NAME

WWW::Search::HotBot - class for searching HotBot

DESCRIPTION

This class is a HotBot specialization of WWW::Search. It handles making and interpreting HotBot searches http://www.hotbot.com.

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

SEE ALSO

To make new back-ends, see WWW::Search.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

native_setup_search is called (from WWW::Search::setup_search) before we do anything. It initializes our private variables (which all begin with underscore) 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 WWW::Search::http_request to fetch the page specified by {_next_url}. It then 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.

BUGS

Please tell the author if you find any!

TESTING

This module adheres to the WWW::Search test suite mechanism.

AUTHOR

As of 1998-02-02, WWW::Search::HotBot is maintained by Martin Thurn (mthurn@irnet.rest.tasc.com).

WWW::Search::HotBot was originally written by Wm. L. Scheding, based on WWW::Search::AltaVista.

LEGALESE

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.

VERSION HISTORY

1.13

Fixed the maximum_to_retrieve off-by-one problem. Updated test cases.

1.12

HotBot does not do truncation. Therefore, if the query contains truncation characters (i.e. '*' at end of words), they are simply deleted before the query is sent to HotBot.

1.11

Fixed and revamped by Martin Thurn. Sent to John Heidemann (maintainer of WWW::Search) on 1998-02-05 for inclusion in the next release of WWW::Search.