tarpc/README.md

tarpc: Tim & Adam's RPC lib

Disclaimer: This is not an official Google product.

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;

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 service! macro expands to a collection of items that collectively form an rpc service. In the above example, the macro is called within the hello_service module. 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

• 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 ().
• Add backward-compatibility features to enable evolving APIs.
• Support asynchronous server implementations (currently thread per connection).

Contributing

To contribute to Tarpc, please see CONTRIBUTING.

License

Tarpc is distributed under the terms of the MIT license.

See LICENSE for details.