hitting file size limit.
For example, to trap an interrupt signal, set up a handler like this.
-Notice how all we do is set a global variable and then raise an
-exception. That's because on most systems libraries are not
-reentrant, so calling any print() functions (or even anything that needs to
-malloc(3) more memory) could in theory trigger a memory fault
-and subsequent core dump.
+Do as little as you possibly can in your handler; notice how all we do is
+set a global variable and then raise an exception. That's because on most
+systems, libraries are not re-entrant; particularly, memory allocation and
+I/O routines are not. That means that doing nearly I<anything> in your
+handler could in theory trigger a memory fault and subsequent core dump.
sub catch_zap {
my $signame = shift;
You can run a command in the background with:
- system("cmd&");
+ system("cmd &");
The command's STDOUT and STDERR (and possibly STDIN, depending on your
shell) will be the same as the parent's. You won't need to catch
multithreading. If you'd like to learn more about threading, see the
F<modules> file mentioned below in the SEE ALSO section.
-=head2 Bidirectional Communication
+=head2 Bidirectional Communication with Another Process
While this works reasonably well for unidirectional communication, what
about bidirectional communication? The obvious thing you'd like to do
Can't do bidirectional pipe at -e line 1.
If you really want to, you can use the standard open2() library function
-to catch both ends. There's also an open3() for tri-directional I/O so you
+to catch both ends. There's also an open3() for tridirectional I/O so you
can also catch your child's STDERR, but doing so would then require an
awkward select() loop and wouldn't allow you to use normal Perl input
operations.
program that does whatever checks and logging you feel like, and then acts
as a Unix-domain client and connects to your private server.
-=head2 UDP: Message Passing
+=head1 TCP Clients with IO::Socket
+
+For those preferring a higher-level interface to socket programming, the
+IO::Socket module provides an object-oriented approach. IO::Socket is
+included as part of the standard Perl distribution as of the 5.004
+release. If you're running an earlier version of Perl, just fetch
+IO::Socket from CPAN, where you'll also find find modules providing easy
+interfaces to the following systems: DNS, FTP, Ident (RFC 931), NIS and
+NISPlus, NNTP, Ping, POP3, SMTP, SNMP, SSLeay, Telnet, and Time--just
+to name a few.
+
+=head2 A Simple Client
+
+Here's a client that creates a TCP connection to the "daytime"
+service at port 13 of the host name "localhost" and prints out everything
+that the server there cares to provide.
+
+ #!/usr/bin/perl -w
+ use IO::Socket;
+ $remote = IO::Socket::INET->new(
+ Proto => "tcp",
+ PeerAddr => "localhost",
+ PeerPort => "daytime(13)",
+ )
+ or die "cannot connect to daytime port at localhost";
+ while ( <$remote> ) { print }
+
+When you run this program, you should get something back that
+looks like this:
+
+ Wed May 14 08:40:46 MDT 1997
+
+Here are what those parameters to the C<new> constructor mean:
+
+=over
+
+=item C<Proto>
+
+This is which protocol to use. In this case, the socket handle returned
+will be connected to a TCP socket, because we want a stream-oriented
+connection, that is, one that acts pretty much like a plain old file.
+Not all sockets are this of this type. For example, the UDP protocol
+can be used to make a datagram socket, used for message-passing.
+
+=item C<PeerAddr>
+
+This is the name or Internet address of the remote host the server is
+running on. We could have specified a longer name like C<"www.perl.com">,
+or an address like C<"204.148.40.9">. For demonstration purposes, we've
+used the special hostname C<"localhost">, which should always mean the
+current machine you're running on. The corresponding Internet address
+for localhost is C<"127.1">, if you'd rather use that.
+
+=item C<PeerPort>
+
+This is the service name or port number we'd like to connect to.
+We could have gotten away with using just C<"daytime"> on systems with a
+well-configured system services file,[FOOTNOTE: The system services file
+is in I</etc/services> under Unix] but just in case, we've specified the
+port number (13) in parentheses. Using just the number would also have
+worked, but constant numbers make careful programmers nervous.
+
+=back
+
+Notice how the return value from the C<new> constructor is used as
+a filehandle in the C<while> loop? That's what's called an indirect
+filehandle, a scalar variable containing a filehandle. You can use
+it the same way you would a normal filehandle. For example, you
+can read one line from it this way:
+
+ $line = <$handle>;
+
+all remaining lines from is this way:
+
+ @lines = <$handle>;
+
+and send a line of data to it this way:
+
+ print $handle "some data\n";
+
+=head2 A Webget Client
+
+Here's a simple client that takes a remote host to fetch a document
+from, and then a list of documents to get from that host. This is a
+more interesting client than the previous one because it first sends
+something to the server before fetching the server's response.
+
+ #!/usr/bin/perl -w
+ use IO::Socket;
+ unless (@ARGV > 1) { die "usage: $0 host document ..." }
+ $host = shift(@ARGV);
+ foreach $document ( @ARGV ) {
+ $remote = IO::Socket::INET->new( Proto => "tcp",
+ PeerAddr => $host,
+ PeerPort => "http(80)",
+ );
+ unless ($remote) { die "cannot connect to http daemon on $host" }
+ $remote->autoflush(1);
+ print $remote "GET $document HTTP/1.0\n\n";
+ while ( <$remote> ) { print }
+ close $remote;
+ }
+
+The web server handing the "http" service, which is assumed to be at
+its standard port, number 80. If your the web server you're trying to
+connect to is at a different port (like 1080 or 8080), you should specify
+as the named-parameter pair, C<PeerPort =E<gt> 8080>. The C<autoflush>
+method is used on the socket because otherwise the system would buffer
+up the output we sent it. (If you're on a Mac, you'll also need to
+change every C<"\n"> in your code that sends data over the network to
+be a C<"\015\012"> instead.)
+
+Connecting to the server is only the first part of the process: once you
+have the connection, you have to use the server's language. Each server
+on the network has its own little command language that it expects as
+input. The string that we send to the server starting with "GET" is in
+HTTP syntax. In this case, we simply request each specified document.
+Yes, we really are making a new connection for each document, even though
+it's the same host. That's the way you always used to have to speak HTTP.
+Recent versions of web browsers may request that the remote server leave
+the connection open a little while, but the server doesn't have to honor
+such a request.
+
+Here's an example of running that program, which we'll call I<webget>:
+
+ shell_prompt$ webget www.perl.com /guanaco.html
+ HTTP/1.1 404 File Not Found
+ Date: Thu, 08 May 1997 18:02:32 GMT
+ Server: Apache/1.2b6
+ Connection: close
+ Content-type: text/html
+
+ <HEAD><TITLE>404 File Not Found</TITLE></HEAD>
+ <BODY><H1>File Not Found</H1>
+ The requested URL /guanaco.html was not found on this server.<P>
+ </BODY>
+
+Ok, so that's not very interesting, because it didn't find that
+particular document. But a long response wouldn't have fit on this page.
+
+For a more fully-featured version of this program, you should look to
+the I<lwp-request> program included with the LWP modules from CPAN.
+
+=head2 Interactive Client with IO::Socket
+
+Well, that's all fine if you want to send one command and get one answer,
+but what about setting up something fully interactive, somewhat like
+the way I<telnet> works? That way you can type a line, get the answer,
+type a line, get the answer, etc.
+
+This client is more complicated than the two we've done so far, but if
+you're on a system that supports the powerful C<fork> call, the solution
+isn't that rough. Once you've made the connection to whatever service
+you'd like to chat with, call C<fork> to clone your process. Each of
+these two identical process has a very simple job to do: the parent
+copies everything from the socket to standard output, while the child
+simultaneously copies everything from standard input to the socket.
+To accomplish the same thing using just one process would be I<much>
+harder, because it's easier to code two processes to do one thing than it
+is to code one process to do two things. (This keep-it-simple principle
+is one of the cornerstones of the Unix philosophy, and good software
+engineering as well, which is probably why it's spread to other systems
+as well.)
+
+Here's the code:
+
+ #!/usr/bin/perl -w
+ use strict;
+ use IO::Socket;
+ my ($host, $port, $kidpid, $handle, $line);
+
+ unless (@ARGV == 2) { die "usage: $0 host port" }
+ ($host, $port) = @ARGV;
+
+ # create a tcp connection to the specified host and port
+ $handle = IO::Socket::INET->new(Proto => "tcp",
+ PeerAddr => $host,
+ PeerPort => $port)
+ or die "can't connect to port $port on $host: $!";
+
+ $handle->autoflush(1); # so output gets there right away
+ print STDERR "[Connected to $host:$port]\n";
+
+ # split the program into two processes, identical twins
+ die "can't fork: $!" unless defined($kidpid = fork());
+
+ # the if{} block runs only in the parent process
+ if ($kidpid) {
+ # copy the socket to standard output
+ while (defined ($line = <$handle>)) {
+ print STDOUT $line;
+ }
+ kill("TERM", $kidpid); # send SIGTERM to child
+ }
+ # the else{} block runs only in the child process
+ else {
+ # copy standard input to the socket
+ while (defined ($line = <STDIN>)) {
+ print $handle $line;
+ }
+ }
+
+The C<kill> function in the parent's C<if> block is there to send a
+signal to our child process (current running in the C<else> block)
+as soon as the remote server has closed its end of the connection.
+
+The C<kill> at the end of the parent's block is there to eliminate the
+child process as soon as the server we connect to closes its end.
+
+If the remote server sends data a byte at time, and you need that
+data immediately without waiting for a newline (which might not happen),
+you may wish to replace the C<while> loop in the parent with the
+following:
+
+ my $byte;
+ while (sysread($handle, $byte, 1) == 1) {
+ print STDOUT $byte;
+ }
+
+Making a system call for each byte you want to read is not very efficient
+(to put it mildly) but is the simplest to explain and works reasonably
+well.
+
+=head1 TCP Servers with IO::Socket
+
+Setting up server is little bit more involved than running a client.
+The model is that the server creates a special kind of socket that
+does nothing but listen on a particular port for incoming connections.
+It does this by calling the C<IO::Socket::INET-E<gt>new()> method with
+slightly different arguments than the client did.
+
+=over
+
+=item Proto
+
+This is which protocol to use. Like our clients, we'll
+still specify C<"tcp"> here.
+
+=item LocalPort
+
+We specify a local
+port in the C<LocalPort> argument, which we didn't do for the client.
+This is service name or port number for which you want to be the
+server. (Under Unix, ports under 1024 are restricted to the
+superuser.) In our sample, we'll use port 9000, but you can use
+any port that's not currently in use on your system. If you try
+to use one already in used, you'll get an "Address already in use"
+message. Under Unix, the C<netstat -a> command will show
+which services current have servers.
+
+=item Listen
+
+The C<Listen> parameter is set to the maximum number of
+pending connections we can accept until we turn away incoming clients.
+Think of it as a call-waiting queue for your telephone.
+The low-level Socket module has a special symbol for the system maximum, which
+is SOMAXCONN.
+
+=item Reuse
+
+The C<Reuse> parameter is needed so that we restart our server
+manually without waiting a few minutes to allow system buffers to
+clear out.
+
+=back
+
+Once the generic server socket has been created using the parameters
+listed above, the server then waits for a new client to connect
+to it. The server blocks in the C<accept> method, which eventually an
+bidirectional connection to the remote client. (Make sure to autoflush
+this handle to circumvent buffering.)
+
+To add to user-friendliness, our server prompts the user for commands.
+Most servers don't do this. Because of the prompt without a newline,
+you'll have to use the C<sysread> variant of the interactive client above.
+
+This server accepts one of five different commands, sending output
+back to the client. Note that unlike most network servers, this one
+only handles one incoming client at a time. Multithreaded servers are
+covered in Chapter 6 of the Camel or in the perlipc(1) manpage.
+
+Here's the code. We'll
+
+ #!/usr/bin/perl -w
+ use IO::Socket;
+ use Net::hostent; # for OO version of gethostbyaddr
+
+ $PORT = 9000; # pick something not in use
+
+ $server = IO::Socket::INET->new( Proto => 'tcp',
+ LocalPort => $PORT,
+ Listen => SOMAXCONN,
+ Reuse => 1);
+
+ die "can't setup server" unless $server;
+ print "[Server $0 accepting clients]\n";
+
+ while ($client = $server->accept()) {
+ $client->autoflush(1);
+ print $client "Welcome to $0; type help for command list.\n";
+ $hostinfo = gethostbyaddr($client->peeraddr);
+ printf "[Connect from %s]\n", $hostinfo->name || $client->peerhost;
+ print $client "Command? ";
+ while ( <$client>) {
+ next unless /\S/; # blank line
+ if (/quit|exit/i) { last; }
+ elsif (/date|time/i) { printf $client "%s\n", scalar localtime; }
+ elsif (/who/i ) { print $client `who 2>&1`; }
+ elsif (/cookie/i ) { print $client `/usr/games/fortune 2>&1`; }
+ elsif (/motd/i ) { print $client `cat /etc/motd 2>&1`; }
+ else {
+ print $client "Commands: quit date who cookie motd\n";
+ }
+ } continue {
+ print $client "Command? ";
+ }
+ close $client;
+ }
+
+=head1 UDP: Message Passing
Another kind of client-server setup is one that uses not connections, but
messages. UDP communications involve much lower overhead but also provide
with.
Here's a UDP program similar to the sample Internet TCP client given
-above. However, instead of checking one host at a time, the UDP version
+earlier. However, instead of checking one host at a time, the UDP version
will check many of them asynchronously by simulating a multicast and then
using select() to do a timed-out wait for I/O. To do something similar
with TCP, you'd have to use a different socket handle for each host.
several processes. That's because Perl would reallocate your string when
you weren't wanting it to.
-
Here's a small example showing shared memory usage.
$IPC_PRIVATE = 0;
semop($key,$opstring) || die "$!";
-=head1 WARNING
-
-The SysV IPC code above was written long ago, and it's definitely clunky
-looking. It should at the very least be made to C<use strict> and
-C<require "sys/ipc.ph">. Better yet, perhaps someone should create an
-C<IPC::SysV> module the way we have the C<Socket> module for normal
-client-server communications.
-
-(... time passes)
-
-Voila! Check out the IPC::SysV modules written by Jack Shirazi. You can
-find them at a CPAN store near you.
+The SysV IPC code above was written long ago, and it's definitely
+clunky looking. It should at the very least be made to C<use strict>
+and C<require "sys/ipc.ph">. Better yet, check out the IPC::SysV modules
+on CPAN.
=head1 NOTES
try to pass open file descriptors over a local UDP datagram socket if you
want your code to stand a chance of being portable.
-Because few vendors provide C libraries that are safely
-reentrant, the prudent programmer will do little else within
-a handler beyond die() to raise an exception and longjmp(3) out.
+Because few vendors provide C libraries that are safely re-entrant,
+the prudent programmer will do little else within a handler beyond
+setting a numeric variable that already exists; or, if locked into
+a slow (restarting) system call, using die() to raise an exception
+and longjmp(3) out. In fact, even these may in some cases cause a
+core dump. It's probably best to avoid signals except where they are
+absolutely inevitable. This perilous problems will be addressed in a
+future release of Perl.
=head1 AUTHOR
Tom Christiansen, with occasional vestiges of Larry Wall's original
-version.
+version and suggestions from the Perl Porters.
=head1 SEE ALSO
-Besides the obvious functions in L<perlfunc>, you should also check out
-the F<modules> file at your nearest CPAN site. (See L<perlmodlib> or best
-yet, the F<Perl FAQ> for a description of what CPAN is and where to get it.)
+There's a lot more to networking than this, but this should get you
+started.
+
+For intrepid programmers, the classic textbook I<Unix Network Programming>
+by Richard Stevens (published by Addison-Wesley). Note that most books
+on networking address networking from the perspective of a C programmer;
+translation to Perl is left as an exercise for the reader.
+
+The IO::Socket(3) manpage describes the object library, and the Socket(3)
+manpage describes the low-level interface to sockets. Besides the obvious
+functions in L<perlfunc>, you should also check out the F<modules> file
+at your nearest CPAN site. (See L<perlmodlib> or best yet, the F<Perl
+FAQ> for a description of what CPAN is and where to get it.)
+
Section 5 of the F<modules> file is devoted to "Networking, Device Control
(modems), and Interprocess Communication", and contains numerous unbundled
modules numerous networking modules, Chat and Expect operations, CGI
projects / p5sagit/p5-mst-13.2.git / commitdiff