From: James Edward Gray II <james@...>
Date: 2007-12-01T00:29:40+09:00
Subject: Re: Limitations of ruby's XMLRPC?

On Nov 30, 2007, at 9:07 AM, Kyle Schmitt wrote:

> What are the limitations of ruby's XMLRPC?

> Is there:
>  A limit to what types may be passed in to a ruby XMLRPC server?
>  A limit to what types may be passed into a ruby XMLRPC client?

By default, you can only use the types allowed by the XML-RPC  
specification:

   http://www.xmlrpc.com/spec

Ruby's XML-RPC library does include configuration options for  
serializing most Ruby object though and then reconstructing them at  
the other side.  I don't recommend using this feature though.  Switch  
to DRb if you are willing to tie yourself to just using Ruby.

>  A limit to how many arguments may be passed into an XMLRPC sever?

I'm not aware of a limit, save for available limit.  You could always  
pass an Array as a single argument to get around one.

Now, I could envision a server rejecting requests that are too big.

>  What data types will get converted and to what, in ruby's XMLRC?

   <i4>/<int>:          Integer
   <boolean>:           true or false
   <string>:            String
   <double>:            Float
   <dateTime.iso8601>:  XMLRPC::DateTime
   <base64>:            XMLRPC::Base64
   <struct>:            Hash
   <array>:             Array

Hope that helps.

James Edward Gray II