json-rpc-shell

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 WebSocket transport is rather experimental. As the JSON-RPC 2.0 spec doesn’t say almost anything about the underlying transports, I’ll shortly describe the way it’s implemented: 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, or from openSUSE Build Service for the rest of mainstream distributions. Consult the list of repositories and their respective links at:

https://build.opensuse.org/project/repositories/home:pjanouch:git

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://github.com/pjanouch/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.

Contributing and Support

Use this project’s GitHub to report any bugs, request features, or submit pull requests. If you want to discuss this project, or maybe just hang out with the developer, feel free to join me at irc://anathema.irc.so, channel #anathema.

License

json-rpc-shell is written by Přemysl Janouch <p.janouch@gmail.com>.

You may use the software under the terms of the ISC license, the text of which is included within the package, or, at your option, you may relicense the work under the MIT or the Modified BSD License, as listed at the following site:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html