tarpc

tarpc is an RPC framework for rust with a focus on ease of use. Defining and implementing an echo-like server can be done in just a few lines of code:

#![feature(custom_derive, plugin)]
#![plugin(serde_macros)]
#[macro_use]
extern crate tarpc;
extern crate serde;

rpc! {
    mod hello_service {
        service {
            rpc hello(name: String) -> String;
        }
    }
}

struct HelloService;
impl hello_service::Service for HelloService {
    fn hello(&self, name: String) -> String {
        format!("Hello, {}!", s)
    }
}

fn main() {
    let server_handle = hello_service::serve("0.0.0.0:0", HelloService, None).unwrap();
    let client = hello_service::Client::new(server_handle.local_addr(), None).unwrap();
    assert_eq!("Hello, Mom!".into(), client.hello("Mom".into()).unwrap());
    drop(client);
    server_handle.shutdown();
}

The rpc! macro generates a module in the current module. In the above example, the module is named hello_service. This module will contain a Client type, a Service trait, and a serve function. serve can be used to start a server listening on a tcp port. A Client can connect to such a service. Any type implementing the Service trait can be passed to serve. These generated types are specific to the echo service, and make it easy and ergonomic to write servers without dealing with sockets or serialization directly. See the tarpc_examples package for more sophisticated examples.

Additional Features

• Imports can be specified in an item {} block that appears above the service {} block.
• Attributes can be specified on rpc methods. These will be included on both the Service trait methods as well as on the Client's stub methods.

Planned Improvements (actively being worked on)

• Automatically reconnect on the client side when the connection cuts out.
• Allow omitting the return type in rpc definitions when the type is ().
• Support arbitrary serialization (currently bincode is used for all serialization).
• Support asynchronous server implementations (currently thread per connection).

Contributing

To contribute to Tarpc, please see CONTRIBUTING.

License

Tarpc is distributed under the terms of both the MIT license and the Apache License (Version 2.0).

See LICENSE-APACHE and LICENSE-MIT for details.