Programming Jabber

Authenticating handshake and launch of main loop

Once we’ve set up the handlers, we’re ready to make the authenticating handshake. This is simply a call to the auth() method:

$c->auth('secret');

It takes either one or three arguments, depending on whether the authentication is for a client or a component. Jabber::Connection decides which authentication context is required by looking at the specified (or default) namespace in the connection constructor call. As we specified the namespace jabber:component:accept, the auth() method is expecting a single argument, the secret specified in the <secret/> tag of the component instance definition. The auth() method performs the message digest function and sends the <handshake/> element.

It’s now appropriate for us to “launch” the component, with the start() method:

$c->start;

This is the equivalent of the MainLoop() method in Perl’s Tk library and is a method from which there’s no exit. Calling start() causes the connection object to perform an endless loop, which internally calls a process() method on a regular basis, receiving, examining, and dispatching elements received on the XML stream. It also starts and maintains the heartbeat, to which the register_beat() method is related.

Note

If you wish to have more granular control over your script, you can use the process() function directly, just as you would with the Net::Jabber and Jabberpy libraries. Be aware, however, that a heartbeat is maintained only in the context of the start() ...