# NAME

POE::Component::Client::Keepalive - manage connections, with keep-alive

# VERSION

version 0.269

# SYNOPSIS

  use warnings;
  use strict;

  use POE;
  use POE::Component::Client::Keepalive;

  POE::Session->create(
    inline_states => {
      _start    => \&start,
      got_conn  => \&got_conn,
      got_error => \&handle_error,
      got_input => \&handle_input,
    }
  );

  POE::Kernel->run();
  exit;

  sub start {
    $_[HEAP]->{ka} = POE::Component::Client::Keepalive->new();

    $_[HEAP]->{ka}->allocate(
      scheme  => "http",
      addr    => "127.0.0.1",
      port    => 9999,
      event   => "got_conn",
      context => "arbitrary data (even a reference) here",
      timeout => 60,
    );

    print "Connection is in progress.\n";
  }

  sub got_conn {
    my ($kernel, $heap, $response) = @_[KERNEL, HEAP, ARG0];

    my $conn    = $response->{connection};
    my $context = $response->{context};

    if (defined $conn) {
      if ($response->{from_cache}) {
        print "Connection was established immediately.\n";
      }
      else {
        print "Connection was established asynchronously.\n";
      }

      $conn->start(
        InputEvent => "got_input",
        ErrorEvent => "got_error",
      );
      return;
    }

    print(
      "Connection could not be established: ",
      "$response->{function} error $response->{error_num}: ",
      "$response->{error_str}\n"
    );
  }

  sub handle_input {
    my $input = $_[ARG0];
    print "$input\n";
  }

  sub handle_error {
    my $heap = $_[HEAP];
    delete $heap->{connection};
    $heap->{ka}->shutdown();
  }

# DESCRIPTION

POE::Component::Client::Keepalive creates and manages connections for
other components.  It maintains a cache of kept-alive connections for
quick reuse.  It is written specifically for clients that can benefit
from kept-alive connections, such as HTTP clients.  Using it for
one-shot connections would probably be silly.

- new

Creates a new keepalive connection manager.  A program may contain
several connection managers.  Each will operate independently of the
others.  None will know about the limits set in the others, so it's
possible to overrun your file descriptors for a process if you're not
careful.

new() takes up to five parameters.  All of them are optional.

To limit the number of simultaneous connections to a particular host
(defined by a combination of scheme, address and port):

  max_per_host => $max_simultaneous_host_connections, # defaults to 4

To limit the overall number of connections that may be open at once,
use

  max_open     => $maximum_open_connections, # defaults to 128

Programs are required to give connections back to the manager when
they are done.  See the free() method for how that works.  The
connection manager will keep connections alive for a period of time
before recycling them.  The maximum keep-alive time may be set with

  keep_alive   => $seconds_to_keep_free_conns_alive, # defaults to 15

Programs may not want to wait a long time for a connection to be
established.  They can set the request timeout to alter how long the
component holds a request before generating an error.

  timeout      => $seconds_to_process_a_request, # defaults to 120

Specify a bind_address to bind all client sockets to a particular
local address.  The value of bind_address will be passed directly to
POE::Wheel::SocketFactory.  See that module's documentation for
implementation details.

- allocate

Allocate a new connection.  Allocate() will return a request ID
immediately.  The allocated connection, however, will be posted back
to the requesting session.  This happens even if the connection was
found in the component's keep-alive cache.  It's a bit slower, but the
use cases are cleaner that way.

Allocate() requires five parameters and has an optional sixth.

Specify the scheme that will be used to communicate on the connection
(typically http or https).  The scheme is required, but you're free to
make something up here.  It's used internally to differentiate
different types of socket (e.g., ssl vs. cleartext) on the same
address and port.

  scheme  => $connection_scheme,

Request a connection to a particular address and port.  The address
and port must be numeric.  Both the address and port are required.

  address => $remote_address,
  port    => $remote_port,

Specify an name of the event to post when an asynchronous response is
ready.  This is of course required.

  event   => $return_event,

Set the connection timeout, in seconds.  The connection manager will
post back an error message if it can't establish a connection within
the requested time.  This parameter is optional.  It will default to
the master timeout provided to the connection manager's constructor.

  timeout => $connect_timeout,

Specify additional contextual data.  The context defines the
connection's purpose.  It is used to maintain continuity between a
call to allocate() and an asynchronous response.  A context is
extremely handy, but it's optional.

  context => $context_data,

In summary:

  $mgr->allocate(
    scheme   => "http",
    address  => "127.0.0.1",
    port     => 80,
    event    => "got_a_connection",
    context  => \%connection_context,
  );

The response event ("got_a_connection" in this example) contains
several fields, passed as a list of key/value pairs.  The list may be
assigned to a hash for convenience:

  sub got_a_connection {
    my %response = @_[ARG0..$#_];
    ...;
  }

Four of the fields exist to echo back your data:

  $response{address}    = $your_request_address;
  $response{context}    = $your_request_context;
  $response{port}       = $your_request_port;
  $response{scheme}     = $your_request_scheme;

One field returns the connection object if the connection was
successful, or undef if there was a failure:

  $response{connection} = $new_socket_handle;

On success, another field tells you whether the connection contains
all new materials.  That is, whether the connection has been recycled
from the component's cache or created anew.

  $response{from_cache} = $status;

The from_cache status may be "immediate" if the connection was
immediately available from the cache.  It will be "deferred" if the
connection was reused, but another user had to release it first.
Finally, from_cache will be false if the connection had to be created
to satisfy allocate().

Three other fields return error information if the connection failed.
They are not present if the connection was successful.

  $response{function}   = $name_of_failing_function;
  $response{error_num}  = $! as a number;
  $response{error_str}  = $! as a string;

- free

Free() notifies the connection manager when connections are free to be
reused.  Freed connections are entered into the keep-alive pool and
may be returned by subsequent allocate() calls.

  $mgr->free($socket);

For now free() is called with a socket, not a connection object.  This
is usually not a problem since POE::Component::Connection::Keepalive
objects call free() for you when they are destroyed.

Not calling free() will cause a program to leak connections.  This is
also not generally a problem, since free() is called automatically
whenever connection objects are destroyed.

- deallocate

Cancel a connection that has not yet been established.  Requires one
parameter, the request ID returned by allocate().

- shutdown

The keep-alive pool requires connections to be active internally.
This may keep a program active even when all connections are idle.
The shutdown() method forces the connection manager to clear its
keep-alive pool, allowing a program to terminate gracefully.

  $mgr->shutdown();

# SEE ALSO

[POE](http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?POE)
[POE::Component::Connection::Keepalive](http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?POE::Component::Connection::Keepalive)

# LICENSE

This distribution is copyright 2004-2009 by Rocco Caputo.  All rights
are reserved.  This distribution is free software; you may
redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

# AUTHOR

Rocco Caputo <rcaputo@cpan.org>

# CONTRIBUTORS

Rob Bloodgood helped out a lot.  Thank you.

Joel Bernstein solved some nasty race conditions.  Portugal Telecom
[http://www.sapo.pt/](http://www.sapo.pt/) was kind enough to support his contributions.

# BUG TRACKER

https://rt.cpan.org/Dist/Display.html?Queue=POE-Component-Client-Keepalive

# REPOSITORY

http://gitorious.org/poe-component-client-keepalive
http://github.com/rcaputo/poe-component-client-keepalive

# OTHER RESOURCES

http://search.cpan.org/dist/POE-Component-Client-Keepalive/