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Cloud Hosting Glossary

Struggling to tell your APIs from your CDNs? Read our comprehensive cloud computing glossary covering the most common terms.

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XML-RPC

XML-RPC (Extensible Markup Language Remote Procedure Call) is a specification of the protocol for making remote procedure calls (RPCs) with XML being used to encode its messages and HTTP serving as the transport mechanism. XML-RPC makes it possible for software applications written in various programming languages and installed on different operating systems to talk to each other over a network.

How XML-RPC Works

Client-Server Interaction: A client makes an HTTP request to a server that supports XML-RPC. The request body is an XML document describing the procedure to be invoked and its parameters.

XML Encoding: XML encodes both requests and responses in a human-readable, easily parsable format.

Procedure Execution: The server calls the requested procedure with the given parameters and sends the result in an XML response.

Advantages of XML-RPC

Cross-Platform Compatibility: Facilitates interaction among programs coded in various languages and operating on diverse platforms.

Ease of Implementation: Easy to implement because it leverages standard HTTP and XML, which are commonly supported.

Structured Data Transfer: Facilitates the exchange of complex data structures such as arrays and structs, making it an ideal choice for exchanging structured data.

Real-World Example

XML-RPC is usually implemented in content management systems such as WordPress to provide remote publishing and content management without the need for direct login to the backend. This makes it possible to publish articles or control blogs from external programs.

Things to Keep in Mind

Security Considerations: Although XML-RPC allows HTTP, it is advisable to use HTTPS (with SSL/TLS encryption) for secure data transmission.

Data Types: XML-RPC has a limited number of data types, such as integers, strings, and arrays, which makes it easier to implement but can restrict its flexibility.

Comparison with Other Protocols: In contrast to RESTful APIs, which are concerned with resource representations, XML-RPC is specifically for calling methods over a network