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HTTP-DAV-0.22
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PerlDAV -- A WebDAV client library for Perl5

PerlDAV is a Perl library for modifying content on webservers using the WebDAV protocol. Now you can LOCK, DELETE and PUT files and much more on a DAV-enabled webserver.

The PerlDAV library consists of:

  • HTTP::DAV - an object-oriented Web-DAV client API.

  • dave - the DAV Explorer, an end-user Unix console program for interacting with WebDAV servers. dave looks and feels like a standard Unix ftp program.

Learn more about WebDAV at http://www.webdav.org/

LATEST VERSION AND WHAT'S NEW

The latest version is: v0.22 (released 2001/09/03 19:39:28)

Download: http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/P/PC/PCOLLINS/

What's New:

  • dave -- the new command line client

    I wrote dave (the DAV Explorer) because I needed an end-user application that allowed me to "feel" how well the HTTP::DAV API was performing. dave is quite similar to Joe Orton's C-based DAV client called cadaver (yes, imitation is the best form of flattery).

  • A new and simpler API

    This new API is accessed directly through the HTTP::DAV module and is based on the core API written in previous releases.

  • new methods

    The new API now supports, proppatch, recursive get, recursive put and steal locks.

  • A substantial core API overhaul

    Moving from v0.05 to v0.22 in one release might indicate the amount of work gone into this release.

  • A new interoperability test suite

    is now included in PerlDAV. The test suite is built on top of the standard Perl Test::Harness modules. Still in development, the test suite is highlighting interoperability problems with DAV-servers a lot quicker than before. See "the test suite & interoperability" section.

See the Changes file for previous releases.

INSTALLING PERLDAV

The lazy way to install PerlDAV:

$ perl -MCPAN -e shell
cpan> install HTTP::DAV

Or the normal way:

Retrieve the latest copy from CPAN: http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/P/PC/PCOLLINS/

$ perl Makefile.PL # Creates the Makefile
$ make             # Runs the makefile
$ make test        # Optional (See Interopability below)
$ make install     # Installs dave and HTTP::DAV

With this method you will first have to install the pre-requisites: LWP and XML::DOM, see "what are the prerequisites?".

When you install PerlDAV, the HTTP::DAV library will be installed to your Perl library location (usually /usr/local/lib/perl5)

dave will be installed to /usr/local/bin. This suits most people but you can modify this by using the INSTALLBIN flag:

$ perl Makefile.PL INSTALLBIN="/home/pcollins/bin"

What Are The Prerequisites?

  • LWP (Have not tested lower than v5.48)

  • XML::DOM (Have not tested lower than v1.26)

  • Perl5 (Have not tested lower than v5.005)

To get the latest versions of these prerequisite modules you can simply type this at the command prompt:

$ perl -MCPAN -e shell
cpan> install LWP
cpan> install XML::DOM

or if you just 'install HTTP::DAV' the lovely CPAN module should just magically install all of the prerequisites for you.

What Systems Does It Work With?

HTTP::DAV and dave are pure perl so only needs Perl5.003 (or later). I have not ported it to Windows but would like somebody to have a shot at it (shouldn't be too hard. Honest).

WHERE ARE THE MANUALS?

Once you've installed PerlDAV, you can type:

$ perldoc HTTP::DAV
$ perldoc dave

Or you can view them here: HTTP::DAV, dave.

GETTING HELP

The perldav mailing list

There is a mailing list for PerlDAV for use by Developers and Users. Please see http://mailman.webdav.org/mailman/listinfo/perldav

THE TEST SUITE & INTEROPERABILITY

You will notice that the standard make test command invokes a large set of test procedures, but most will be skipped. This standard test is sufficient to give you a good indication that PerlDAV has installed properly.

If you'd like to see how well PerlDAV performs against a particular DAV server then you should set the URL (and username,password) in the test suite t/TestDetails.pm. Then you can run make test again and watch the test suite perform as many operations as the server supports. Please note that the test suite will perofrm well over 200 HTTP requests to your server.

I have tested PerlDAV against IIS5, mod_dav and the Xythos WFS.

At the moment the test suite is still in development so will probably fail one or more tests.

The test suite is the best way to test interopability between PerlDAV and other servers. I'd really like help with testing PerlDAV's interoperability. So if one or more tests fail against your server please follow the following steps:

  • Determine which test is failing.

  • set DEBUG to on: edit the script and change HTTP::DAV::DebugLevel(0) to (3).

  • Delete previous server output: rm /tmp/perldav_debug.txt

  • Run that single test again:

    $make test TEST_FILES=t/thetest.t TEST_VERBOSE=1 > testoutput.log

  • Then gzip and mail me both testoutput.log and /tmp/perldav_debug.txt with details of the test environment. (My email is at the bottom)

Alternatively, you could have a shot at solving the bug yourself :)

BUGS and TODO

The test suite isn't fully finished yet.

See TODO for what is left to be done.

AUTHOR AND COPYRIGHT

This module is Copyright (C) 2001 by

Patrick Collins
G03 Gloucester Place, Kensington
Sydney, Australia

mailto:pcollins@cpan.org
Phone: +61 2 9663 4916

All rights reserved.

You may distribute this module under the terms of either the GNU General Public License or the Artistic License, as specified in the Perl README file.

$Id: README.pod,v 1.4 2001/09/03 20:13:13 pcollins Exp $