---
name: "WWW::Search::Profusion"
section: "3pm"
platform: "linux"
package: "libwww-search-perl"
version: "2.07-1"
release: "Debian 2.2 (Potato)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/WWW::Search::Profusion"
---

# WWW::Search::Profusion(3pm)

class for searching Profusion.com!

## NAME

WWW::Search::Profusion - class for searching Profusion.com!

## SYNOPSIS

```
    require WWW::Search;
    $search = new WWW::Search('Profusion');
```

## DESCRIPTION

This class uses the Meta Search Engine *http://www.profusion.com*. Search engines searched are: 1) AltaVista 2) InfoSeek 3) Snap 4) Excite 5) LookSmart 6) WebCrawler 7) Magellan 8) Yahoo 9) GoTo

Most of the above defaults to Boolean. Profusion returns all retrieved hits to one page, so, there is no next page retrievals.

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

## USAGE OPTIONS

There is 5 possible option values for type of search (default is All): Simple All  Any  Boolean Phrase

To search different categories with Profusion you simpy change the the base search\_url to one of the following:

Newsgroups = http://usenet.profusion.com/ Health = http://health.profusion.com/ Entertainment = http://entertainment.profusion.com/ Sports = http://sports.profusion.com/ MP3 = http://mp3.profusion.com/

You can turn on totalverify=0 to weed out any bad links returned, but be  warned it is slowwwwww.  totalverify=20 would verify first 20 links and so on....

## SEE ALSO

To make new back-ends, see the *WWW::Search* manpage, or the specialized AltaVista searches described in options.

## 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

`WWW::Search::Profusion` is written and maintained by Jim Smyser - \<jsmyser@bigfoot.com\>.

## TESTING

This backend returns ALL results to \*one\* page.

This backend adheres to the `WWW::Search` test mechanism. See `$TEST_CASES` below.

\=head1 COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) 1996-1999 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.

## VERSION HISTORY

2\.01 New test mechanism.

1\.05 Fix for new format change. Returning of search engine name  with the description along with the full url of the found link.

1\.04 Fix for format change. Added striping of \<b\> tags in title so  description does not get bolded over.

1\.03 fixes minor parsing error where some hits were being ignored. Also added returning of all HTML (raw).