[ViewVC] Annotation of: cvs/Net-XMPP2/README

NAME
    Net::XMPP2 - An implementation of the XMPP Protocol

VERSION
    Version 0.01

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 highlevel 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
    highlevel interface to XMPP communication.

    For a list of "Supportet 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.

    And yes, all these are essential for XMPP communication. Even thought
    'instant messaging' and 'presence' is a quite simple problem XMPP
    somehow was successful at complicating the task enough to keep me busy
    for a long time. But all 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
    * 0.01
        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 thought
        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 comparsion 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 librarys 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.

    There are maybe 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 aviable 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.

Supportet extensions
    See Net::XMPP2::Ext for a list.

EXAMPLES
    See "samples/test_client" for a first pointer. 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 only bug reports or feature requests. I won't
    forget the reports or requests if you can't or didn't send patches but
    it can take a long time until I get enough time to fix/implement them.

    Also try to be as precise as possible with bugreports and best, if you
    can't send a patch, would be 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:

    * IRC: Net::XMPP2 IRC Channel
          IRC Network: http://freenode.net/
          Server     : chat.freenode.net
          Channel    : #net_xmpp2

          Feel free to join and ask questions!

    * Net::XMPP2 Project Site
        <http://www.ta-sa.org/>

    * AnnoCPAN: Annotated CPAN documentation
        <http://annocpan.org/dist/Net-XMPP2>

    * CPAN Ratings
        <http://cpanratings.perl.org/d/Net-XMPP2>

    * RT: CPAN's request tracker
        <http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=Net-XMPP2>

    * Search CPAN
        <http://search.cpan.org/dist/Net-XMPP2>

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

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

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.

Revision:	1.3
Committed:	Thu Jul 5 17:43:30 2007 UTC (17 years, 8 months ago) by elmex
Branch:	MAIN
Changes since 1.2:	+107 -16 lines
Log Message:	last changes and now it's uploaded to CPAN!
#	User	Rev	Content
1	elmex	1.1	NAME
2			Net::XMPP2 - An implementation of the XMPP Protocol
3
4			VERSION
5			Version 0.01
6
7			SYNOPSIS
8	elmex	1.2	use Net::XMPP2::Connection;
9
10			or:
11
12			use Net::XMPP2::IM::Connection;
13
14	elmex	1.3	or:
15
16			use Net::XMPP2::Client;
17
18	elmex	1.2	DESCRIPTION
19			This is the head module of the Net::XMPP2 XMPP client protocol (as
20			described in RFC 3920 and RFC 3921) framework.
21
22			Net::XMPP2::Connection is a RFC 3920 conformant "XML" stream
23			implementation for clients, which handles tcp connect up to the resource
24			binding. And provides low-level access to the XML nodes on the XML
25			stream along with some high level methods to send the predefined XML
26			stanzas.
27
28			Net::XMPP2::IM::Connection is a more highlevel module, which is derived
29			from Net::XMPP2::Connection. It handles all the instant messaging client
30			functionality described in RFC 3921.
31
32	elmex	1.3	Net::XMPP2::Client is a multi account client class. It manages
33			connections to multiple XMPP accounts and tries to offer a nice
34			highlevel interface to XMPP communication.
35
36	elmex	1.2	For a list of "Supportet extensions" see below.
37
38			There are also other modules in this distribution, for example:
39	elmex	1.3	Net::XMPP2::Util, Net::XMPP2::Writer, Net::XMPP2::Parser and those I
40	elmex	1.2	forgot :-) Those modules might be helpful and/or required if you want to
41			use this framework for XMPP.
42
43			See also Net::XMPP2::Writer for a discussion about the brokeness of XML
44			in the XMPP specification.
45
46	elmex	1.3	If you have any questions or seek for help look below under "SUPPORT".
47
48			REQUIREMENTS
49			One of the major drawbacks I see for Net::XMPP2 is the long list of
50			required modules to make it work.
51
52			AnyEvent
53			For the I/O events and timers.
54
55			XML::Writer
56			For writing "XML".
57
58			XML::Parser::Expat
59			For parsing partial "XML" stuff.
60
61			MIME::Base64
62			For SASL authentication
63
64			Authen::SASL
65			For SASL authentication
66
67			Net::LibIDN
68			For stringprep profiles to handle JIDs.
69
70			Net::SSLeay
71			For SSL connections.
72
73			Net::DNS
74			For SRV RR lookups.
75
76			And yes, all these are essential for XMPP communication. Even thought
77			'instant messaging' and 'presence' is a quite simple problem XMPP
78			somehow was successful at complicating the task enough to keep me busy
79			for a long time. But all that time wasn't only for the technology
80			required to get it started, mostly it was for all the quirks, hacks and
81			badly applied "XML" in the protocol which complicated the matter.
82
83			RELEASE NOTES
84			Here are some notes to the releases (release of this version is at top):
85
86			Version
87			* 0.01
88			This release has beta status. The code is already used daily in my
89			client and I keep looking out for bugs. If you find undocumented,
90			missing or faulty code/methods please drop me a mail! See also
91			"BUGS" below.
92
93			Potential edges when using this module: sparely documented methods,
94			missing functionality and generally bugs bugs and bugs. Even thought
95			this module is in daily usage there are still lots of cases I might
96			have missed.
97
98			For the next release I'm planning to provide more examples in the
99			documentation and/or samples/ directory, along with bugfixes and
100			enhancements along with some todo items killed from the TODO file.
101
102			TODO
103			There are still lots of items on the TODO list (see also the TODO file
104			in the distribution of Net::XMPP2).
105
106	elmex	1.2	Why (yet) another XMPP module?
107			The main outstanding feature of this module in comparsion to the other
108			XMPP (aka Jabber) modules out there is the support for AnyEvent.
109			AnyEvent permits you to use this module together with other I/O event
110			based programs and libraries (ie. Gtk2 or Event).
111
112			The other modules could often only be integrated in those applications
113	elmex	1.3	or librarys by using threads. I decided to write this module because I
114	elmex	1.2	think CPAN lacks an event based XMPP module. Threads are unfortunately
115			not an alternative in Perl at the moment due the limited threading
116			functionality they provide and the global speed hit. I also think that a
117			simple event based I/O framework might be a bit easier to handle than
118			threads.
119
120			Another thing was that I didn't like the APIs of the other modules. In
121			Net::XMPP2 I try to provide low level modules for speaking XMPP as
122			defined in RFC 3920 and RFC 3921 (see also Net::XMPP2::Connection and
123			Net::XMPP2::IM::Connection). But I also try to provide a high level API
124	elmex	1.3	for easier usage for instant messaging tasks and clients (eg.
125			Net::XMPP2::Client).
126	elmex	1.2
127			A note about TLS
128			This module also supports TLS, as the specification of XMPP requires an
129			implementation to support TLS.
130
131			There are maybe still some bugs in the handling of TLS in
132			Net::XMPP2::Connection. So keep an eye on TLS with this module. If you
133			encounter any problems it would be very helpful if you could debug them
134			or at least send me a detailed report on how to reproduce the problem.
135
136			(As I use this module myself I don't expect TLS to be completly broken,
137			but it might break under different circumstances than I have here. Those
138			circumstances might be a different load of data pumped through the TLS
139			connection.)
140
141			I mainly expect problems where aviable data isn't properly read from the
142			socket or written to it. You might want to take a look at the
143			"debug_send" and "debug_recv" events in Net::XMPP2::Connection.
144
145			Supportet extensions
146	elmex	1.3	See Net::XMPP2::Ext for a list.
147	elmex	1.2
148	elmex	1.3	EXAMPLES
149			See "samples/test_client" for a first pointer. More examples will be
150			included in later releases, please feel free to ask the "AUTHOR" if you
151			have any questions about the API. There is also an IRC channel, see
152			"SUPPORT".
153	elmex	1.1
154			AUTHOR
155	elmex	1.3	Robin Redeker, "<elmex at ta-sa.org>", JID: "<elmex at jabber.org>"
156	elmex	1.1
157			BUGS
158	elmex	1.3	Please note that I'm currently (July 2007) the only developer on this
159			project and I'm very busy with my studies in Computer Science in Summer
160			2007. If you want to ease my workload or want timely releases please
161			send me patches instead only bug reports or feature requests. I won't
162			forget the reports or requests if you can't or didn't send patches but
163			it can take a long time until I get enough time to fix/implement them.
164
165			Also try to be as precise as possible with bugreports and best, if you
166			can't send a patch, would be if you find out which code doesn't work and
167			tell me why.
168
169	elmex	1.1	Please report any bugs or feature requests to "bug-net-xmpp2 at
170			rt.cpan.org", or through the web interface at
171			<http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=Net-XMPP2>. I will be
172			notified, and then you'll automatically be notified of progress on your
173			bug as I make changes.
174
175			SUPPORT
176			You can find documentation for this module with the perldoc command.
177
178			perldoc Net::XMPP2
179
180			You can also look for information at:
181
182	elmex	1.3	* IRC: Net::XMPP2 IRC Channel
183			IRC Network: http://freenode.net/
184			Server : chat.freenode.net
185			Channel : #net_xmpp2
186
187			Feel free to join and ask questions!
188
189			* Net::XMPP2 Project Site
190			<http://www.ta-sa.org/>
191
192	elmex	1.1	* AnnoCPAN: Annotated CPAN documentation
193			<http://annocpan.org/dist/Net-XMPP2>
194
195			* CPAN Ratings
196			<http://cpanratings.perl.org/d/Net-XMPP2>
197
198			* RT: CPAN's request tracker
199			<http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=Net-XMPP2>
200
201			* Search CPAN
202			<http://search.cpan.org/dist/Net-XMPP2>
203
204			ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
205	elmex	1.3	Thanks to the XSF for the development of an open instant messaging
206			protocol (even thought it uses "XML").
207
208			And thanks to all people who had to listen to my desperate curses about
209			the brokeness/braindeadness of XMPP, without you I would've never
210			brought this module to a usable state.
211
212	elmex	1.1	COPYRIGHT & LICENSE
213			Copyright 2007 Robin Redeker, all rights reserved.
214
215			This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
216			under the same terms as Perl itself.
217