WebSearch1p

Usage

Overview

This program is provides a command-line interface to web search engines, listing all URLs found for a given query. This program also provides a simple demonstration of the WWW::Search Perl library for web searches.

The program supports a number of search engines; use WebSearch --list to see which backends are installed.

A more sophisticated client is AutoSearch which maintains a change list of found objects.

For examples and hints about searches, see AutoSearch.

Options

WebSearch uses Getopt::Long, so you can use double-minus with long option names, or single-minus with one-letter abbreviations.

--engine e_name, -e e_name

The string e_name is the name of (the module for) the desired search engine. Capitalization matters. See `perldoc WWW::Search` to find out what the default is (probably Null).

Use --list to get a list of installed backends.

--gui, -g

Perform the search to mimic the default browser-based search. Not implemented for all backends, see the documentation for each backend.

--list

Prints to STDERR a \n-separated list of installed backends.

--max max_count, -m max_count

Specify the maximum number of hits to retrieve.

--option o_string, -o o_string

Specify a search-engine option in the form 'key=value' (or just 'key'). Can be repeated for as many options are needed. Keys can be repeated.

--count, -c

As the first line of output, print the approximate hit count. As the last line of output, print the actual hit count.

--terse, -t

Do not print any URLs. Only useful if you also specify --count. If you specify --terse but not --count, there will be no output no matter how many hits are found!

--all, -a

For each hit result, print all the URLs that the search engine indicated were equivalent to it. (Some URLs may refer to the same object.) Can be combined with --verbose; can not be combined with --raw.

--raw, -r

For each hit result, print the raw HTML. Not implemented for all backends.

--verbose, -v

Verbose mode. Enumerate the returned URLs and show the description, score, date, etc. for each.

--VERSION, -V

Print version information and exit immediately.

--debug <i>, -d <i>

Display back-end debugging information (with debug level <i>)

--host <hostname.sub.domain>

Set the _host option for the WWW::Search object (backend-dependent).

--port <i>

Set the _port option for the WWW::Search object (backend-dependent).

--username <bbunny>

Set the username with which to login to the backend.

--password <c4rr0t5>

Set the password with which to login to the backend.

--lwpdebug, -l

Display low-level libwww-perl debugging information

Environment

The environment variable http_proxy (or HTTP_PROXY) specifies a proxy, if any.