/ 
Yahoo-Search-1.11.3
River stage one • 2 direct dependents • 2 total dependents
/ Yahoo::Search

NAME

Yahoo::Search - Perl interface to the Yahoo! Search public API.

VERSION

version 1.11.3

The following search spaces are supported:

Doc

Common web search for documents (html, pdf, doc, ...), including Y!Q contextual search.

Image

Image search (jpeg, png, gif, ...)

Video

Video file search (avi, mpeg, realmedia, ...)

News

News article search

Local

Yahoo! Local area (ZIP-code-based Yellow-Page like search)

Terms

A pseudo-search to report the important search terms from the provided content or content+query.

Spell

A pseudo-search to fetch a "did you mean?" spelling suggestion for a search term.

A pseudo-search to fetch "also try" related-searches for a search term.

(Note: what this Perl API calls "Doc" Search is what Yahoo! calls "Web" Search. But gee, aren't all web searches "Web" search, including Image/News/Video/etc?)

Yahoo!'s raw API, which this package uses, is described at:

http://developer.yahoo.net/

DOCS

The full documentation for this suite of classes is spread among these packages:

Yahoo::Search
Yahoo::Search::Request
Yahoo::Search::Response
Yahoo::Search::Result

However, you need use only Yahoo::Search, which brings in the others as needed.

In the common case, you need read only the first and the last (Yahoo::Search to create a query, and Yahoo::Search::Result to interpret the results).

SYNOPSIS

Yahoo::Search provides a rich and full-featured set of classes for accessing the various features of Yahoo! Search, and also offers a variety of shortcuts to allow simple access, such as the following Doc search:

use Yahoo::Search;
my @Results = Yahoo::Search->Results(Doc => "Britney latest marriage",
                                     AppId => "YahooDemo",
                                     # The following args are optional.
                                     # (Values shown are package defaults).
                                     Mode         => 'all', # all words
                                     Start        => 0,
                                     Count        => 10,
                                     Type         => 'any', # all types
                                     AllowAdult   => 0, # no porn, please
                                     AllowSimilar => 0, # no dups, please
                                     Language     => undef,
                                    );
warn $@ if $@; # report any errors

for my $Result (@Results)
{
    printf "Result: #%d\n",  $Result->I + 1,
    printf "Url:%s\n",       $Result->Url;
    printf "%s\n",           $Result->ClickUrl;
    printf "Summary: %s\n",  $Result->Summary;
    printf "Title: %s\n",    $Result->Title;
    printf "In Cache: %s\n", $Result->CacheUrl;
    print "\n";
}

The first argument to Results indicates which search space is to be queried (in this case, Doc). The second argument is the search term or phrase (described in detail in the next section). Subsequent arguments are optional key/value pairs (described in detail in the section after that) -- the ones shown in the example are those allowed for a Doc query, with the values shown being the defaults.

Results returns a list of Yahoo::Search::Result objects, one per item (in the case of a Doc search, an item is a web page, pdf document, doc document, etc.). The methods available to a Result object are dependent upon the search space of the original query -- see Yahoo::Search::Result documentation for the complete list.

Search term / phrase

Within a search phrase ("Britney latest marriage" in the example above), words that you wish to be included even if they would otherwise be eliminated as "too common" should be proceeded with a "+". Words that you wish to exclude should be proceeded with a "-". Words can be separated with "OR" (the default for the any Mode, described below), and can be wrapped in double quotes to identify an exact phrase (the default with the phrase Mode, also described below).

There are also a number of "Search Meta Words", as described at http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/basics/basics-04.html and http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/tips/tips-03.html , which can stand along or be combined with Doc searches (and, to some extent, some of the others -- YMMV):

site:

allows one to find all documents within a particular domain and all its subdomains. Example: site:yahoo.com

hostname:

allows one to find all documents from a particular host only. Example: hostname:autos.yahoo.comm

link:

allows one to find documents that link to a particular url. Example: link:http://autos.yahoo.com/

url:

allows one to find a specific document in Yahoo!'s index. Example: url:http://edit.autos.yahoo.com/repair/tree/0.html

inurl:

allows one to find a specific keyword as part of indexed urls. Example: inurl:bulgarian

intitle:

allows one to find a specific keyword as part of the indexed titles. Example: intitle:Bulgarian

As an example combining a number of different search styles, consider

my @Results = Yahoo::Search->Results(Doc => 'site:TheSmokingGun.com "Michael Jackson" -arrest',
                                     AppId => "YahooDemo");

This returns data about pages at TheSmokingGun.com about Michael Jackson that don't contain the word "arrest" (yes, there are actually a few such pages).

Query arguments

As mentioned above, the arguments allowed in a Query call depend upon the search space of the query. Here is a table of the possible arguments, showing which apply to queries of which search space:

                Doc   Image  Video  News   Local  Spell Related Terms
               -----  -----  -----  -----  -----  ----- ------- -----
AppId           [X]    [X]    [X]    [X]    [X]    [X]    [X]    [X]
Mode            [X]    [X]    [X]    [X]    [X]     .      .      .
Start           [X]    [X]    [X]    [X]    [X]     .      .      .
Count           [X]    [X]    [X]    [X]    [X]     .     [X]     .

Context         [X]     .      .      .      .      .      .     [X]
Country         [X]     .      .      .      .      .      .      .
License         [X]     .      .      .      .      .      .      .
AllowSimilar    [X]     .      .      .      .      .      .      .
AllowAdult      [X]    [X]    [X]     .      .      .      .      .
Type            [X]    [X]    [X]     .      .      .      .      .
Language        [X]     .      .     [X]     .      .      .      .
Region          [X]     .      .      .      .      .      .      .
Sort             .      .      .     [X]    [X]     .      .      .
Color            .     [X]     .      .      .      .      .      .
    .
Lat              .      .      .      .     [X]     .      .      .
Long             .      .      .      .     [X]     .      .      .
Street           .      .      .      .     [X]     .      .      .
City             .      .      .      .     [X]     .      .      .
State            .      .      .      .     [X]     .      .      .
PostalCode       .      .      .      .     [X]     .      .      .
Location         .      .      .      .     [X]     .      .      .
Radius           .      .      .      .     [X]     .      .      .

AutoContinue    [X]    [X]    [X]    [X]    [X]     .      .      .
Debug           [X]    [X]    [X]    [X]    [X]    [X]    [X]    [X]
PreRequestCallback [X] [X]    [X]    [X]    [X]    [X]    [X]    [X]

Here are details of each:

AppId

A character string which identifies the application making use of the Yahoo! Search API. (Think of it along the lines of an HTTP User-Agent string.)

The characters allowed are space, plus A-Za-z0-9_()[]*+-=,.:@\

This argument is required of all searches (sorry). You can make up whatever AppId you'd like, but you are encouraged to register it via the link on

http://developer.yahoo.net/

especially if you are creating something that will be widely distributed.

As mentioned below in Defaults and Default Overrides, it's particularly convenient to get the AppId out of the way by putting it on the use line, e.g.

use Yahoo::Search AppId => 'just testing';

It then applies to all queries unless explicitly overridden.

Mode

Must be one of: all (the default), any, or phrase. Indicates how multiple words in the search term are used: search for documents with all words, documents with any words, or documents that contain the search term as an exact phrase.

Start

Indicates the ordinal of the first result to be returned, e.g. the "30" of "showing results 30-40" (except that Start is zero-based, not one-based). The default is zero, meaning that the primary results will be returned.

Count

Indicates how many items should be returned. The default is 10. The maximum allowed depends on the search space being queried. The maximum isn't enforced by this module.

Note that

Yahoo::Search::MaxCount($SearchSpace)

and

$SearchEngine->MaxCount($SearchSpace)

return the assumed maximum count allowed for the given $SearchSpace. These counts may be out of date.

Context

By providing a context string to a Doc query, you change the request from a normal document query to a Y!Q contextual query. Y!Q is described at

http://yq.search.yahoo.com/

The Content string can be raw text, html, etc., and is to provide the document search more information about what kind of results are wanted.

For example, without a Context, a document search for "Madonna" returns the most popular documents (which are invariably about the famous pop singer). However, if you provide a context string even as simple as "Virgin Mary", the results skew away from the pop singer toward the Mother of God. Since it's likely that a confusion between the two would be less than optimal in pretty much every conceivable case, this is a Good Thing.

When a Context is given, the query string itself may be empty. For example, if you have the text of a blog entry in $BlogText, you can fetch "related links" via:

use Yahoo::Search AppId => 'my blog stuff';
my @Results = Yahoo::Search->Results(Doc => undef, Context => $BlogText);

In a Terms search, Context is required.

Country

Attempts to restrict the Doc search to web servers residing in the named country. As of this writing, the Yahoo! web services support the following codes for Country:

code   country
----   ---------------
 ar    Argentina
 au    Australia
 at    Austria
 be    Belgium
 br    Brazil
 ca    Canada
 cn    China
 cz    Czech Republic
 dk    Denmark
 fi    Finland
 fr    France
 de    Germany
 it    Italy
 jp    Japan
 kr    Korea
 nl    Netherlands
 no    Norway
 pl    Poland
 rf    Russian Federation
 es    Spain
 se    Sweden
 ch    Switzerland
 tw    Taiwan
 uk    United Kingdom
 us    United States

In addition, the code "default" is the same as the lack of a country specifier: no country-related restrictions.

The above list can be found in %Yahoo::Search::KnownCountry.

Because the list of countries may be updated more often than this Perl API, this Perl API does not attempt to restrict the Country value to members of this specific list. If you provide a Country value which is not supported by Yahoo!'s web services, a "400 Bad Request" error is returned in @$.

Region

Uses a different regional version of the Yahoo! web service. For example, setting Region to "de" will show the results as returned from de.search.yahoo.com. Note that this does not restrict the results in the way Country and Language do, but will merely lead to a different weighting of the results. As of this writing, the Yahoo! web services support the following codes for Region:

code   country
----   ---------------
 ar    Argentina
 au    Australia
 at    Austria
 br    Brazil
 ca    Canada
 ct    Catalan
 dk    Denmark
 fi    Finland
 fr    France
 de    Germany
 in    India
 id    Indonesia
 it    Italy
 my    Malaysia
 mx    Mexico
 nl    Netherlands
 no    Norway
 ph    Phillipines
 ru    Russian Federation
 sg    Singapore
 es    Spain
 se    Sweden
 ch    Switzerland
 th    Thailand
 uk    United Kingdom
 us    United States (yahoo.com)
License

For Doc searches, can be:

any

(the default) -- results are not filtered with respect to licenses

cc_any

Only items with a Creative Commons license (of any type) are returned. See their (horribly designed hard to find anything substantial) site at:

http://creativecommons.org/
cc_commercial

Only items with a Creative Commons license which allows some kind of commercial use are returned.

cc_modifiable

Only items with a Creative Commons license which allows modification (e.g. derived works) of some kind are returned.

You may combine the above to create an intersection, e.g.

License => "cc_commercial+cc_modifiable"

(space, comma, or plus-separated) returns items which allow both some kind of commercial use, and their use in some kinds of derivative works.

AllowSimilar

If this boolean is true (the default is false), similar results which would otherwise not be returned are included in the result set.

AllowAdult

If this boolean is false (the default), results considered to be "adult" (i.e. porn) are not included in the result set. Set to true to allow unfiltered results.

Standard precautions apply about how the "is adult?" determination is not perfect.

Type

This argument can be used to restrict the results to only a specific file type. The default value, any, allows any type associated with the search space to be returned (that is, provides no restriction). Otherwise, the values allowed for Type depend on the search space:

Search space    Allowed Type values
============    ========================================================
Doc             any  html msword pdf ppt rss txt xls
Image           any  bmp gif jpeg png
Video           any  avi flash mpeg msmedia quicktime realmedia
News            N/A
Local           N/A
Spell           N/A
Related         N/A
Term            N/A

(Deprecated: you may use all in place of any)

Language

If provided, attempts to restrict the results to documents in the given language. The value is an language code such as en (English), ja (Japanese), etc (mostly ISO 639-1 codes). As of this writing, the following codes are supported:

code  language
----  ---------
 sq   Albanian
 ar   Arabic
 bg   Bulgarian
 ca   Catalan
 szh  Chinese (simplified)
 tzh  Chinese (traditional)
 hr   Croatian
 cs   Czech
 da   Danish
 nl   Dutch
 en   English
 et   Estonian
 fi   Finnish
 fr   French
 de   German
 el   Greek
 he   Hebrew
 hu   Hungarian
 is   Icelandic
 it   Italian
 ja   Japanese
 ko   Korean
 lv   Latvian
 lt   Lithuanian
 no   Norwegian
 fa   Persian
 pl   Polish
 pt   Portuguese
 ro   Romanian
 ru   Russian
 sk   Slovak
 sl   Slovenian
 es   Spanish
 sv   Swedish
 th   Thai
 tr   Turkish

In addition, the code "default" is the same as the lack of a language specifier, and seems to mean a mix of major world languages, skewed toward English.

The above list can be found in %Yahoo::Search::KnownLanguage.

Because the list of languages may be updated more often than this Perl API, this Perl API does not attempt to restrict the Language value to members of this specific list. If you provide a Language value which is not supported by Yahoo!'s web services, a "400 Bad Request" error is returned in @$.

Sort

For News searches, sort may be rank (the default) or date.

For Local searches, sort may be relevance (the default; most relevant first), distance (closest first), rating (highest rating first), or title (alphabetic sort).

Color

For Image searches, may be any (the default), color, or bw:

any

No filtering based on colorization or lack thereof

color

Only images with color are returned

bw

Only black & white / grayscale images are returned

Lat
Long
Street
City
State
PostalCode
Location

These items are for a Local query, and specify the epicenter of the search. The epicenter must be provided in one of a variety of ways:

  • via Lat and Long

  • via the free-text Location

  • via Street and PostalCode

  • via Street and City and State

  • via PostalCode alone

  • via City and State alone.

The list above is the order of precedence for when multiple fields are sent (e.g. if a Lat and Long are sent, they are used regardless of whether, say, a PostalCode is used), but it's probably best to send exactly only the fields you wish to be used.

Lat and Long are floating point numbers, such as this example:

Lat  =>  39.224079  # 39 deg 13 min 26.686 sec North
Long => -98.541807, # 98 deg 32 min 30.506 sec West

(which happens to be the location of the "Medes Ranch" triangulation station, upon which all country, state, etc., boundaries in North America were originally based)

Street is the street address, e.e. "701 First Ave". PostalCode is a US 5-digit or 9-digit ZIP code (e.g. "94089" or "94089-1234").

If Location is provided, it supersedes the others. It should be a string along the lines of "701 First Ave, Sunnyvale CA, 94089". The following forms are recognized:

city state
city state zip
zip
street, city state
street, city state zip
street, zip

Searches that include a street address (either in the Location, or if Location is empty, in Street) provide for a more detailed epicenter specification.

Radius

For Local searches, indicates how wide an area around the epicenter to search. The value is the radius of the search area, in miles. The default radius depends on the search location (urban areas tend to have a smaller default radius).

AutoContinue

A boolean (default off). If true, turns on the potentially dangerous auto-continuation, as described in the docs for NextResult in Yahoo::Search::Response.

Debug

Debug is a string (defaults to an empty string). If the substring "url" is found anywhere in the string, the url of the Yahoo! request is printed on stderr. If "xml", the raw xml received is printed to stderr. If "hash", the raw Perl hash, as converted from the XML, is Data::Dump'd to stderr.

Thus, to print all debugging, you'd set Debug to a value such as "url xml hash".

PreRequestCallback

This is for debugging (I needed it for my own regression-test script). If defined, it should be a code ref which accepts a single Yahoo::Search::Request object argument. It is called just before Yahoo!'s servers are contacted, and if it returns false, the call to Yahoo! is aborted (be sure to set $@).

Class Hierarchy Details

The Y! Search API class system supports the following objects (all loaded as needed via Yahoo::Search):

Yahoo::Search
Yahoo::Search::Request
Yahoo::Search::Response
Yahoo::Search::Result

Here is a summary of them:

Yahoo::Search

A "search engine" object which can hold user-specified default values for search-query arguments. Often not used explicitly.

Yahoo::Search::Request

An object which holds the information needed to make one search-query request. Often not used explicitly.

Yahoo::Search::Response

An object which holds the results of a query (including a bunch of Result objects).

Yahoo::Search::Result

An object representing one query result (one image, web page, etc., as appropriate to the original search space).

"The Long Way", and Common Practice

The explicit way to perform a query and access the results is to first create a "Search Engine" object:

my $SearchEngine = Yahoo::Search->new();

Optionally, you can provide new with key/value pairs as described in the Query arguments section above. Those values will then be available as default values during subsequent request creation. (More on this later.)

You then use the search-engine object to create a request:

my $Request = $SearchEngine->Request(Doc => Britney);

You then actually make the request, getting a response:

my $Response = $Request->Fetch();

You can then access the set of Result objects in a number of ways, either all at once

my @Results = $Response->Results();

or iteratively:

while (my $Result = $Response->NextResult) {
             :
             :
}

In Practice....

In practice, one often does not need to go through all these steps explicitly. The only reason to create a search-engine object, for example, is to hold default overrides (to be made available to subsequent requests made via the search-engine object). For example:

use Yahoo::Search;
my $SearchEngine = Yahoo::Search->new(AppId      => "Bobs Fish Mart",
                                      Count      => 25,
                                      AllowAdult => 1,
                                      PostalCode => 95014);

Now, calls to the various query functions (Query, Results) via this $SearchEngine will use these defaults (Image searches, for example, will be with AllowAdult set to true, and Local searches will be centered at ZIP code 95014.) All will return up to 25 results.

In this example:

my @Results = $SearchEngine->Results(Image => "Britney",
                                     Count => 20);

The query is made with AppId as 'Bobs_Fish_Mart' and AllowAdult true (both via $SearchEngine), but Count is 20 because explicit args override the default in $SearchEngine. The PostalCode arg does not apply too an Image search, so the default provided from SearchEngine is not needed with this particular query.

Defaults on the 'use' line

You can also provide the same defaults on the use line. The following example has the same result as the previous one:

use Yahoo::Search AppId      => 'Bobs Fish Mart',
                  Count      => 25,
                  AllowAdult => 1,
                  PostalCode => 95014;

my @Results = Yahoo::Search->Results(Image => "Britney",
                                     Count => 20);

Functions and Methods

Here, finally, are the functions and methods provided by Yahoo::Search. In all cases, "...args..." are any of the key/value pairs listed in the Query arguments section of this document (e.g. "Count => 20")

$SearchEngine = Yahoo::Search->new(...args...)

Creates a search-engine object (a container for defaults). On error, sets $@ and returns nothing.

$Request = $SearchEngine->Request($space => $query, ...args...)
$Request = Yahoo::Search->Request($space => $query, ...args...)

Creates a Request object representing a search of the named search space (Doc, Image, etc.) of the given query string.

On error, sets $@ and returns nothing.

Note: all arguments are in key/value pairs, but the $space/$query pair (which is required) is required to appear first.

$Response = $SearchEngine->Query($space => $query, ...args...)
$Response = Yahoo::Search->Query($space => $query, ...args...)

Creates an implicit Request object, and fetches it, returning the resulting Response.

On error, sets $@ and returns nothing.

Note: all arguments are in key/value pairs, but the $space/$query pair (which is required) is required to appear first.

@Results = $SearchEngine->Results($space => $query, ...args...)
@Results = Yahoo::Search->Results($space => $query, ...args...)

Creates an implicit Request object, then Response object, in the end returning a list of Result objects.

On error, sets $@ and returns nothing.

Note: all arguments are in key/value pairs, but the $space/$query pair (which is required) is required to appear first.

A super shortcut which goes directly from the query args to a list of

<a href=...>...</a>

links. Essentially,

map { $_->Link } Yahoo::Search->Results($space => $query, ...args...);

or, more explicitly:

map { $_->Link } Yahoo::Search->new()->Request($space => $query, ...args...)->Fetch->Results(@_);

See Link in the documentation for Yahoo::Search::Result.

Note: all arguments are in key/value pairs, but the $space/$query pair (which is required) is required to appear first.

A super shortcut for Spell, Related, and Terms search spaces, returns the list of spelling suggestions, related-search suggestions, or important search terms, respectively.

Note: all arguments are in key/value pairs, but the $space/$query pair (which is required) is required to appear first. For a Terms search, the $query may be undef (and in in any case, a Terms search requires a Context argument).

For example,

use Yahoo::Search AppId => "YahooDemo";
for my $term (Yahoo::Search->Terms(Related => "Tivo")) {
    print $term , "\n";
}

displays something along the lines of:

directv tivo
hd tivo
tivo community
tivo forum
tivo upgrade
tivo rebate
dvd recorder tivo
direct tv tivo
tivo to go
hdtv tivo

Here's an example with the Terms search space:

use Yahoo::Search AppId => "YahooDemo";

my $Context = << '*END*';
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect
Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the
common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of
Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this
Constitution for the United States of America.
*END*

for my $term (Yahoo::Search->Terms(Terms => undef, Context => $Context)) {
    print $term, "\n";
}

displays something along the lines of:

insure domestic tranquility
promote the general welfare
domestic tranquility
united states
states of america
united states of america
posterity
blessings
constitution
perfect union

Note that a Spell search returns at most one term.

@html = $SearchEngine->HtmlResults($space => $query, ...args...)
@html = Yahoo::Search->HtmlResults($space => $query, ...args...)

Like Links, but returns a list of html strings (one representing each result). See as_html in the documentation for Yahoo::Search::Result.

A simple result display might look like

print join "<p>", Yahoo::Search->HtmlResults(....);

or, perhaps

if (my @HTML = Yahoo::Search->HtmlResults(....))
{
   print "<ul>";
   for my $html (@HTML) {
      print "<li>", $html;
   }
   print "</ul>";
}

As an example, here's a complete CGI which shows results from an image-search, where the search term is in the 's' query string:

#!/usr/local/bin/perl -w
use CGI;
my $cgi = new CGI;
print $cgi->header();

use Yahoo::Search AppId => 'my-search-app';
if (my $term = $cgi->param('s')) {
    print join "<p>", Yahoo::Search->HtmlResults(Image => $term);
}

The results, however, do look better with some style-sheet attention, such as:

<style>
  .yResult { display: block; border: #CCF 3px solid ; padding:10px }
  .yLink   { }
  .yTitle  { display:none }
  .yImg    { border: solid 1px }
  .yUrl    { display:none }
  .yMeta   { font-size: 80% }
  .ySrcUrl { }
  .ySum    { font-family: arial; font-size: 90% }
</style>

Note: all arguments are in key/value pairs, but the $space/$query pair (which is required) is required to appear first.

$num = $SearchEngine->MaxCount($space)
$num = Yahoo::Search->MaxCount($space)

Returns the assumed maximum allowed Count query-argument for the given search space. The amount may be out of date.

$SearchEngine->Default($key [ => $val ]);

If a new value is given, update the <$SearchEngine>'s value for the named $key.

In either case, the old value for $key in effect is returned. If the $SearchEngine had a previous value, it is returned. Otherwise, the global value in effect is returned.

As always, the key is from among those mentioned in the Query arguments section above.

The old value is returned.

Yahoo::Search->Default($key [ => $val ]);

Update or, if no new value is given, check the global default value for the named argument. The key is from among those mentioned in the Query examples section above, as well as AutoCarp (discussed below).

Defaults and Default Overrides

All key/value pairs mentioned in the Query arguments section may appear on the use line, in the call to the new constructor, or in requests that create a query explicitly or implicitly (Request, Query, Results, Links, or HtmlResults).

Each argument's value takes the first of the following which applies (listed in order of precedence):

4)

The actual arguments to a function which creates (explicitly or implicitly) a request.

3)

Search-engine default overrides, set when the Yahoo::Search new constructor is used to create a search-engine object, or when that object's Default method is called.

2)

Global default overrides, set on the use line or via

Yahoo::Search->Default()
1)

Defaults hard-coded into these packages (e.g. Count defaults to 10).

It's particularly convenient to put the AppId on the use line, e.g.

use Yahoo::Search AppId => 'just testing';

AutoCarp

By default, detected errors that would be classified as programming errors (e.g. use of incorrect args) are automatically spit out to stderr besides being returned via $@. This can be turned off via

use Yahoo::Search AutoCarp => 0;

or

Yahoo::Search->Default(AutoCarp => 0);

The default of true is somewhat obnoxious, but hopefully helps create better programs by forcing the programmer to actively think about error checking (if even long enough to turn off error reporting).

Global Variables

The following are globally available:

%Yahoo::Search::KnownCountry

A hash with the known (as of this writing) country codes supported by Yahoo! for the Country argument.

%Yahoo::Search::KnownLanguage

A hash with the known (as of this writing) language codes supported by Yahoo! for the Language argument.

$Yahoo::Search::RecentRequestUrl

The most recent REST url actually fetched from Yahoo! (perhaps useful for debugging). It does not reflect the fact that a request is changed to a POST when request is sufficiently large. Thus, there are times when the url on $Yahoo::Search::RecentRequestUrl is not actually fetchable from the Yahoo! servers.

$Yahoo::Search::UseXmlSimple

If you set this to a true value, the XML returned by Yahoo! will be parsed with XML::Simple (if installed on your system) rather than with Yahoo::Search::XML, a simple XML parser included as part of this package. XML::Simple uses XML::Parser under the hood, and at least on the systems I've tested it, XML::Parser suffers from a crippling memory leak that makes it very undesirable.

However, if Yahoo! changes the XML they return in a way that my simple parser can't handle, it tries parsing it with XML::Simple. If XML::Simple is installed and can parse the XML, $Yahoo::Search::UseXmlSimple is automatically set to true and a warning generated suggesting that a bug report be filed for Yahoo::Search::XML.

If you encounter a situation where Yahoo::Search::XML can't grok Yahoo!'s XML, please submit a bug report. In the mean time, you can ensure that XML::Simple is installed, set $Yahoo::Search::UseXmlSimple, and at least have things work until you run out of memory.

The default value of $Yahoo::Search::UseXmlSimple is taken from the environment variable YAHOO_SEARCH_XMLSIMPLE if present, and otherwise defaults to false.

$Yahoo::Search::Version

A string in "X.Y.Z" format. The first number, the major version, increments with large and/or backwards major incompatible changes. The second number (minor version) updates with notable feature additions/changes. The third number updates with every new release (and is the only one updated for small bug- and typo fix releases).

Environment

If YAHOO_SEARCH_XMLSIMPLE is set to a true (nonempty, non-"0") value, $Yahoo::Search::UseXmlSimple defaults to true. See above.

Yahoo::Search uses LWP to communicate with Yahoo!'s servers; LWP uses environment variables such as http_proxy and no_proxy. See the perldoc for LWP for more.

Author

Jeffrey Friedl (jfriedl@yahoo.com)

Jeffrey placed the 1.10.13 code in the public domain (or, technically, the http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ licence) on June 11th 2010. Tim Bunce (Tim.Bunce@pobox.com) currently maintains the code, though with very little spare much time. He's very happy for someone else to help out.

Please use https://rt.cpan.org/Dist/Display.html?Queue=Yahoo-Search to submit bug reports.