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AnyEvent-XMPP-0.3
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/ AnyEvent::XMPP

NAME

AnyEvent::XMPP - An implementation of the XMPP Protocol

VERSION

Version 0.3

SYNOPSIS

use AnyEvent::XMPP::Connection;

or:

use AnyEvent::XMPP::IM::Connection;

or:

use AnyEvent::XMPP::Client;

DESCRIPTION

This is the head module of the AnyEvent::XMPP XMPP client protocol (as described in RFC 3920 and RFC 3921) framework.

AnyEvent::XMPP::Connection is a RFC 3920 conforming "XML" stream implementation for clients, which handles TCP connect up to the resource binding. And provides low level access to the XML nodes on the XML stream along with some high level methods to send the predefined XML stanzas.

AnyEvent::XMPP::IM::Connection is a more high level module, which is derived from AnyEvent::XMPP::Connection. It handles all the instant messaging client functionality described in RFC 3921.

AnyEvent::XMPP::Client is a multi account client class. It manages connections to multiple XMPP accounts and tries to offer a nice high level interface to XMPP communication.

For a list of "Supported extensions" see below.

There are also other modules in this distribution, for example: AnyEvent::XMPP::Util, AnyEvent::XMPP::Writer, AnyEvent::XMPP::Parser and those I forgot :-) Those modules might be helpful and/or required if you want to use this framework for XMPP.

See also AnyEvent::XMPP::Writer for a discussion about the brokenness of XML in the XMPP specification.

If you have any questions or seek for help look below under "SUPPORT".

REQUIREMENTS

One of the major drawbacks I see for AnyEvent::XMPP is the long list of required modules to make it work.

AnyEvent

For the I/O events, timers, TCP, TLS, DNS and I/O buffering.

Object::Event

The former AnyEvent::XMPP::Event module has been outsourced to the Object::Event module to provide a more generic way for more other modules to register and call event callbacks.

XML::Writer

For writing "XML".

XML::Parser::Expat

For parsing partial "XML" stuff.

MIME::Base64

For SASL authentication

Authen::SASL

For SASL authentication

Net::LibIDN

For stringprep profiles to handle JIDs.

Net::SSLeay

For SSL connections.

Digest::SHA1

For component authentication and old-style authentication.

And yes, all these are essential for XMPP communication. Even though 'instant messaging' and 'presence' is a quite simple problem XMPP somehow was successful at making the task complicated enough to keep me busy for a long time. But all of that time wasn't only for the technology required to get it started, mostly it was for all the quirks, hacks and badly applied "XML" in the protocol which complicated the matter.

RELEASE NOTES

Here are some notes to the last releases (release of this version is at top):

Version

  • 0.3

    Fixed some small bugs and improved documentation a bit, especially w.r.t. parameter passing of host and ports.

  • 0.2

    Renamed module from Net::XMPP2 to AnyEvent::XMPP. Net::XMPP2 is herby deprecated!

    Rewrote the low-level socket stuff to use AnyEvent::Socket and AnyEvent::Handle. Removed blocking write functionality, which can't be supported that easily with AnyEvent::Handle (however, if you want to wait until the send-buffer is empty you best use the send_buffer_empty event of AnyEvent::XMPP::Connection).

    For more details consult the Changes file of the AnyEvent::XMPP distribution.

  • older

    For older release notes please have a look at the Changes file or CPAN.

TODO

There are still lots of items on the TODO list (see also the TODO file in the distribution of AnyEvent::XMPP).

TEST SUITE

If you are a developer and want to test either a server or maybe just whether this module passes some basic tests you might want to run the developer test suite.

This test suite is not enabled by default because it requires some human interaction to set it up, please see AnyEvent::XMPP::TestClient for hints about the setup procedure for the test suite.

I wrote the test suite mostly because I wanted to make sure I didn't break something essential before a release. The tests don't cover everything and I don't plan to write a test for every single function in the API, that would slow down development considerably for me. But I hope that some grave show stopper bugs in releases are prevented with this test suite.

The tests are also useful if you want to test a server implementation. But there are maybe of course conformance issues with AnyEvent::XMPP itself, so if you find something where AnyEvent::XMPP doesn't conform to the XMPP RFCs or XEPs consult the BUGS section below.

If you find a server that doesn't handle something correctly but you need to interact with it you are free to implement workarounds and send me a patch, or even ask me whether I might want to look into the issue (I can't guarantee anything here, but I want this module to be as interoperable as possible. But if the implementation of a workaround for some non-conformant software will complicate the code too much I'm probably not going to implement it.).

Of course, if you find a bug in some server implementation don't forget to file a bugreport to them, one hack less in AnyEvent::XMPP means more time for bug fixing and improvements and new features.

Why (yet) another XMPP module?

The main outstanding feature of this module in comparison to the other XMPP (aka Jabber) modules out there is the support for AnyEvent. AnyEvent permits you to use this module together with other I/O event based programs and libraries (ie. Gtk2 or Event).

The other modules could often only be integrated in those applications or libraries by using threads. I decided to write this module because I think CPAN lacks an event based XMPP module. Threads are unfortunately not an alternative in Perl at the moment due the limited threading functionality they provide and the global speed hit. I also think that a simple event based I/O framework might be a bit easier to handle than threads.

Another thing was that I didn't like the APIs of the other modules. In AnyEvent::XMPP I try to provide low level modules for speaking XMPP as defined in RFC 3920 and RFC 3921 (see also AnyEvent::XMPP::Connection and AnyEvent::XMPP::IM::Connection). But I also try to provide a high level API for easier usage for instant messaging tasks and clients (eg. AnyEvent::XMPP::Client).

A note about TLS

This module also supports TLS, as the specification of XMPP requires an implementation to support TLS.

Maybe there are still some bugs in the handling of TLS in AnyEvent::XMPP::Connection. So keep an eye on TLS with this module. If you encounter any problems it would be very helpful if you could debug them or at least send me a detailed report on how to reproduce the problem.

(As I use this module myself I don't expect TLS to be completely broken, but it might break under different circumstances than I have here. Those circumstances might be a different load of data pumped through the TLS connection.)

I mainly expect problems where available data isn't properly read from the socket or written to it. You might want to take a look at the debug_send and debug_recv events in AnyEvent::XMPP::Connection.

Supported extensions

See AnyEvent::XMPP::Ext for a list.

EXAMPLES

Following examples are included in this distribution:

samples/simple_example_1

This example script just connects to a server and sends a message and also displays incoming messages on stdout.

samples/conference_lister

See below.

samples/room_lister

See below.

samples/room_lister_stat

These three scripts implements a global room scan. conference_lister takes a list of servers (the file is called servers.xml which has the same format as the xml file at http://www.jabber.org/servers.xml). It then scans all servers for chat room services and lists them into a file conferences.stor, which is a Storable dump.

room_lister then reads that file and queries all services for rooms, and then all rooms for their occupants. The output file is room_data.stor, also a Storable dump, which in turn can be read with room_lister_stat, which transform the data structures into something human readable.

These scripts are a bit hacky and quite complicated, but maybe it's of any value for someone. You might note "EVQ.pm" in samples which is a module that handles request-throttling (You don't want to flood the server and risk getting the admins attention :).

samples/simple_component

This is a (basic) skeleton for a jabber component.

samples/simple_oob_retriever

This is a simple out of band file transfer receiver bot. It uses curl to fetch the files and also has the sample functionality of sending a file url for someone who sends the bot a 'send <filename>' message.

samples/simple_register_example

This is a example script which allows you to register, unregister and change your password for accounts. Execute it without arguments for more details.

samples/disco_info

This is a small example tool that allows you to fetch the software version, disco info and disco items information about a JID.

samples/talkbot

This is a simple bot that will read lines from a file and recite them when you send it a message. It will also automatically allow you to subscribe to it. Start it without commandline arguments to be informed about the usage.

samples/retrieve_roster

This is a simple example script that will retrieve the roster for an account and print it to stdout. You start it like this:

samples/# ./retrieve_roster <jid> <password>
samples/display_avatar

This is just a small example which should display the avatar of the account you connect to. It can be used like this:

samples/# ./display_avatar <jid> <password>

For others, which the author might forgot or didn't want to list here see the samples/ directory.

More examples will be included in later releases, please feel free to ask the "AUTHOR" if you have any questions about the API. There is also an IRC channel, see "SUPPORT".

AUTHOR

Robin Redeker, <elmex at ta-sa.org>, JID: <elmex at jabber.org>

BUGS

Please note that I'm currently (July 2007) the only developer on this project and I'm very busy with my studies in Computer Science. If you want to ease my workload or want timely releases, please send me patches instead of bug reports or feature requests. I won't forget the reports or requests if you can't or didn't send patches, but I can't gurantee immediate response. But I will of course try to fix/implement them as soon as possible!

Also try to be as precise as possible with bug reports, if you can't send a patch, it would be best if you find out which code doesn't work and tell me why.

Please report any bugs or feature requests to bug-net-xmpp2 at rt.cpan.org, or through the web interface at http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=AnyEvent-XMPP. I will be notified and then you'll automatically be notified of progress on your bug as I make changes.

SUPPORT

You can find documentation for this module with the perldoc command.

perldoc AnyEvent::XMPP

You can also look for information at:

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to the XSF for the development of an open instant messaging protocol (even though it uses "XML").

And thanks to all people who had to listen to my desperate curses about the brokenness/braindeadness of XMPP. Without you I would've never brought this module to a usable state.

Thanks to:

COPYRIGHT & LICENSE

Copyright 2007, 2008 Robin Redeker, all rights reserved.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.