1999-06-30 Kingpin <mthurn@tasc.com>
* WebCrawler.pm updated to version 1.14; adheres to new test mechanism
* Infoseek.pm now strips HTML from titles and descriptions
* Infoseek/Companies.pm updated to version 1.10; adheres to new test mechanism
* Infoseek/News.pm updated to version 1.09; adheres to new test mechanism
* Infoseek/Web.pm updated to version 1.10; adheres to new test mechanism
* new exported function strip_tags()
1999-06-29 Kingpin <mthurn@tasc.com>
* Excite.pm updated to version 1.11; adheres to new test mechanism
* new test mechanism puts list of test cases into each module's
code (no more duplicate test code!)
* Infoseek.pm updated to version 1.14; Companies and News searches fixed
1999-06-28 Kingpin <mthurn@tasc.com>
* test/test.pl is more informative about errors
* Infoseek.pm updated to version 1.13
1999-06-24 Kingpin <mthurn@tasc.com>
* Profusion.pm updated to version 1.05
* OpenDirectory.pm updated
1999-06-22 Kingpin <mthurn@tasc.com>
* The version method is now implemented within the WWW::Search
module, so backends no longer need to declare it locally
* Snap.pm updated
1999-06-21 Kingpin <mthurn@tasc.com>
* NorthernLight.pm updated; now returns score and date for each hit
* new backend AltaVista::Intranet
* HotBot.pm updated; now unescapes URLs before returning them
=====================================
RELEASE HISTORY (moved here from the README file):
1.002: (11 October 1996)
- First public release.
1.004: (31 October 1996)
- new: AutoSearch, a client application (see below for details)
- new: WWW::Search is now in CPAN (see GETTING WWW::Search for details)
- bug fix: installation problem (no rule to make CLIENTS/search) fixed
1.005: (12 November 1996)
- new: back-ends for HotBot, Lycos, and several AltaVista variants
- new: application support for search-engine selection
- new: application and library support for search-engine options
1.006: (25 November 1996)
- private beta release, see 1.007 for list of new features
1.007: (17 December 1996)
- new: back-ends for Dejanews (from Cesare Feroldi de Rosa),
Infoseek (also from Cesare Feroldi de Rosa),
and Excite (from GLen Pringle)
- new: more fields in SearchResult (score, dates, etc., see the man page)
(problem found by Cesare Feroldi de Rosa)
- new: better error handling on network failures
(AutoSearch should report errors on its pages,
$search->response() provides an API for error reporting)
- new (internal): user_agent handling has changed
- new: proxy support added to WWW::Search (still needed in applications)
(problem and fix suggested by T. V. Raman)
- bug-fix: numerous documentation updates
(problems found by Larry Virden)
- bug-fix: AltaVista web search was occasionally dropping hits
(problem found by Larry Virden, fixed by Bill Scheding)
- bug-fix: all non-alphanumeric characters are now escaped
(problem found by Larry Virden)
1.008: (8 January 1997)
- private alpha release, see 1.009 for list of new features
1.009: (14 January 1997)
overview: 1.009 is primarily a maintenance release to accommodate
changes to LWP and some search engines.
- change: search application renamed WebSearch (a more specific name)
- bug-fix: the WWW::Search error in formatting is fixed
(problem found by Larry Virden, fix by him and johnh)
- bug-fix: RobotUA handling updated for new LWP in Search.pm
- bug-fix: update for Infoseek (page format changed about 1 Jan 97)
(problem found by Joseph McDonald, fix by Cesare Feroldi de Rosa)
- bug-fix: update for Excite (page format changed about 9 Jan 97)
(problem found by Juan Jose Amor, fix by GLen Pringle)
1.010: (20 August 1997)
overview: an interim release to fix AltaVista
- new: normalized_score, a back-end independent score (from Paul Lindner)
- new: generic options are supported by several back-ends
(specify search engine URL, debugging, etc.)
- new: AltaVista back-end now sets SearchResult::raw
- bug-fix: update for AltaVista (page format changed Jul 97)
(some information wrt fix provided by Guy Decoux)
1.011: (8 October 1997)
- internal alpha release, see 1.012 for list of new features
1.012: (3 November 1997)
- Overview: an alpha release for test-suite testing
- new: for testing, HTTP results can be saved to disk and played back
- new: test scripts (try "make test")
- bug-fix: Lycos works again and is now maintained by John Heidemann
- bug-fix: AltaVista advanced and news searches have been repaired
- bug-fix: some uninitialized value warnings suppressed
(fix suggested by R. Chandrasekar (Mickey))
- new: new back-ends PLweb
- new: documentation for PLweb (contributed by Paul Linder)
- new: new back-ends: Gopher, Simple (contributed by Paul Linder)
- new: WWW::Search mailing list:
to subscribe, send "subscribe info-www-search" as
the body of a message to <info-www-search-request@isi.edu>
1.013, (19 February 1998)
overview: this is an alpha release to include Martin's new back-ends
- bug fix: HotBot back-end updated by Martin Thurn <mthurn@tasc.com>
- new: Yahoo back-end now works, by Martin Thurn <mthurn@tasc.com>
- problem: several back-ends don't work (Lycos)
- problem: several back-ends don't have test suites and
so may or may not work (DejaNews, Excite, HotBot, Infoseek, PLweb,
SFgate, Verity, Yahoo)
- reminder: WWW::Search mailing list:
to subscribe, send "subscribe info-www-search" as
the body of a message to <info-www-search-request@isi.edu>
1.014, (24 March 1998)
overview: this is an alpha release to fix the AltaVista/Lycos back-ends
- bug fix: AltaVista/Lycos back-ends
(problem reported by Bilal Siddiqui <bilal.siddiqui@mankato.msus.edu>)
- known problem: some back-end test suites give intermittent results
(AltaVista::News)
- problem: several back-ends don't have test suites and
so may or may not work (DejaNews, Excite, HotBot, Infoseek, PLweb,
SFgate, Verity, Yahoo)
1.015, (2-Apr-98)
overview: this is an alpha release with several new back-ends
- new: back-ends: Magellan, WebCrawler (thanks to Martin Thurn)
- bug fix: Yahoo/HotBot/Excite back-ends,
with test suites. Many thanks to Martin Thurn.
- bug fix: AltaVista news test suites have been relaxed,
even though the code worked before, the test suites
used to report false negatives.
- bug fix: AltaVista is now more careful to detect the end of
a hit's raw HTML
- new: the test suite has been enhanced to be less sensitive
to changes in what's indexed
- problem: several back-ends don't have test suites and
so may or may not work (DejaNews, Infoseek, PLweb,
SFgate, Verity)
- reminder: WWW::Search mailing list:
to subscribe, send "subscribe info-www-search" as
the body of a message to <info-www-search-request@isi.edu>
1.016, 21-May-98
overview: this is an alpha to fix HotBot/Infoseek
- bug fix: Infoseek/HotBot back ends now work again.
(HotBot problem reported by Alan McCoy <a.r.mccoy@larc.nasa.gov>,
both back-ends fixed by Martin Thurn)
- addition: Infoseek test suite
- addition: test output now includes the version number
1.017, 27-May-98
overview: this is the public release since 1.012
- bug fix: Lycos bug fix
1.018, 31-May-98
overview: back-end updates
- bug fix: Excite and WebCrawler (by Martin Thurn),
AltaVista (by John Heidemann)
updated 30-May-98
- known bugs: WWW::Search doesn't work on MacPerl because of
end-of-line differences. A fix for this problem is in
progress. (Problem identified and fix suggested by
Chris Nandor.)
1.019, 25-Jun-98
overview: back-end updates
- bug fix: test suite bugs were causing false negatives on
Yahoo, Excite, Magellan, WebCrawler (reported by Martin Thurn,
fixed John Heidemann)
- new feature: the test suite is now run daily (automatically).
Output can be found at
<http://www.isi.edu/~johnh/WORK/LSAM/WWW_SEARCH/>.
- new feature: verbose mode of WebSearch is more verbose
- bug fix: AltaVista was recording the RealName URL on some queries
(bug reported by Vassilis Papadimos <vpapad@dblab.ece.ntua.gr>)
- bug fix: AltaVista wasn't correctly reporting change_time/size
(bug and fix from Martin Valldeby <martin.valldeby@pakom.se>)
1.020, 12-Aug-98
overview: lots of bug fixes and new back-ends
- bug fix: maximum_to_retrieve now works for very small values.
(Problem identified by Vidyut Luther <vluther@hpctc.org>.)
- new back-ends: ExciteForWebServers, FolioViews, Livelink, MSIndexServer,
Null, Search97
all from Paul Lindner (thanks!)
- bug fix: Gopher, PLweb, SFgate, Simple, Verity from Paul Lindner
- bug fix: Lycos from John Heidemann
- new test suites: PLweb, FolioViews, Null, MSIndexServer, Search97,
SFgate, ExciteForWebServers rom Paul Lindner
- bug fix: HotBot repair from Martin Thurn
1.021, 27-Aug-98
overview: a general release
- new: Windows installation is now supported by
Jim Smyser <jsmyser@bigfoot.com>; please see his web
page <http://pubinfo.phx.primenet.com/www.search/>
for details.
- new: MacPerl should now be supported. Thanks to Chris Nandor
for the problem and a fix.
- bug fix: Infoseek, WebCrawler, Dejanews, HotBot by Martin Thurn
- bug fix: AltaVista approx_count bug found by
Darren Stalder <darren@u.washington.edu>
- bug fix: documentation cleanups from Neil Bowers
1.022, 16-Oct-98
overview: An interim release to fix several broken back-ends.
- bug fix: documentation cleanups from Ave Wrigley
- bug fix: Infoseek updates (from Martin Thurn)
- bug fix: AltaVista update (minor format changes Oct. 1998,
partial fix from Andreas Borchert)
- new: back ends for Crawler, Fireball, NorthernLight from Andreas Borchert
1.024, 11-Dec-98
overview: primarily bug fixes for back ends
- new: proxy support added to WebSearch and AutoSearch
(based on code from Paul Linder)
- new: new back end for Snap.com (from Jim Smyser)
- bug fix: Yahoo, HotBot, Excite, Lycos (from Martin Thurn),
NorthernLight (from Jim Smyser)