NAME

Net::Cmd - Network Command class (as used by FTP, SMTP etc)

SYNOPSIS

    use Net::Cmd;
    
    @ISA = qw(Net::Cmd);

DESCRIPTION

Net::Cmd is a collection of methods that can be inherited by a sub class of IO::Handle. These methods implement the functionality required for a command based protocol, for example FTP and SMTP.

USER METHODS

These methods provide a user interface to the Net::Cmd object.

debug ( VALUE )

Set the level of debug information for this object. If VALUE is not given then the current state is returned. Otherwise the state is changed to VALUE and the previous state returned.

Set the level of debug information for this object. If no argument is given then the current state is returned. Otherwise the state is changed to $valueand the previous state returned. Different packages may implement different levels of debug but, a non-zero value result in copies of all commands and responses also being sent to STDERR.

If VALUE is undef then the debug level will be set to the default debug level for the class.

This method can also be called as a static method to set/get the default debug level for a given class.

message ()

Returns the text message returned from the last command

code ()

Returns the 3-digit code from the last command. If a command is pending then the value 0 is returned

ok ()

Returns non-zero if the last code value was greater than zero and less than 400. This holds true for most command servers. Servers where this does not hold may override this method.

status ()

Returns the most significant digit of the current status code. If a command is pending then CMD_PENDING is returned.

datasend ( DATA )

Send data to the remote server, converting LF to CRLF. Any line starting with a '.' will be prefixed with another '.'. DATA may be an array or a reference to an array.

dataend ()

End the sending of data to the remote server. This is done by ensuring that the data already sent ends with CRLF then sending '.CRLF' to end the transmission. Once this data has been sent dataend calls response and returns true if response returns CMD_OK.

CLASS METHODS

These methods are not intended to be called by the user, but used or over-ridden by a sub-class of Net::Cmd

debug_print ( DIR, TEXT )

Print debugging information. DIR denotes the direction true being data being sent to the server. Calls debug_text before printing to STDERR.

debug_text ( TEXT )

This method is called to print debugging information. TEXT is the text being sent. The method should return the text to be printed

This is primarily meant for the use of modules such as FTP where passwords are sent, but we do not want to display them in the debugging information.

command ( CMD [, ARGS, ... ])

Send a command to the command server. All arguments a first joined with a space character and CRLF is appended, this string is then sent to the command server.

Returns undef upon failure

unsupported ()

Sets the status code to 580 and the response text to 'Unsupported command'. Returns zero.

response ()

Obtain a response from the server. Upon success the most significant digit of the status code is returned. Upon failure, timeout etc., undef is returned.

parse_response ( TEXT )

This method is called by response as a method with one argument. It should return an array of 2 values, the 3-digit status code and a flag which is true when this is part of a multi-line response and this line is not the list.

getline ()

Retrieve one line, delimited by CRLF, from the remote server. Returns undef upon failure.

NOTE: If you do use this method for any reason, please remember to add some debug_print calls into your method.

ungetline ( TEXT )

Unget a line of text from the server.

read_until_dot ()

Read data from the remote server until a line consisting of a single '.'. Any lines starting with '..' will have one of the '.'s removed.

Returns a reference to a list containing the lines, or undef upon failure.

EXPORTS

Net::Cmd exports six subroutines, five of these, CMD_INFO, CMD_OK, CMD_MORE, CMD_REJECT and CMD_ERROR ,correspond to possible results of response and status. The sixth is CMD_PENDING.

AUTHOR

Graham Barr