pyapns

= pyapns

• http://pyapns.org

== DESCRIPTION: :title: The Ruby API

:section: PYAPNS::Client There's python in my ruby!

This is a class used to send notifications, provision applications and retrieve feedback using the Apple Push Notification Service.

PYAPNS is a multi-application APS provider, meaning it is possible to send notifications to any number of different applications from the same application and same server. It is also possible to scale the client to any number of processes and servers, simply balanced behind a simple web proxy.

It may seem like overkill for such a bare interface - after all, the APS service is rather simplistic. However, PYAPNS takes no shortcuts when it comes to completeness/compliance with the APNS protocol and allows the user many optimization and scaling vectors not possible with other libraries. No bandwidth is wasted, connections are persistent and the server is asynchronous therefore notifications are delivered immediately.

PYAPNS takes after the design of 3rd party push notification service that charge a fee each time you push a notification, and charge extra for so-called 'premium' service which supposedly gives you quicker access to the APS servers. However, PYAPNS is free, as in beer and offers more scaling opportunities without the financial draw.

:section: Provisioning

To add your app to the PYAPNS server, it must be provisioned at least once. Normally this is done once upon the start-up of your application, be it a web service, desktop application or whatever... It must be done at least once to the server you're connecting to. Multiple instances of PYAPNS will have to have their applications provisioned individually. To provision an application manually use the PYAPNS::Client#provision method.

require 'pyapns'
client = PYAPNS::Client.configure
client.provision :app_id => 'cf', :cert => '/home/ss/cert.pem', :env => 'sandbox', :timeout => 15

This basically says "add an app reference named 'cf' to the server and start a connection using the certification, and if it can't within 15 seconds, raise a PYAPNS::TimeoutException

That's all it takes to get started. Of course, this can be done automatically by using PYAPNS::ClientConfiguration middleware. PYAPNS::Client is a singleton class that is configured using the class method PYAPNS::Client#configure. It is sensibly configured by default, but can be customized by specifying a hash See the docs on PYAPNS::ClientConfiguration for a list of available configuration parameters (some of these are important, and you can specify initial applications) to be configured by default.

:section: Sending Notifications

Once your client is configured, and application provisioned (again, these should be taken care of before you write notification code) you can begin sending notifications to users. If you're wondering how to acquire a notification token, you've come to the wrong place... I recommend using google. However, if you want to send hundreds of millions of notifications to users, here's how it's done, one at a time...

The PYAPNS::Client#notify is a sort of polymorphic method which can notify any number of devices at a time. It's basic form is as follows:

client.notify 'cf', 'long ass app token', {:aps=> {:alert => 'hello?'}}

However, as stated before, it is sort of polymorphic:

client.notify 'cf', ['token', 'token2', 'token3'], [alert, alert2, alert3]

client.notify :app_id => 'cf', :tokens => 'mah token', :notifications => alertHash

client.notify 'cf', 'token', PYAPNS::Notification('hello tits!')

As you can see, the method accepts paralell arrays of tokens and notifications meaning any number of notifications can be sent at once. Hashes will be automatically converted to PYAPNS::Notification objects so they can be optimized for the wire (nil values removed, etc...), and you can pass PYAPNS::Notification objects directly if you wish.

:section: Retrieving Feedback

The APS service offers a feedback functionality that allows application servers to retrieve a list of device tokens it deems to be no longer in use, and the time it thinks they stopped being useful (the user uninstalled your app, better luck next time...) Sounds pretty straight forward, and it is. Apple recommends you do this at least once an hour. PYAPNS will return a list of 2-element lists with the date and the token:

feedbacks = client.feedback 'cf'

:section: Asynchronous Calls

PYAPNS::Client will, by default, perform no funny stuff and operate entirely within the calling thread. This means that certain applications may hang when, say, sending a notification, if only for a fraction of a second. Obviously not a desirable trait, all provision, feedback and notify methods also take a block, which indicates to the method you want to call PYAPNS asynchronously, and it will be done so handily in another thread, calling back your block with a single argument when finished. Note that notify and provision return absolutely nothing (nil, for you rub--wait you are ruby developers!). It is probably wise to always use this form of operation so your calling thread is never blocked (especially important in UI-driven apps and asynchronous servers) Just pass a block to provision/notify/feedback like so:

PYAPNS::Client.instance.feedback do |feedbacks|
  feedbacks.each { |f| trim_token f }
end

:section: PYAPNS::ClientConfiguration A middleware class to make PYAPNS::Client easy to use in web contexts

Automates configuration of the client in Rack environments using a simple confiuration middleware. To use PYAPNS::Client in Rack environments with the least code possible use PYAPNS::ClientConfiguration (no, really, in some cases, that's all you need!) middleware with an optional hash specifying the client variables. Options are as follows:

 use PYAPNS::ClientConfiguration(
      :host => 'http://localhost/' 
      :port => 7077,
      :initial => [{
          :app_id => 'myapp',
          :cert => '/home/myuser/apps/myapp/cert.pem',
          :env => 'sandbox',
          :timeout => 15
 }])

Where the configuration variables are defined:

:host     String      the host where the server can be found
:port     Number      the port to which the client should connect
:initial  Array       OPTIONAL - an array of INITIAL hashes

INITIAL HASHES:

:app_id   String      the id used to send messages with this certification
                      can be a totally arbitrary value
:cert     String      a path to the certification or the certification file
                      as a string
:env      String      the environment to connect to apple with, always
                      either 'sandbox' or 'production'
:timoeut  Number      The timeout for the server to use when connecting
                      to the apple servers

:section: PYAPNS::Notification An APNS Notification

You can construct notification objects ahead of time by using this class. However unnecessary, it allows you to programmatically generate a Notification like so:

note = PYAPNS::Notification.new 'alert text', 9, 'flynn.caf', {:extra => 'guid'}

-- or --
note = PYAPNS::Notification.new 'alert text'

These can be passed to PYAPNS::Client#notify the same as hashes

== FEATURES/PROBLEMS:

• XML-RPC Based, works with any client in any language
• Native Python API with Django and Pylons support
• Native Ruby API with Rails/Rack support
• Scalable, fast and easy to distribute behind a proxy
• Based on Twisted
• Multi-application and dual environment support
• Simplified feedback interface

== SYNOPSIS:

require 'pyapns' c = PYAPNS::Client.configure c.notify('myapp', 'token', 'notification')

== REQUIREMENTS:

• pyapns >=0.3.0

== INSTALL:

sudo gem install pyapns sudo easy_install-2.6 pyapns

== LICENSE:

(The MIT License)

Copyright (c) 2010 Samuel Webster Sutch

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the 'Software'), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED 'AS IS', WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.