POE-Event-Message
=================

This small set of classes is a starting point for creating a generic 
application messaging protocol. The intent is for these to be used as 
a foundation when building networked and/or event-driven applications
such as Web services.

Features of POE::Event::Message include the following.

. Messages of this class have flexible routing capabilities
  that work both inside and outside POE-based applications.

. A 'local' message routing mechanism is designed to be
  plug-compatible with POE's existing 'postback' mechanism.
  This is referred to as a 'routeback' mechanism in this class.

. A 'remote' message routing mechanism can be used by message-based
  client scripts, or perhaps as a simple alternative to the 'IKC' 
  (Inter Kernel Communication) mechanism.
 
. Messages are delivered based on the type of the destination. 
  A 'local' routing will trigger a POE 'post' or 'call' event,
  while a 'remote' routing invokes a socket connection to a
  particular host and port. 

. In addition, this class has the ability to introduce
  multiple 'forward' and/or 'reverse' routing to multiple
  event and/or remote host destinations. This allows for 
  temporary interruption of normal message flow, without
  any of the original participants (events or whatever)
  knowing or caring. 
 
. Messages can also be sent through a file handle, such as
  from a non-POE child to a POE-based parent process.

. Messages can contain almost anything including binary data
  and complex Perl data structures. 


Note that POE and the POE kernel are not requirements for using 
these classes. Time::Hires is highly recommended (as, without it, 
there is a small but real possibility of generating duplicate 
message identifiers).


INSTALLATION

To install this module type the following:

   perl Makefile.PL
   make
   make test
   make install


DEPENDENCIES

This module requires the following modules and libraries.
The POE kernel is not a requirement for this module.

 POE::Driver::SysRW
 POE::Filter::Reference

 Time::HiRes  - Optional, but highly recommended


COPYRIGHT AND LICENCE

Copyright (C) 2005-2007 by Chris Cobb
This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the same terms as Perl itself, either Perl version 5.8.8 or,
at your option, any later version of Perl 5 you may have available.