WWW::Search::AltaVista - class for searching Alta Vista

NAME

WWW::Search::AltaVista - class for searching Alta Vista

SUPPORTED PLATFORMS

This module is not included with the standard ActivePerl distribution. It is available as a separate download using PPM.

SYNOPSIS

    require WWW::Search;
    $search = new WWW::Search('AltaVista');

DESCRIPTION

This class is an AltaVista specialization of WWW::Search. It handles making and interpreting AltaVista searches http://www.altavista.com.

This class exports no public interface; all interaction should be done through WWW::Search objects.

OPTIONS

The default is for simple web queries. Specialized back-ends for simple and advanced web and news searches are available (see the WWW::Search::AltaVista::Web manpage, the WWW::Search::AltaVista::AdvancedWeb manpage, the WWW::Search::AltaVista::News manpage, the WWW::Search::AltaVista::AdvancedNews manpage). These back-ends set different combinations following options.

search_url=URL
Specifies who to query with the AltaVista protocol. The default is at http://www.altavista.com/cgi-bin/query; you may wish to retarget it to http://www.altavista.telia.com/cgi-bin/query or other hosts if you think that they're ``closer''.

search_debug, search_parse_debug, search_ref Specified at the WWW::Search manpage.
pg=aq
Do advanced queries. (It defaults to simple queries.)

what=news
Search Usenet instead of the web. (It defaults to search the web.)

SEE ALSO

To make new back-ends, see the WWW::Search manpage, or the specialized AltaVista searches described in options.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

native_setup_search is called before we do anything. It initializes our private variables (which all begin with underscores) and sets up a URL to the first results page in {_next_url}.

native_retrieve_some is called (from WWW::Search::retrieve_some) whenever more hits are needed. It calls the LWP library to fetch the page specified by {_next_url}. It parses this page, appending any search hits it finds to {cache}. If it finds a ``next'' button in the text, it sets {_next_url} to point to the page for the next set of results, otherwise it sets it to undef to indicate we're done.

AUTHOR and CURRENT VERSION

WWW::Search::AltaVista is written and maintained by John Heidemann, <johnh@isi.edu>.

The best place to obtain WWW::Search::AltaVista is from Martin Thurn's WWW::Search releases on CPAN. Because AltaVista sometimes changes its format in between his releases, sometimes more up-to-date versions can be found at http://www.isi.edu/~johnh/SOFTWARE/WWW_SEARCH_ALTAVISTA/index.html.

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) 1996-1998 University of Southern California. All rights reserved. 


Redistribution and use in source and binary forms are permitted
provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
duplicated in all such forms and that any documentation, advertising
materials, and other materials related to such distribution and use
acknowledge that the software was developed by the University of
Southern California, Information Sciences Institute.  The name of the
University may not be used to endorse or promote products derived from
this software without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ``AS IS'' AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

 WWW::Search::AltaVista - class for searching Alta Vista