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send(3)               User Contributed Perl Documentation              send(3)




NAME

       Tk::send - Execute a command in a different application


SYNOPSIS

           $result = $widget->send(?options,?app=>cmd?arg arg ...?)


DESCRIPTION

       This method arranges for cmd (and args) to be 'sent' to the application
       named by app.  It returns the result or an error (hence above should
       probably be 'wrapped' in eval{} and $@ tested).  App may be the name of
       any application whose main window is on the display containing the
       sender's main window;  it need not be within the same process.  If no
       arg arguments are present, then the string to be sent is contained
       entirely within the cmd argument.  If one or more args are present,
       they are concatenated separated by white space to form the string to be
       sent.

       If the initial arguments of the call begin with ``-'' they are treated
       as options.  The following options are currently defined:

       -async
           Requests asynchronous invocation.  In this case the send command
           will complete immediately without waiting for cmd to complete in
           the target application;  no result will be available and errors in
           the sent command will be ignored.  If the target application is in
           the same process as the sending application then the -async option
           is ignored.

       --  Serves no purpose except to terminate the list of options.  This
           option is needed only if app could contain a leading ``-''
           character.


APPLICATION NAMES

       The name of an application is set initially from the name of the
       program or script that created the application.  You can query and
       change the name of an application with the appname method.


WHAT IS A SEND

       The send mechanism was designed to allow Tcl/Tk applications to send
       Tcl Scripts to each other. This does not map very well onto perl/Tk.
       Perl/Tk "sends" a string to app, what happens as a result of this
       depends on the receiving application. If the other application is a
       Tcl/Tk4.*  application it will be treated as a Tcl Script. If the
       "other" application is perl/Tk application (including sends to self)
       then the string is passed as an argument to a method call of the
       following form:

       $mainwindow->Receive(string);

       There is a default (AutoLoaded) Tk::Receive which returns an error to
       the sending application. A particular application may define its own
       Receive method in any class in MainWindow's inheritance tree to do
       whatever it sees fit. For example it could eval the string, possibly in
       a Safe "compartment".

       If a Tcl/Tk application "sends" anything to a perl/Tk application then
       the perl/Tk application would have to attempt to interpret the incoming
       string as a Tcl Script. Simple cases are should not be too hard to
       emulate (split on white space and treat first element as "command" and
       other elements as arguments).


SECURITY

       The send command is potentially a serious security loophole, since any
       application that can connect to your X server can send scripts to your
       applications. Hence the default behaviour outlined above.  (With the
       availability of Safe it may make sense to relax default behaviour a
       little.)

       Unmonitored eval'ing of these incoming "scripts" can cause perl to read
       and write files and invoke subprocesses under your name.  Host-based
       access control such as that provided by xhost is particularly insecure,
       since it allows anyone with an account on particular hosts to connect
       to your server, and if disabled it allows anyone anywhere to connect to
       your server.  In order to provide at least a small amount of security,
       core Tk checks the access control being used by the server and rejects
       incoming sends unless (a) xhost-style access control is enabled (i.e.
       only certain hosts can establish connections) and (b) the list of
       enabled hosts is empty.  This means that applications cannot connect to
       your server unless they use some other form of authorization such as
       that provide by xauth.


SEE ALSO

       "eval" in perlfunc, Safe, system's administrator/corporate security
       guidelines etc.


KEYWORDS

       application, name, remote execution, security, send



perl v5.18.0                      2012-11-12                           send(3)

perl-Tk 804.030_502 - Generated Sat Aug 17 19:21:53 CDT 2013
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