NAME

WWW::Pastebin::PastebinCa::Retrieve - a module to retrieve pastes from http://pastebin.ca/ website

SYNOPSIS

my $paster = WWW::Pastebin::PastebinCa::Retrieve->new;

$paster->retrieve('http://pastebin.ca/951898')
    or die $paster->error;

print "Paste content is:\n$paster\n";

DESCRIPTION

The module provides interface to retrieve pastes from http://pastebin.ca/ website via Perl.

Note: pastebin.ca was rebuilt in 2026 and now exposes a documented API (see https://pastebin.ca/api/v1/openapi.json) instead of scrapeable HTML. The original numeric ("legacy") pastes were restored and remain retrievable. This module fetches a paste's raw body from /raw/<id> and its metadata from /api/v1/legacy/<id>.

CONSTRUCTOR

new

my $paster = WWW::Pastebin::PastebinCa::Retrieve->new;

my $paster = WWW::Pastebin::PastebinCa::Retrieve->new(
    timeout => 10,
);

my $paster = WWW::Pastebin::PastebinCa::Retrieve->new(
    ua => LWP::UserAgent->new(
        timeout => 10,
        agent   => 'PasterUA',
    ),
);

Constructs and returns a brand new juicy WWW::Pastebin::PastebinCa::Retrieve object. Takes two arguments, both are optional. Possible arguments are as follows:

timeout

->new( timeout => 10 );

Optional. Specifies the timeout argument of LWP::UserAgent's constructor, which is used for retrieving. Defaults to: 30 seconds.

ua

->new( ua => LWP::UserAgent->new( agent => 'Foos!' ) );

Optional. If the timeout argument is not enough for your needs of mutilating the LWP::UserAgent object used for retrieving, feel free to specify the ua argument which takes an LWP::UserAgent object as a value. Note: the timeout argument to the constructor will not do anything if you specify the ua argument as well. Defaults to: plain boring default LWP::UserAgent object with timeout argument set to whatever WWW::Pastebin::PastebinCa::Retrieve's timeout argument is set to as well as agent argument is set to mimic Firefox.

METHODS

retrieve

my $results_ref = $paster->retrieve('http://pastebin.ca/951898')
    or die $paster->error;

my $results_ref = $paster->retrieve('951898')
    or die $paster->error;

Instructs the object to retrieve a paste specified in the argument. Takes one mandatory argument which can be either a full URI to the paste you want to retrieve or just its ID. On failure returns either undef or an empty list depending on the context and the reason for the error will be available via error() method. On success returns a hashref with the following keys/values:

$VAR1 = {
      'language' => 'perl',
      'content' => 'blah blah content of the paste',
      'post_date' => 'Thursday, March 6th, 2008 at 3:57:44pm UTC',
      'name' => 'Unnamed',
      'desc' => ''
};

• language

    { 'language' => 'perl' }
  

  The (computer) language / syntax hint of the paste, as reported by pastebin.ca. Note: since the 2026 site rebuild this is the site's short syntax code (e.g. perl, text) rather than the long descriptive name used by the old site.

• content

    { 'content' => 'select t.terr_id, max(t.start_date) as start_dat' }
  

  The content of the paste.

• post_date

    { 'post_date' => 'Thursday, March 6th, 2008 at 3:57:44pm UTC' }
  

  The date when the paste was created, formatted from the paste's creation timestamp (in UTC).

• name

    { 'name' => 'Unnamed' }
  

  The name of the poster or the title of the paste.

• desc

    { 'desc' => '' }
  

  Contains description of the paste. Note: pastebin.ca no longer stores a separate paste description, so this is always an empty string; the key is retained for backwards compatibility.

error

$paster->retrieve('951898')
    or die $paster->error;

On failure retrieve() returns either undef or an empty list depending on the context and the reason for the error will be available via error() method. Takes no arguments, returns an error message explaining the failure.

id

my $paste_id = $paster->id;

Must be called after a successful call to retrieve(). Takes no arguments, returns a paste ID number of the last retrieved paste irrelevant of whether an ID or a URI was given to retrieve()

uri

my $paste_uri = $paster->uri;

Must be called after a successful call to retrieve(). Takes no arguments, returns a URI object with the URI pointing to the raw body of the last retrieved paste irrelevant of whether an ID or a URI was given to retrieve()

results

my $last_results_ref = $paster->results;

Must be called after a successful call to retrieve(). Takes no arguments, returns the exact same hashref the last call to retrieve() returned. See retrieve() method for more information.

content

my $paste_content = $paster->content;

print "Paste content is:\n$paster\n";

Must be called after a successful call to retrieve(). Takes no arguments, returns the actual content of the paste. Note: this method is overloaded for this module for interpolation. Thus you can simply interpolate the object in a string to get the contents of the paste.

ua

my $old_LWP_UA_obj = $paster->ua;

$paster->ua( LWP::UserAgent->new( timeout => 10, agent => 'foos' );

Returns a currently used LWP::UserAgent object used for retrieving pastes. Takes one optional argument which must be an LWP::UserAgent object, and the object you specify will be used in any subsequent calls to retrieve().

REPOSITORY

BUGS

AUTHOR

ZOFFIX

LICENSE

You can use and distribute this module under the same terms as Perl itself. See the LICENSE file included in this distribution for complete details.