This is a companion to Joe Armstrong's tutorial on how to build a
fault-tolerant banking server in Erlang:

http://www.sics.se/~joe/tutorials/robust_server/robust_server.html 

You *should* read Joe's tutorial before you go any further. You have
been warned!

1 A fault-tolerant banking server using XML-RPC
-----------------------------------------------
It is easy to update Joe's banking server with XML-RPC support. Just
replace the robust_bank_server.erl and robust_bank_client.erl modules
with the drop-in replacements found in this directory.

Do that.

The original modules look like this:
http://www.sics.se/~joe/tutorials/robust_server/robust_bank_server.erl
http://www.sics.se/~joe/tutorials/robust_server/robust_bank_client.erl

They are actually larger than the XML-RPC ditto.

There is also a Java application (BankClient.java) which can be used
to access the banking server. More on that below.

1.1 Initializing the data-base
------------------------------
This assumes that there are two nodes called one@enfield and
two@enfield.

To initialize the system open two terminal windows (on enfield) and
proceed as follows:

Note: You *must* update the paths to the xmerl and xmlrpc packages.

** In terminal 1:

$ erl -pa xmlrpc-1.11/ebin -pa xmerl-0.18/ebin -sname one -mnesia dir '"one"'
Erlang (BEAM) emulator version 5.2 [source] [hipe]

Eshell V5.2  (abort with ^G)

** In terminal 2:

$ erl -pa xmlrpc-1.11/ebin -pa xmerl-0.18/ebin -sname two -mnesia dir '"two"'
Erlang (BEAM) emulator version 5.2 [source] [hipe]

Eshell V5.2  (abort with ^G)
(two@enfield)1> robust_bank_manager:create_schema().
ok
(two@enfield)2> mnesia:start().
ok

** In terminal 1:

(one@enfield)1> mnesia:start().
ok
(one@enfield)2> robust_bank_manager:create_table().

1.2. Now we are ready to run everything
---------------------------------------
We are now ready to start the banking server on the two nodes:

** In terminal 1:

(one@enfield)3> robust_bank_server:start(3020).
{ok,<0.102.0>}

** In terminal 2:

(two@enfield)3> robust_bank_server:start(3030).
{ok,<0.102.0>}

The XML-RPC based banking server has now been started. We open a third
terminal window and start an Erlang node to be used as a client:

** In terminal 3:

$ erl -pa xmlrpc-1.11/ebin -pa xmerl-0.18/ebin
Erlang (BEAM) emulator version 5.2 [source] [hipe]

Eshell V5.2  (abort with ^G)
1> robust_bank_client:deposit("joe", 7).
{response,[7]}
2> robust_bank_client:balance("joe").
{response,[7]}

Both servers are running - server one replies. Kill server one redo
the query:

3> robust_bank_client:balance("joe").
{response,[7]}

This time server 2 replies (we killed server one, remember).

Make a deposit. We make a deposit of 10 units:

4> robust_bank_client:deposit("joe", 10).
{response,[17]}

Only server two is running - so the transaction takes place on server two.

Restart server one and query the balance:

5> robust_bank_client:balance("joe").
{response,[17]}

Server one replies with 17 units. Well done server one.

When server one was restarted - the two servers synced their data and
the changes made to server two were propagated to server one.

Kill server two and query the balance:

6> robust_bank_client:balance("joe").
{response,[17]}

Server one replied.

1.3 Lets try the Java client
-----------------------------
$ java -classpath apache/xmlrpc/bin/xmlrpc-1.1.jar:. BankClient deposit joe 22
39
$ java -classpath apache/xmlrpc/bin/xmlrpc-1.1.jar:. BankClient withdraw joe 2 
ok
$ java -classpath apache/xmlrpc/bin/xmlrpc-1.1.jar:. BankClient balance joe  
37
$ java -classpath apache/xmlrpc/bin/xmlrpc-1.1.jar:. BankClient withdraw joe 2000
org.apache.xmlrpc.XmlRpcException: not_enough_money
java.io.IOException: Connection refused
No bank server available

etc.

2 Summing up
------------
The intention here was not to make the ultimate fault-tolerant server,
but rather to illustrate how to make a simple functioning server, with
no detail omitted. A production server could be based on this simple
design, but would involve a slightly less simplistic approach.