358
edits
Ommina
Joined 21 September 2007
→Introduction
(New page: == Notify Commands == === Introduction === Broadly speaking, notifications provide an indication to the client that some event has occurred within the AniDB database. There are three ty...) |
|||
| Line 10: | Line 10: | ||
* New buddy event notification. | * New buddy event notification. | ||
Note that, while a user can subscribe to multiple 'new file' events ( | Note that, while a user can subscribe to multiple 'new file' events (see [[Notifications|notifications]]), at present, the UDP API only supports notifications of new files by anime. New files by group, or new files by producer, are NOT presently supported. Just the same, keeping in mind that the API is designed to potentially support such notifications in the future will help in understanding why some of the commands are structured the way they are. | ||
Clients that wish to receive notifications have two routes available to them. They are by no means mutually exclusive and selecting one does not imply a client is unable to use commands from another. | |||
'''Method One: Polling''' | |||
With this method, the client contacts the server at some interval (no more than once every 20 minutes) to see if there are new file notifications waiting. If there are, the client can the get further details of the files in question. This is analogous to checking an email server every half hour to see if new email has arrived. | |||
It's principal advantage is that it is easy to design and code. Blocking sockets are sufficient as the client can expect the reply received to correspond with the command sent. | |||
The disadvantage of this approach is that it introduces a delay and some uncertainty in receiving notifications. If, for example, the user clears the notification on the website before the client collects it, the client will not learn of the new file. Similarly, if the user does not dismiss notifications via the site, the client will have an increasing amount of stale data to work though. Finally, notifications cleared by the client also clears them from the website, so users will need to be made aware of what is going on. | |||
A polling HOWTO: | |||
* Use NOTIFY (no more than once every 20 minutes) to get the number of pending notifications | |||
* IF there are new notifications pending, use NOTIFYLIST to get a list of notification types and associated IDs. | |||
Two HOWTOs... | Two HOWTOs... | ||