Fellow Monks,

I am currently creating a server / multi-client program.

The tool is supposed to query each client about changes in a set of (locally) defined files. The clients are to send the filenames back to the server.

The server should accept the client connection and move the handling to a seperate thread to wait for a new connection. When the user clicks a button, the server will send a command to the client, triggering the local process.

Until now I have only worked withone client, which I block by having it waiting for a queue to conatain something. It would work the same with mulitple clients, but: As I can't be sure how many conenctions I will get, I can't create the queues at program start. ... Well I could create a set of queues larger the my max amount of expected connections, but having dummy queues around isn't very elegant, I believe.

So I have thought about creating the queues after connection of a client and giving it a name like: $restque1 , $restque2, .. I tried doing so with ${restque."$i"}... where $i is the no of connection. But that doesn't work. It gives me an error: Can't declare scalar dereference in "our" at ISIS-OTN.pl line 905, near "} ="

Any help on how to set the threads to sleep and wake them on a button click?

My code looks like this:

sub PortListener {
###########################
# Listening and monitoring Client connections #                
###########################
    my $Thread;
    my $client_name;
    my $lsn = new IO::Socket::INET(Listen => 1, LocalPort => $port);
    my $sel = new IO::Select($lsn);
    my $j;
    while(my @ready = $sel->can_read) {                    # as long a
+s we can read from     
        foreach my $fh (@ready) {
            if($fh == $lsn) {
                # Create a new socket
                my ($new, $c_addr) = $lsn->accept;
                $sel->add($new);
                my ($client_port, $client_ip) = sockaddr_in($c_addr); 
                my $client_ipnum = inet_ntoa($client_ip);
                my $i;
                for $i ( 0 .. $#HostList ) {
                    if ($client_ipnum eq $HostList[$i][1]){
                        $client_name = $HostList[$i][0];
                        $HostList[$i][2] = 1;
                        my $dummy_name = "HostConn_$i";
                        $main->$dummy_name->Text("connected");
                        $main->$dummy_name->Change( -foreground => [ 0
+, 255, 0 ] );
                        $main->$dummy_name->InvalidateRect(1);
                        $j = $i;
                        last;
                    }
                }
                print "got a connection from: $client_name [$client_ip
+num]\n"; 
                if ($client_name eq "Win1") {
                    my $Thread = threads->create( "nautserver", $new);
+  #start the echo-server as a seperate thread
                }
                else {
                    my $Thread = threads->create( "restoreserver", $ne
+w, $j);  #start the echo-server as a seperate thread
                    our ${restque."$j"} = Thread::Queue->new;
                    }
                #$Thread->detach();
            }
            else {
                $sel->remove($fh);
                my $client_ip = IO::Socket::INET::peeraddr($fh);
                my $client_ipnum = inet_ntoa($client_ip);
                print "$client_ipnum resigned \n";
                STDOUT->autoflush(1);
                my $i;
                for $i ( 0 .. $#HostList ) {
                    if ($client_ipnum eq $HostList[$i][1]){
                        $client_name = $HostList[$i][0];
                        $HostList[$i][2] = 0;
                        my $dummy_name = "HostConn_$i";
                        $main->$dummy_name->Text("disconnected");
                        $main->$dummy_name->Change( -foreground => [ 2
+55, 0, 0 ] );
                        $main->$dummy_name->InvalidateRect(1);
                        last;
                    }
                }
                if ($client_name eq "Win1") {
                    $main->NautActualDisp->Text("connecting ...");
                    $run->RunNautActualDisp->Text("connecting ...");
                }
                $fh->close;
                $go->enqueue("2");    # This tells our nautserver that
+ it should terminate, as we will reopen a new socket
            }
        }
    }
}

sub restoreserver{
    my $session = $_[0];
    my $hostno = $_[1];
        print "Server for host number $hostno started\n";
    STDOUT->autoflush(1);
    while(1) { # keep looping for ever
        print "waiting for button\n";
        my $queuedvar =    ${restque."$hostno"}->dequeue; # sleep unti
+l something is in the queue
        print "Button clicked"; # or do something useful later
    }
}
[download]

and a snippet from the other connection manager:

while(1) { # keep looping for ever
        my $queuedvar =    $go->dequeue; # sleep until something is in
+ the queue
        if ($queuedvar eq "2") { # if it's a 2 terminate
            last;
        }
        # else go on
        if ($use_startstop == 1) {
                $startstoppdu = "True";
        }
        elsif ($use_startstop == 0) {
                $startstoppdu = "False";
        }
            
            $send_data = "PUT:" . $nautilus_auto . ":" . $startstoppdu
+;
            $session->send($send_data);
            $session->recv($received_data,10000);
            my @data = split(/:/,$received_data);
            $nautilus_win=$data[1];
            $startstoppdu = $data[2];
            if ($startstoppdu eq "True") {
                $use_startstop = 1;
            }
            elsif ($startstoppdu eq "False") {
                $use_startstop = 0;
            }
        }
[download]

Thanks a billion for your help.
Sven