How can I make my Perl Jabber bot an event-driven program? - perl

Question

I'm trying to make a Jabber bot and I am having trouble keeping it running while waiting for messages. How do I get my script to continuously run? I have tried calling a subroutine that has a while loop that I, in theory, have set up to check for any messages and react accordingly but my script isn't behaving that way.
Here is my source: http://pastebin.com/03Habbvh
# set jabber bot callbacks
$jabberBot->SetMessageCallBacks(chat=>\&chat);
$jabberBot->SetPresenceCallBacks(available=>\&welcome,unavailable=>\&killBot);
$jabberBot->SetCallBacks(receive=>\&prnt,iq=>\&gotIQ);
$jabberBot->PresenceSend(type=>"available");
$jabberBot->Process(1);
sub welcome
{
print "Welcome!\n";
$jabberBot->MessageSend(to=>$jbrBoss->GetJID(),subject=>"",body=>"Hello There!",type=>"chat",priority=>10);
&keepItGoing;
}
sub prnt
{
print $_[1]."\n";
}
#$jabberBot->MessageSend(to=>$jbrBoss->GetJID(),subject=>"",body=>"Hello There! Global...",type=>"chat",priority=>10);
#$jabberBot->Process(5);
#&keepItGoing;
sub chat
{
my ($sessionID,$msg) = #_;
$dump->pl2xml($msg);
if($msg->GetType() ne 'get' && $msg->GetType() ne 'set' && $msg->GetType() ne '')
{
my $jbrCmd = &trimSpaces($msg->GetBody());
my $dbQry = $dbh->prepare("SELECT command,acknowledgement FROM commands WHERE message = '".lc($jbrCmd)."'");
$dbQry->execute();
if($dbQry->rows() > 0 && $jbrCmd !~ /^insert/si)
{
my $ref = $dbQry->fetchrow_hashref();
$dbQry->finish();
$jabberBot->MessageSend(to=>$msg->GetFrom(),subject=>"",body=>$ref->{'acknowledgement'},type=>"chat",priority=>10);
eval $ref->{'command'};
&keepItGoing;
}
else
{
$jabberBot->MessageSend(to=>$msg->GetFrom(),subject=>"",body=>"I didn't understand you!",type=>"chat",priority=>10);
$dbQry->finish();
&keepItGoing;
}
}
}
sub gotIQ
{
print "iq\n";
}
sub trimSpaces
{
my $string = $_[0];
$string =~ s/^\s+//; #remove leading spaces
$string =~ s/\s+$//; #remove trailing spaces
return $string;
}
sub keepItGoing
{
print "keepItGoing!\n";
my $proc = $jabberBot->Process(1);
while(defined($proc) && $proc != 1)
{
$proc = $jabberBot->Process(1);
}
}
sub killBot
{
print "killing\n";
$jabberBot->MessageSend(to=>$_[0]->GetFrom(),subject=>"",body=>"Logging Out!",type=>"chat",priority=>10);
$jabberBot->Process(1);
$jabberBot->Disconnect();
exit;
}

Answer 1

POE has some pretty good event frameworks. I don't know how good the one for Jabber (POE::Component::Jabber) is, but it's probably worth looking at.

Answer 2

AnyEvent::XMPP is ridiculously comprehensive, and, since it uses AnyEvent, can be run in any event driven application with a supported loop (AnyEvent's own, Event, EV, Tk, Glib/Gtk, even POE).

Answer 3

I think you can make your example work by doing this:
0 while $jabber->Process
Having said that, I would strongly recommend using a proper Event handling framework such as AnyEvent (my personal favorite) or POE (the traditional choice).