#!/usr/bin/perl

$|++;
use strict;
use warnings;

our $DEBUG = 1;

my $query = $ARGV[0] || 'default data';

print client($query);

sub client {
  use IO::Socket; # <- here for when this sub grows up to become an object method

  # do some basic setup stuff
  my $info = shift;
  return "No info!" unless ($info);

  my @ips = ('XXX.XXX.XXX.X0','XXX.XXX.XXX.X1','XXX.XXX.XXX.X2');
  my $port = XXXX;
  # grab an IP randomly
  my $index = int(rand(scalar @ips));

  # try to connect once for each IP
  my $sock;
  for (my $counter = 0; $counter < scalar @ips; $counter++) {
    # debug output
    print "Trying $ips[$index]... " if ($DEBUG);
    # try to connect
    $sock = IO::Socket::INET->new(  PeerAddr => $ips[$index].':'.$port,
                                    Blocking => 1,
                                    Timeout  => 1, ### The key param that I had been missing!!!
                                  );
    # success!
    if ($sock) {
      print "OK!\n" if ($DEBUG);
      last;
    }
    # failure
    print "Nope\n" if ($DEBUG);
    # get previous IP (loops around if negative, pretty sweet)
    $index--;
  }

  # return error if all 3 failed
  return "no sock!" unless ($sock);

  # write to socket
  print $sock $info.$/ or die "$!";

  # read from socket and close
  sysread $sock, my ($text), 10000;
  close($sock);
  
  return $text;
}