Net::SNPP(3)

NAME
Net::SNPP - Simple Network Pager Protocol Client

SYNOPSIS
    use Net::SNPP;

    # Constructors
    $snpp = Net::SNPP->new('snpphost');
    $snpp = Net::SNPP->new('snpphost', Timeout => 60);

NOTE
This module is in a maintenance mode, as I no longer have significant access to SNPP servers to test with. However, to the best of the present maintainer's knowledge, the module works just fine and has been used in many a production environment.

DESCRIPTION
This module implements a client interface to the SNPP protocol, enabling a perl5 application to talk to SNPP servers. This documentation assumes that you are familiar with the SNPP protocol described in RFC1861.

A new Net::SNPP object must be created with the new method. Once this has been done, all SNPP commands are accessed through this object.

EXAMPLES
This example will send a pager message in one hour saying "Your lunch is ready"

    #!/usr/local/bin/perl -w

    use Net::SNPP;

    $snpp = Net::SNPP->new('snpphost');

    $snpp->send( Pager   => $some_pager_number,
                 Message => "Your lunch is ready",
                 Alert   => 1,
                 Hold    => time + 3600, # lunch ready in 1 hour :-)
               ) || die $snpp->message;

    $snpp->quit;

CONSTRUCTOR

new ( [ HOST, ] [ OPTIONS ] )
    This is the constructor for a new Net::SNPP object. "HOST" is the name of the remote host to which a SNPP connection is required.

    If "HOST" is not given, then the "SNPP_Host" specified in "Net::Config" will be used.

    "OPTIONS" are passed in a hash like fashion, using key and value pairs. Possible options are:

    Timeout - Maximum time, in seconds, to wait for a response from the SNPP server (default: 120)

    Debug - Enable debugging information

    Example:

        $snpp = Net::SNPP->new('snpphost',
                               Debug => 1,
                               );

METHODS
Unless otherwise stated all methods return either a true or false value, with true meaning that the operation was a success. When a method states that it returns a value, failure will be returned as undef or an empty list.

reset ()
help ()
    Request help text from the server. Returns the text or undef upon failure

quit ()
    Send the QUIT command to the remote SNPP server and close the socket connection.

site ( CMD )
    Send a SITE command to the remote SNPP server. site() take a single argument which is the command string to send to the SNPP server.

ping ( PAGER_ID )
    Determine if the remote SNPP server is able to contact a given pager ID. (Level 3 command)

noqueue ()
    Instruct the SNPP server not to queue the two-way request. (Level 3 command)

expire_time ( HOURS )
    Cause the paging request to be canceled if it has not been sent in the specified number of hours. (Level 3 command)

read_ack ( TRUEFALSE )
    Enable and disable the read acknowledgement notification sent by the pager. (Level 3 command)

reply_type ( TYPE_CODE )
    Change the type of reply that the page will send back. Valid options are: NONE, YESNO, SIMREPLY, MULTICHOICE, and TEXT. (Level 3 command)

message_response ( INT TEXT ) (Level 3)
    Create message responses to deliver with the message. INT is a 2-byte number. The total number of definable responses may be limited by your server. Some server may need you to call reply_type() before specifying responses.

message_status ( MSGID MSGID ) (Level 3)
    Get the message status from the remote server. Use the Message_Tag and Pass_Code from send_two_way() as the arguments to this method, and if your server supports it, you should be able to retrieve the status of a 2-way message. An array/arraref is returned with the following 5 elements:
     [0] Sequence
     [1] Date&Time
     [2] +/- GMT (if provided by server)
     [3] server-specific response text
     [4] numeric response code from server (i.e. 860 or 960)

send_two_way () (Level 3)
    Use this method instead of send() when working in Level 3 of the SNPP protocol. Before using this method, you have to build up your page using the other methods in the module, then use this at the very end to "submit" your page. An array/arrayref will be returned with the following 4 elements:
     [0] Message_Tag
     [1] Pass_Code
     [2] server-specific response text
     [3] numeric response code from server (i.e. 860 or 960)

    NOTE: This is only the SEND command - you have to build the page using various methods from this module before calling this method.

2WAY EXAMPLES
 use Net::SNPP;

 my $snpp = Net::SNPP->new( "snpp.provider.com" );
 $snpp->two_way();
 $snpp->pager_id( 5555555555 );
 $snpp->data( "The sky is falling!\nThe sky is falling!" );
 $snpp->message_response( 1, "Don't Panic" );
 $snpp->message_response( 2, "Panic!" );
 my @result = $snpp->send_two_way();
 $snpp->quit();
 printf "Use these two numbers: \"%s %s\" to check message status.\n",
        $result[0], $result[1];

 __END__

 use Net::SNPP;

 my $snpp = Net::SNPP->new( "snpp.provider.com" );
 my @status = $snpp->message_status( $ARGV[0], $ARGV[1] );
 $snpp->quit;

 printf "User responded with: %s\n", $status[3];

EXPORTS
"Net::SNPP" exports all that "Net::CMD" exports, plus three more subroutines that can bu used to compare against the result of "status". These are :- "CMD_2WAYERROR", "CMD_2WAYOK", and "CMD_2WAYQUEUED".

SEE ALSO
Net::Cmd RFC1861

AUTHOR
Derek J. Balling <dredd@megacity.org> ( original version by Graham Barr ) Al Tobey <tobeya@tobert.org> (since Oct 2003)

COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 1995-2001 Graham Barr. (c) 2001-2003 Derek J. Balling. All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

$Id: SNPP.pm,v 1.9 2004/01/27 22:18:32 tobeya Exp $