json-rpc-shell/README.adoc

json-rpc-shell
==============
:compact-option:

'json-rpc-shell' is a simple shell for running JSON-RPC 2.0 queries.

This software has been created as a replacement for the following shell, which
is written in Java: http://software.dzhuvinov.com/json-rpc-2.0-shell.html

Features
--------
In addition to most of the features provided by Vladimir Dzhuvinov's shell
you get the following niceties:

 - configurable JSON syntax highlight, which with prettyprinting turned on
   helps you make sense of the results significantly
 - ability to pipe output through a shell command, so that you can view the
   results in your favourite editor or redirect them to a file
 - ability to edit the input line in your favourite editor as well with Alt+E

Supported transports
--------------------
 - HTTP
 - HTTPS
 - WebSocket
 - WebSocket over TLS

WebSockets
~~~~~~~~~~
The JSON-RPC 2.0 spec doesn't say almost anything about underlying transports.
The way it's implemented here is that every request is sent as a single text
message.  If it has an "id" field, i.e. it's not just a notification, the
client waits for a message from the server in response.

There's no support so far for any protocol extensions, nor for specifying
the higher-level protocol (the "Sec-Ws-Protocol" HTTP field).

Packages
--------
Regular releases are sporadic.  git master should be stable enough.  You can get
a package with the latest development version from Archlinux's AUR.

Building and Usage
------------------
Build dependencies: CMake, pkg-config, help2man,
                    liberty (included), http-parser (included) +
Runtime dependencies: libev, Jansson, cURL, openssl,
                      readline or libedit >= 2013-07-12,

 $ git clone --recursive https://git.janouch.name/p/json-rpc-shell.git
 $ mkdir json-rpc-shell/build
 $ cd json-rpc-shell/build
 $ cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug
 $ make

To install the application, you can do either the usual:

 # make install

Or you can try telling CMake to make a package for you.  For Debian it is:

 $ cpack -G DEB
 # dpkg -i json-rpc-shell-*.deb

Note that for versions of CMake before 2.8.9, you need to prefix `cpack` with
`fakeroot` or file ownership will end up wrong.

Run the program with `--help` to obtain usage information.

Test server
-----------
If you install development packages for libmagic, an included test server will
be built but not installed which provides a trivial JSON-RPC 2.0 service with
FastCGI, SCGI, and WebSocket interfaces.  It responds to the `ping` method.

Contributing and Support
------------------------
Use https://git.janouch.name/p/json-rpc-shell to report bugs, request features,
or submit pull requests.  `git send-email` is tolerated.  If you want to discuss
the project, feel free to join me at ircs://irc.janouch.name, channel #dev.

Bitcoin donations are accepted at: 12r5uEWEgcHC46xd64tt3hHt9EUvYYDHe9

License
-------
This software is released under the terms of the 0BSD license, the text of which
is included within the package along with the list of authors.