ZeroMQ

Test Use Case: The Track Tool

To properly test something like FileMQ we need a test case that plays with live data. One of my sysadmin tasks is to manage the MP3 tracks on my music player. That is, by the way, a Sansa Clip reflashed with Rock Box, which I highly recommend. As I download tracks into my Music folder, I want to copy these to my player, and as I find tracks that annoy me, I delete them in the Music folder and want those gone from my player, too.

I could write this using a bash or Perl script—a powerful file distribution protocol is kind of overkill—but to be honest the hardest work in FileMQ was the directory comparison code, and I want to benefit from that. So I put together a simple tool called “track” that calls the FileMQ API. From the command line this runs with two arguments, the sending and receiving directories:

./track /home/ph/Music /media/3230-6364/MUSIC

The code is a neat example of how to use the FileMQ API to do local file distribution. Here is the full program, minus the license text (it’s MIT/X11 licensed):

#include "czmq.h"
#include "../include/fmq.h"

int main (int argc, char *argv [])
{
    fmq_server_t *server = fmq_server_new ();
    fmq_server_configure (server, "anonymous.cfg");
    fmq_server_publish (server, argv [1], "/");
    fmq_server_set_anonymous (server, true);
    fmq_server_bind (server, "tcp://*:5670");

    fmq_client_t *client = fmq_client_new ();
    fmq_client_connect (client, "tcp://localhost:5670");
    fmq_client_set_inbox (client, argv [2]);
    fmq_client_set_resync ...