NAME

WWW::Search::Excite - class for searching Excite

SYNOPSIS

    use WWW::Search;
    my $oSearch = new WWW::Search('Excite');
    my $sQuery = WWW::Search::escape_query("+sushi restaurant +Columbus Ohio");
    $oSearch->native_query($sQuery);
    while (my $oResult = $oSearch->next_result()) {
        print $oResult->url, "\n";
    }

DESCRIPTION

This class is a Excite specialization of WWW::Search. It handles making and interpreting Excite searches http://www.excite.com.

This class exports no public interface; all interaction should be done through WWW::Search objects.

SEE ALSO

To make new back-ends, see WWW::Search.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

native_setup_search is called (from WWW::Search::setup_search) before we do anything. It initializes our private variables (which all begin with underscore) 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 WWW::Search::http_request to fetch the page specified by {_next_url}. It then 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.

CAVEATS

Only returns results from Excite's "Web Results". Ignores all other sections of Excite's query results.

BUGS

Please tell the author if you find any!

TESTING

This module adheres to the WWW::Search test suite mechanism.

  Test cases:
 '+mrfglbqnx +NoSuchWord'          ---   no hits
 '+LSAM +replication'              ---   13 hits on one page
 '+Jabba +bounty +hunter +Greedo'  ---  138 hits on two pages

AUTHOR

As of 1998-03-23, WWW::Search::Excite is maintained by Martin Thurn (mthurn@irnet.rest.tasc.com).

WWW::Search::Excite was originally written by Martin Thurn based on WWW::Search::HotBot.

LEGALESE

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.

VERSION HISTORY

1.4

Modified for new Excite output format.

1.2

First publicly-released version.