Weblogs.Com Perl XML-RPC Ping Utility

I have written a small Perl utility that pings the Weblogs.Com server to notify it of a weblog change. It uses the standard IO::Socket package and therefore should not require the installation of additional packages.

The installation steps and source code are below (open the entry if not visible).

Installation

Copy the Perl source code from below and save to a local file name weblogUpdatesPing.pl.
Edit the file and change the first line to point to the correct location of your Perl executable. For example #!/usr/bin/perl on Un*x or #!c:\\perl\\bin\\perl.exe on Wintel.
Edit the $weblog\_name and $weblog\_url strings to contain the name and url of your weblog.

Now, assuming you have a valid Perl installation, you should be able to run the utility:

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perl weblogUpdatesPing.pl

If all goes well you should see a response similar this (wrapped for clarity):

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Pinging rpc.weblogs.com for weblog "Your Weblog Name" at "http://Your Weblog Url"
(0) : Thanks for the ping.

If an error occurs, the return code in the parens will be non-zero and the message will have a description of what possibly went wrong.

Cheers!

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#!/usr/bin/perl

#
# weblogUpdatesPing
# version: 1.0
# date:    2001.11.12
# author:  Hans Kellner
# website: http://www.hanskellner.com/
#
#
# A Perl subroutine that pings the "rpc.weblogs.com" server with a
# specified weblog name and url.
#
# Copyright (C) 2001 Hans Kellner.
#
# Note: Be sure to set the weblog name and url variables below.
#
# Specification: "http://www.xmlrpc.com/weblogsCom".
# Directory: "http://www.weblogs.com/"
#

#
# This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
# the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
# (at your option) any later version.
#
# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
# GNU General Public License for more details.
#
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
# along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
# Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA
#

use IO::Socket qw(:DEFAULT :crlf);

# The name and url of your Weblog.
# For example:
#    $weblog_name = "Go Mountain Biking!";
#    $weblog_url  = "http://www.gomtb.com/";
$weblog_name = "";
$weblog_url  = "";

#
# Pings the "rpc.weblogs.com" server with a Weblog name and url.
# See the specification at "http://www.xmlrpc.com/weblogsCom".
#
# usage: weblogUpdatesPing( name, url );
#           name    A string containing a descriptive name of your weblog.
#           url     An url to your weblog.
#
# returns: A string formatted "(retcode) : message".
#           retcode A return code; 0 if success, otherwise not 0.
#           message A string message describing success or failure.
#
sub weblogUpdatesPing($$)
{
    my $name = shift;
    my $url  = shift;

    if ( !$name || !$url ) {
        return "(-1) : Invalid weblog name or url.  Please set both.";
    }

    my $ret = "(-1) : Unknown error.";   # holds our return value

    # This is the xml-rpc request
    my $pingStr =
        "<?xml version=\"1.0\"?>" .
        "<methodCall>" .
        "    <methodName>weblogUpdates.ping</methodName>" .
        "    <params>" .
        "        <param><value>$name</value></param>" .
        "        <param><value>$url</value></param>" .
        "    </params>" .
            "</methodCall>";

    # Connect to the weblogs server
    my $remote = IO::Socket::INET->new(
        Proto    => "tcp",
        PeerAddr => "rpc.weblogs.com",
                                       PeerPort => "http(80)" );

    if ( $remote )
    {
        $remote->autoflush(1); # No buffering

        # Send the ping
        print $remote "POST /RPC2 HTTP/1.0$CRLF";
        print $remote "User-Agent: HansKellner.com weblogUpdatesPing tool$CRLF";
        print $remote "Host: rpc.weblogs.com$CRLF";
        print $remote "Content-Type: text/xml$CRLF";
        print $remote "Content-length: " . length($pingStr) . "$CRLF$CRLF";
        print $remote $pingStr;

        # Read the response
        $sockResp = "";
        while ( <$remote> ) {
            $sockResp = $sockResp . $_;
        }

        close $remote; # Close the socket

        # The response is in XML.  Retrieve the return code and message.
        $retCode = $sockResp;
        $retMsg  = $sockResp;

        # Strip out the XML up to and after the flerror code.
        $retCode =~ s/.*<boolean>//si;
        $retCode =~ s/<\/boolean>.*//si;

        # Strip out the XML up to and after the message.
        $retMsg =~ s/.*<\/boolean>//si;
        $retMsg =~ s/.*<value>//si;
        $retMsg =~ s/<\/value>.*//si;

        $ret = "($retCode) : $retMsg";
    }
    else
    {
        $ret = "(-1) : Cannot connect to http daemon on 'rpc.weblogs.com'";
    }

    return $ret;
}

# Ping the server.
print "\nPinging rpc.weblogs.com for weblog \"$weblog_name\" at \"$weblog_url\"\n\n";
$response = weblogUpdatesPing( $weblog_name, $weblog_url );
print "$response\n\n";

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