External plugins are standalone, executable programs, that can be written
in any language. When ikiwiki starts up, it runs the program, and
-communicates with it using XML RPC. If you want to [[write]] an external
+communicates with it using [XML RPC][xmlrpc]. If you want to [[write]] an external
plugin, read on..
+[xmlrpc]: http://www.xmlrpc.com/
+
ikiwiki contains one sample external plugin, named `externaldemo`. This is
written in perl, but is intended to be an example of how to write an
external plugin in your favorite programming language. Wow us at how much
call `setstate("page", "id", "key", "value")`.
To access ikiwiki's ARGV array, call `getargv()`. To change its ARGV, call
-`setargv(value)`.
+`setargv(array)`.
## Notes on function parameters
to convert these named parameters into something more natural for the
language as part of their XML RPC interface.
+## undef
+
+XML RPC has a limitation that it does not have a way to pass
+undef/NULL/None. There is an extension to the protocol that supports this,
+but it is not yet available in the [[cpan XML::RPC]] library used by
+ikiwiki.
+
+Until the extension is available, ikiwiki allows undef to be communicated
+over XML RPC by passing a sentinal value, a hash with a single key "null"
+with a value of an empty string. External plugins that need to communicate
+null values to or from ikiwiki will have to translate between undef and
+the sentinal.
+
## Function injection
Some parts of ikiwiki are extensible by adding functions. For example, the