Ubuntu Manpage: AnyEvent::XMPP - An implementation of the XMPP Protocol

name
version
synopsis
description
requirements
release notes
test suite
why (yet) another xmpp module?
supported extensions
examples
author
bugs
support
acknowledgements
copyright & license

Provided by: libanyevent-xmpp-perl_0.55-4_all

NAME

       AnyEvent::XMPP - An implementation of the XMPP Protocol

VERSION

       Version 0.55

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.

       Digest::SHA
           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
• 0.55

Bugfixes, see Changes file.

• 0.54

Add AnyEvent::XMPP::Ext::Receipts, small bugfixes, see Changes file.

• 0.53

Maintenance release. Patches for various small issues, see Changes file.

• 0.52

Maintenance release.

• 0.51

Maintenance release. Added a patch which fixes Object::Event compatibility and another fix w.r.t.
memory leak in the parser. And added the original node to AnyEvent::XMPP::IM::Message (thanks go to
mons@cpan.org).

NOTE: Version 0.6 of AnyEvent::XMPP will be API incompatible! If you are already eager to try the new
version out contact me!

• 0.5

Maintenance release. Added a patch from Marcus Dubois for Ext::Pubsub. Also fixed some memleaks in
AnyEvent::XMPP::Parser.

Also wanted to note that the next version of AnyEvent::XMPP will have an incompatible API. If you are
eager to try out the new complete rewrite of AnyEvent::XMPP contact me.

• 0.4

Minor fixes and feature enhancements: Added old_style_ssl option for direct port 5223 SSL
connections. Providing 'get_own_contact' for keeping track of own resources.

The AnyEvent::XMPP::Ext::MUC extension was rewritten and provides a more sane API now.

For details consult the Changes file in the distribution.

• 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).

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:

       •   IRC: AnyEvent::XMPP IRC Channel

             IRC Network: http://freenode.net/
             Server     : chat.freenode.net
             Channel    : #ae_xmpp

             Feel free to join and ask questions!

       •   AnyEvent::XMPP Project Site

           <http://www.ta-sa.org/net_xmpp2>

       •   AnnoCPAN: Annotated CPAN documentation

           <http://annocpan.org/dist/AnyEvent-XMPP>

       •   CPAN Ratings

           <http://cpanratings.perl.org/d/AnyEvent-XMPP>

       •   RT: CPAN's request tracker

           <http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=AnyEvent-XMPP>

       •   Search CPAN

           <http://search.cpan.org/dist/AnyEvent-XMPP>

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:

       •   J. Cameijo Cerdeira

           For pointing out a serious bug in "split_jid" in AnyEvent::XMPP::Util and suggesting to add a timeout
           argument to the "connect" method of AnyEvent::XMPP::SimpleConnection.

       •   Carlo von Loesch (aka lynX) <http://www.psyced.org/>

           For pointing out some typos.

       •   All other people ..

           ... I mentioned in the CONTRIBUTORS file which comes with the AnyEvent::XMPP distribution.

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.