NAME
FileMetadata::Miner
SYNOPSIS
An interface to be implemented by Miners in the FileMetadata framework
DESCRIPTION
Miners extract metadata from sources, usually specializing in a certain type of resource (e.g HTML files). Meta data for resources can be extracted by multiple miners executed in a series. One miner can extract information regarding file statistics. Such a miner would be generic. A more specialized miner can then be used to extract information on the author.
Miners can be used outside the FileMetadata framework with ease and should be implemented for such general use.
METHODS
new
This constructor takes a single argument. The argument is a reference to a hash that represents configuration information. The method returns a reference to a new miner object. The specifics of the config hash should be available in the documentation for the Miner.
mine
This method returns a boolean value. It is true on a success and false on failure.
This method takes two arguments:
1. The URI to the resource for which metadata is to be compiled.
URIs are prefixed by the protocol. If no protocol is present, it can be assumed that the URI is an absolute path to a file.
It is possible that the Miner refers to another resource to obtain data on the given URI or for that matter to no resource at all.
2. A reference to a hash that contains meta data known for the resource.
Any meta data found should be inserted into the hash. The keys in the hash should be prefixed by the name space of the module. For example the FileMetadata::Miner::Stat would insert keys 'FileMetadata::Miner::Stat::atime' with the corresponding value. All values in the hash should be strings.
A miner should not alter or insert metadata not in its namespace.
VERSION
1.0 - This is the first release of this interface
AUTHOR
Midh Mulpuri midh@enjine.com
LICENSE
This software can be used under the terms of any Open Source Initiative approved license. A list of these licenses are available at the OSI site - http://www.opensource.org/licenses/