NAME

Process::Probe - Process to test if any named classes are installed

SYNOPSIS

  my $probe = Process::Probe->new( qw{
      My::Process
      CPAN::Module::Process
      Something::Else
  } );
  
  $probe->run;
  
  # Lists of classes
  my @yep   = $probe->available;
  my @nope  = $probe->unavailable;
  my @maybe = $probe->unknown;
  
  # Test for single class with any of the above
  if ( $probe->available('My::Process') ) {
      print "My::Process is available\n";
  }

DESCRIPTION

Process::Probe is a simple and standardised class available that is available with the core Process distribution. It is used to probe a host to determine whether or not the remote host has certain process classes installed.

By default, the object will search through the system's include path to find the .pm files that match the particular classes.

Typical examples of using the default functionality could include executing a Process::Probe object via a SSH login on a remote host to determine which of a set of desired classes exist on the remote host.

The probe will ONLY check for the existance of classes that are in the unknown state at the time the run method is called.

In scenarios where the requestor does not have direct execution rights on the remote host, and the request is being marshalled via a server process, this allows security code on the server to preset forbidden classes to no before the probe is run, or to otherwise manipulate the "answer" to the "question" that Process::Probe represents.

No functionality is provided to query ALL the Process-compatible classes on a remote host. This is intentional. It prevents very disk-intensive scans, protects remote host against hostile requests, and prevents the use of these objects en-mass as a denial of service.

SUPPORT

Bugs should be reported via the CPAN bug tracker at

http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=Process

For other issues, contact the author.

AUTHOR

Adam Kennedy <adamk@cpan.org>

SEE ALSO

http://ali.as/

COPYRIGHT

Copyright 2006 - 2011 Adam Kennedy.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

The full text of the license can be found in the LICENSE file included with this module.