/ 
Net-XMPP2-0.03
/ Net::XMPP2

NAME

Net::XMPP2 - An implementation of the XMPP Protocol

VERSION

Version 0.03

SYNOPSIS

use Net::XMPP2::Connection;

or:

use Net::XMPP2::IM::Connection;

or:

use Net::XMPP2::Client;

DESCRIPTION

This is the head module of the Net::XMPP2 XMPP client protocol (as described in RFC 3920 and RFC 3921) framework.

Net::XMPP2::Connection is a RFC 3920 conformant "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.

Net::XMPP2::IM::Connection is a more high level module, which is derived from Net::XMPP2::Connection. It handles all the instant messaging client functionality described in RFC 3921.

Net::XMPP2::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: Net::XMPP2::Util, Net::XMPP2::Writer, Net::XMPP2::Parser and those I forgot :-) Those modules might be helpful and/or required if you want to use this framework for XMPP.

See also Net::XMPP2::Writer for a discussion about the brokeness 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 Net::XMPP2 is the long list of required modules to make it work.

AnyEvent

For the I/O events and timers.

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.

Net::DNS

For SRV RR lookups.

Digest::SHA1

For component 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 releases (release of this version is at top):

Version

  • 0.03

    This release adds new events for attaching information to "XML" stanzas that are in transmission to the server. See also the events send_*_hook in Net::XMPP2::Connection.

    The event callbacks als don't have to return a true value anymore. What the return values do depends on the event now.

    The highlight of this release is the implementation of XEP-0114, the Jabber Component Protocol.

    It's possible to get a DOM tree from a Net::XMPP2::Node now and also to receive the original parsed "XML" from it, which should enable full access to the "XML" data that was received. This also allows easy integration with other XML Perl modules.

    You can also set the initial priority of the presence in Net::XMPP2::IM::Connection now.

    Please consult the Changes file for greater detail about bugfixes and new features.

  • 0.02

    This release adds lots of small improvements to the API (mostly new events), and also some bugfixes here and there. The release also comes with some new examples, you might want to take a look at the "EXAMPLES" section.

    As a highlight I also present the implementation of XEP-0004 (Data Forms), see also Net::XMPP2::Ext for a description.

    I also added some convenience functions to Net::XMPP2::Util, for example simxml which simplifies the generation of XMPP-like "XML".

  • 0.01

    This release has beta status. The code is already used daily in my client and I keep looking out for bugs. If you find undocumented, missing or faulty code/methods please drop me a mail! See also "BUGS" below.

    Potential edges when using this module: sparely documented methods, missing functionality and generally bugs bugs and bugs. Even though this module is in daily usage there are still lots of cases I might have missed.

    For the next release I'm planning to provide more examples in the documentation and/or samples/ directory, along with bugfixes and enhancements along with some todo items killed from the TODO file.

TODO

There are still lots of items on the TODO list (see also the TODO file in the distribution of Net::XMPP2).

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 Net::XMPP2 I try to provide low level modules for speaking XMPP as defined in RFC 3920 and RFC 3921 (see also Net::XMPP2::Connection and Net::XMPP2::IM::Connection). But I also try to provide a high level API for easier usage for instant messaging tasks and clients (eg. Net::XMPP2::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 Net::XMPP2::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 completly 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 Net::XMPP2::Connection.

Supported extensions

See Net::XMPP2::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/devcl/devcl

This is a more advanced 'example'. It requires you to have Gtk2 installed. It's mostly used by the author to implement proof-of-concepts. Currently you start the client like this:

../Net-XMPP2/samples/devcl/# perl ./devcl <jid> <password>

The client's main window displays a protocol dump and there is currently a service discovery browser implemented.

This might be a valuable source if you look for more real-world applications of Net::XMPP2.

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.

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 in Summer 2007. 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=Net-XMPP2. 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 Net::XMPP2

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 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.