because
> they'll break if the phpgw schemas change

The 0.9.16 schema is frozen.  The only change that would occur would be
if there was a serious (security) related bug which needed to be fixed.
Such as change would be documented.

>  access the tables via xml-rpc
> 

Our XML-RPC interface won't give you direct access to the db tables.  It
gives you access at the business logic layer. Not all apps implement it.
The XML RPC interface is likely to change for each major release.

At the end of the day it is your choice which option you go for, I just
thought some corrections might influence your decision.

> 
> However, I can't seem to get the XML-RPC connection working. There are
> no docs for pgpgw access via XML-RPC, and there seems to be a policy
> in pgpgw to leave the modules disabled by default for usage at one's
> own risk.
> 

XML-RPC was disabled due to security issues with upstream.  It has been
re enabled in head and will be available in 0.9.18.  We do not have the
resources to merge the major changes and test them properly.

> I've taken out the 'exit' statements from /xmlrpc.php
> and /xmlrpc/server.php, but when accessing either of these modules
> from my xml-rpc client, I get a 'text/html' content-type header and no
> data.
> 
> Can someone please give me some tips for bringing phpgw xml-rpc server
> to life, and accessing it from a client?
> 

I will try to take a look at it later this evening

> Alternatively, can someone please suggest another/better way to bridge
> the Python->PHP barrier, so I can access phpgw's tables from python
> and not have my code break when the schema changes?

We have a SOAP interface available.  It is similar to the XML RPC
interface.

Cheers

Dave