From: http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/124159
Author: Bill Kelly
For yet another nifty UDP snippet see
Skype-Style Firewall Busting with Ruby and UDP.
require 'socket'
UDP_RECV_TIMEOUT = 3
def q2cmd(server_addr, server_port, cmd_str)
resp, sock = nil, nil
begin
cmd = "\377\377\377\377#{cmd_str}\0"
sock = UDPSocket.open
sock.send(cmd, 0, server_addr, server_port)
resp = if select([sock], nil, nil, UDP_RECV_TIMEOUT)
sock.recvfrom(65536)
end
if resp
resp[0] = resp[0][4..-1]
end
rescue IOError, SystemCallError
ensure
sock.close if sock
end
resp ? resp[0] : nil
end
server = "tastyspleen.net"
port = 27912
cmd = "status"
result = q2cmd(server, port, cmd)
puts result