xpacommon(n)

💖 xpacommon(n) — XPACommon: Getting Common Information About Access Points 💖

okay bestie, sit down, hydrate, and let's talk about how to snoop on XPA access points, because this page is literally the cheat code 🫶 it's from the SAORD Documentation family, manual name xpacommon, and it's all about the generic tea you can pull on any access point.

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

There are like, so many kinds of generic info you can get about an XPA access point, and the way you get them is by using the xpaget command. that's it. that's the vibe. 💅

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

👑 who's even registered rn

You can find out which XPA access points have been registered with the currently running XPA name server by executing the xpaget command to retrieve info from the XPA name server:

xpaget xpans

So if, for example, the stest test server program is running, the following XPA access points will be returned — and heads up, the specifics of the returned info will vary for different machines and users:

XPA xpa gs 838e2f67:1262 eric
XPA xpa1 gs 838e2f67:1266 eric
XPA c_xpa gs 838e2f67:1267 eric
XPA i_xpa i 838e2f67:1268 eric

lowkey important: access to this information is subject to the usual XPA Access Control restrictions. so no sneaking, bestie. 🚫

🧚 reserved sub-commands, aka the secret menu

Every single XPA access point supports a bunch of reserved sub-commands that give you access to different kinds of information — like, say, the access control for that access point. You can run these sub-commands with xpaset or xpaget at the command line, or with XPAGet() or XPASet() inside programs. for example:

xpaget ds9 -acl
xpaget ds9 -help
xpaget ds9 env FOO

xpaset -p ds9 env FOO foofoo

⚠️ okay so the big caveat: with the exception of -help and -version, reserved sub-commands are available only on the machine on which the XPA server itself is running. not negotiable, that's just how it is. 😭

The following reserved sub-commands are defined for all access points:

• -acl — get (set) the access control list [options: host type acl, for set]
  • The xpaset option allows you to add a new acl for a given host, or change the acl for an existing host. See XPA Access Control for more information. This access point is available only on the server machine.
• -env — get (set) an environment variable [options: name (value, for set)]
  • The xpaget option will return the value of the named environment variable. The xpaset option will set the value of the names variable to the specified value. This access point is available only on the server machine. (Please be advised that we have had problems setting environment variables in static Tcl/Tk programs such as ds9 running under Linux.)
• -clipboard — set(get) information on a named clipboard
  • Clients can store ASCII state information on any number of named clipboards. Clipboards of the same name created by clients on different machines are kept separate. The syntax for creating a clipboard is:

[data] | xpaset [server] -clipboard add|append [clipboard_name]
xpaset -p [server] -clipboard delete [clipboard_name]

• Use "add" to create a new clipboard or replace the contents of an existing one. Use "append" to append to an existing clipboard.
• Information on a named clipboard is retrieved using:

xpaget [server] -clipboard [clipboard_name]

• -exec — set: execute commands from buffer [options: none]
  • If -exec is specified in the paramlist of an xpaset call, then further sub-commands will be retrieved from the data buffer.
• -help — get: return help string for this XPA or sub-command [options: name (for sub-commands)]
  • Each XPA access point and each XPA sub-command can have a help string associated with it that is specified when the access point is defined. The -help option will return this help string. For XPA access points that contain user-defined sub-commands, you can get the help string for a particular sub-command by specifying its name, or else get the help strings for all sub-commands if not name is specified.
• -ltimeout — get (set) the long timeout value [options: seconds|reset]
  • The xpaget option will return the value of the long timeout (in seconds). The xpaset option will set the value of the long timeout. If "reset" is specified, then the timeout value will be reset to the default value.
• -nsconnect — set: re-establish name server connection to all XPA's [options: none]
  • If the XPA Name Server (xpans) process has terminated unexpectedly and then re-started, this sub-command can be used to re-establish the connection. You use it by sending the command to the [name:port] or [file] of the access point instead of to the XPA name (since the latter requires the xpans connection!):

xpaset -p 838e2f67:1268 -nsconnect

• See xpans for more information.

• -nsdisconnect — set: break name server connection to all XPA's [options: none]
  • This sub-command will terminate the connection to the XPA Name Server (xpans), thereby making all access points inaccessible except through their underlying [name:port] or [file] identifiers. I forget why we added it, it seems pretty useless. 💀
• -stimeout — get (set) the short timeout value [options: seconds|reset]
  • The xpaget option will return the value of the short timeout (in seconds). The xpaset option will set the value of the short timeout. If "reset" is specified, then the timeout value will be reset to the default value.
• -remote — set: register xpa with remote server [options: host[:port] [acl]] [-proxy]
  • This sub-command will register the XPA access point with the XPA name server (xpans) on the specified host (which must already be running). The specified host also is given access control to the access point, using the specified acl or the default acl of "+" (meaning the remote host can xpaset, xpaget, xpainfo or xpaaccess). If the acl is specified as "-", then the access point is unregistered. See Communication Between Machines for more information on how this sub-command is used.
• -version — get: return XPA version string [options: none]
  • The version refers to the version of XPA used to define this access point (currently something like 2.0).

🌈 adding your own, main character behavior

You can add your own reserved commands to all XPA access points by using the XPACmdAdd() routine, passing the XPA handle returned by XPA XPAGetReserved(void) as the first argument. Note again that these will only be available on the machine where the XPA service is running. periodt. 💅✨

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🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

See xpa(n) for a list of XPA help pages 🌸

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and that's the whole page, bestie!! you ate. 🎀 this was xpacommon(n) from the SAORD Documentation crew — version 2.1.15, dated July 23, 2013 — so go forth and xpaget responsibly, ily 🫶💖