SYNOPSIS

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

DESCRIPTION

This class is an modified version of the AltaVista specialization of WWW::Search. It handles making and interpreting Dutch AltaVista searches http://nl.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.

search_url=URL

Specifies who to query with the AltaVista protocol. The default is at "http://nl.altavista.com/cgi-bin/query";

search_debug, search_parse_debug, search_ref Specified at WWW::Search.

pg=aq

Do advanced queries. (It defaults to simple queries.)

PUBLIC METHODS

There are none defined here; see WWW::Search.

PRIVATE METHODS

native_setup_search

This private method does the heavy lifting after you call native_query().

native_retrieve_some

This private method does the heavy lifting of fetching and parsing web pages.

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::NL" is written and maintained by Erik Smit, <[email protected]>.

The best place to obtain "WWW::Search::AltaVista::NL" 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.zoiah.nl/programming/AltaVistaNL/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.