The XMLRPC API: common documentation

URLs

The XMLRPC server lives at http://www.adamsnames.com/api/xmlrpc.

Error messages

We try to be consistent in our error messages: we always return an error array which is empty if no errors occurred. Each error is represented by a two-element array of error code and description. Perl programmers will recognize this idiom:

      return { error => [ [ 300, 'Invalid request'          ],
                           [ 400, 'Duplicated nameservers'   ], 
                           [ 500, 'World exploded'           ], ] };
  

Error handling always seems to be a messy topic. The split between error code and message is designed to make it easier for clients to handle errors appropriately: to that end we hope that clients will be able to treat the message as an opaque piece of text using the code for any conditional tests. If you find that your clients are parsing the message, then please contact us.

As may be noted above, error codes fall into classes:

Identifiers

Every object in our registry has a unique, persistent, identifier (ID). The ID is created randomly when the object is first registered and remains unchanged thereafter: this makes the IDs a useful way to refer to objects.

IDs are a fairly random string of letters and digits, and sometimes look rather too much like a domain name. For example, the identifier for the adamsnames.tc domain is ada4404.tc.

Procedure list

At present, the following procedures exist, though it is likely that many more will be implemented shortly. If you have a particular need for a procedure, or suggestions for improvements to existing ones then please contact us.