NAME
WWW::Search::AltaVista - class for searching Alta Vista
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.digital.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 WWW::Search::AltaVista::Web, WWW::Search::AltaVista::AdvancedWeb, WWW::Search::AltaVista::News, WWW::Search::AltaVista::AdvancedNews). 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.digital.com/cgi-bin/query; you may wish to retarget it tohttp://www.altavista.telia.com/cgi-bin/queryor other hosts if you think that they're ``closer''. - search_debug, search_parse_debug, search_ref Specified at WWW::Search.
- 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 WWW::Search, 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
WWW::Search::AltaVista is written and maintained by John Heidemann, <johnh@isi.edu>.
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.