Net::XMPP(3)

NAME
Net::XMPP - XMPP Perl Library

SYNOPSIS
Net::XMPP provides a Perl user with access to the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP).

For more information about XMPP visit:

<http://www.xmpp.org>

DESCRIPTION
Net::XMPP is a convenient tool to use for any perl script that would like to utilize the XMPP Instant Messaging protocol. While not a client in and of itself, it provides all of the necessary back-end functions to make a CGI client or command-line perl client feasible and easy to use. Net::XMPP is a wrapper around the rest of the official Net::XMPP::xxxxxx packages.

There is are example scripts in the example directory that provide you with examples of very simple XMPP programs.

NOTE: The parser that XML::Stream::Parser provides, as are most Perl parsers, is synchronous. If you are in the middle of parsing a packet and call a user defined callback, the Parser is blocked until your callback finishes. This means you cannot be operating on a packet, send out another packet and wait for a response to that packet. It will never get to you. Threading might solve this, but as of this writing threading in Perl is not quite up to par yet. This issue will be revisted in the future.

EXAMPLES
  use Net::XMPP;
  my $client = Net::XMPP::Client->new();

METHODS
The Net::XMPP module does not define any methods that you will call directly in your code. Instead you will instantiate objects that call functions from this module to do work. The three main objects that you will work with are the Message, Presence, and IQ modules. Each one corresponds to the Jabber equivalent and allows you get and set all parts of those packets.

There are a few functions that are the same across all of the objects:

  Retrieval functions

GetXML
    Returns the XML string that represents the data contained in the object.

      $xml  = $obj->GetXML();

GetChild
    Returns an array of Net::XMPP::Stanza objects that represent all of the stanzas in the object that are namespaced. If you specify a namespace then only stanza objects with that XMLNS are returned.

      @xObj = $obj->GetChild();
      @xObj = $obj->GetChild("my:namespace");

GetTag
    Return the root tag name of the packet.

GetTree
    Return the XML::Stream::Node object that contains the data. See XML::Stream::Node for methods you can call on this object.

  Creation functions

NewChild
      NewChild(namespace)
      NewChild(namespace,tag)

    Creates a new Net::XMPP::Stanza object with the specified namespace and root tag of whatever the namespace says its root tag should be. Optionally you may specify another root tag if the default is not desired, or the namespace requres you to set one.

      $xObj = $obj->NewChild("my:namespace");
      $xObj = $obj->NewChild("my:namespace","foo");

    ie. <foo xmlns='my:namespace'...></foo>

InsertRawXML
      InsertRawXML(string)

    puts the specified string raw into the XML packet that you call this on.

      $message->InsertRawXML("<foo></foo>")
        <message...>...<foo></foo></message>

      $x = $message->NewChild(..);
      $x->InsertRawXML("test");

      $query = $iq->GetChild(..);
      $query->InsertRawXML("test");

ClearRawXML
      ClearRawXML()

    Removes the raw XML from the packet.

  Removal functions

RemoveChild
      RemoveChild()
      RemoveChild(namespace)

    Removes all of the namespaces child elements from the object. If a namespace is provided, then only the children with that namespace are removed.

  Test functions

DefinedChild
      DefinedChild()
      DefinedChild(namespace)

    Returns 1 if there are any known namespaced stanzas in the packet, 0 otherwise. Optionally you can specify a namespace and determine if there are any stanzas with that namespace.

      $test = $obj->DefinedChild();
      $test = $obj->DefinedChild("my:namespace");

PACKAGES
For more information on each of these packages, please see the man page for each one.

  Net::XMPP::Client
This package contains the code needed to communicate with an XMPP server: login, wait for messages, send messages, and logout. It uses XML::Stream to read the stream from the server and based on what kind of tag it encounters it calls a function to handle the tag.

  Net::XMPP::Protocol
A collection of high-level functions that Client uses to make their lives easier. These methods are inherited by the Client.

  Net::XMPP::JID
The XMPP IDs consist of three parts: user id, server, and resource. This module gives you access to those components without having to parse the string yourself.

  Net::XMPP::Message
Everything needed to create and read a <message/> received from the server.

  Net::XMPP::Presence
Everything needed to create and read a <presence/> received from the server.

  Net::XMPP::IQ
IQ is a wrapper around a number of modules that provide support for the various Info/Query namespaces that XMPP recognizes.

  Net::XMPP::Stanza
This module represents a namespaced stanza that is used to extend a <message/>, <presence/>, and <iq/>.

The man page for Net::XMPP::Stanza contains a listing of all supported namespaces, and the methods that are supported by the objects that represent those namespaces.

  Net::XMPP::Namespaces
XMPP allows for any stanza to be extended by any bit of XML. This module contains all of the internals for defining the XMPP based extensions defined by the IETF. The documentation for this module explains more about how to add your own custom namespace and have it be supported.

AUTHOR
Originally authored by Ryan Eatmon.

Previously maintained by Eric Hacker.

Currently maintained by Darian Anthony Patrick.

BUGS
See unpatched issues at <https://rt.cpan.org/Dist/Display.html?Queue=Net-XMPP>.

There is at least one issue with XML::Stream providing different node structures depending on how the node is created. Net::XMPP should now be able to handle this, but who knows what else lurks.

COPYRIGHT
This module is free software, you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the LGPL 2.1.