bulknews.typepad.com

Module Updates

Today I've uploaded new versions of Class::DBI::SQLite and Apache::Singleton. Both release are bug fix, to be compatible with newer SQLite and Apache2.

PHP::Session array issue

Someone has requested me to add a new feature to get PHP array back as a Perl array, in PHP::Session.

I think it can be done if we have a new method get_array(), to implicitly get array variables as Perl arrray ref:

sub get_array {
    my($self, $key) = @_;
    my $hashref = $self->get($key);
    return [ map $hashref->{$_}, sort { $a <=> $b } keys %$hashref ];
}

Additionaly, we can allow an object option (like auto_interpolate_array) to allow automatic conversion from PHP array to Perl array.

Suggestions are welcome.

rss2audiobook

rss2audiobook is a Perl script that converts your RSS feed into iPod playable audible audiobook format.

It uses Microsoft Speech SDK via Win32::SAPI5 to make wav file from text content, then encodes the wav file into AAC (m4a) using Apple iTunes COM and finally renames .m4a to .m4b so that it can be recognized as an audiobook file by iPod. Pretty nice collaboration of Microsoft and Apple, glued by Perl Win32 magic!

It'll be an interesting hack to make RSS 2.0 enclosure from your RSS feed automaticaly, to enable Podcasting without speaking your Blog entry by yourself ;)

XS on Win32 hassle

I'm working on Apple's Rendezvous Windows SDK port to Perl on win32 using XS. Currently, DNSRegisterService seems to work, but it has a problem with select() which works in usual C program, but breaks in XS module.

Here's a sample C program rendezvous.c that works. It produces an output like:

C:> rendezvous.exe
fd: 1992
got result: 1
Got a reply for Astoria._daap._tcp.local.: Name now registered and active

While simply converted XS module Rendezvous.zip that is broken. It produces:

> perl -Mblib -MRendezvous -w -e "Rendezvous::main()"
fd: 1960
got result: -1
select() returned -1 errno 0 No error

the difference is select() that returns -1 on XS version... I'm afraid it's due to something around win32 libraries like winsock. (I've built both of them using cl.exe which comes from Microsoft .NET Framework SDK, and Microsoft Platform SDK header files)

If you are familiar with Win32 things and take your time to look into the code, it'll be greatly appreciated.

Bloglines module

Again, long time no blogging on use Perl (My own blog is at http://blog.bulknews.net/mt/ if you can read Japanese).

These days I've been playing with new Bloglines Web Services API and iTunes/iPod stuff on Windows. WebService-Bloglines is an easy-to-use Bloglines CPAN module. bloglines2ipod is a tiny script that fetches Bloglines unread items and syncs them into iPod Notes folder. You can read Bloglines new articles on iPod ;)