WWW::Search
I wrote and, until mid-1999, maintained the WWW::Search Perl module.
(WWW::Search is a collection of Perl modules which provide an API to WWW search engines like AltaVista, Lycos, Hotbot, WebCrawler, and so on. Currently WWW::Search includes back-ends for variations of AltaVista, Lycos, and HotBot. We include two applications built from this library: AutoSearch (an program to automate tracking of search results over time), and a small demonstration program to drive the library. Back-ends for other search engines and more sophisticated clients are currently under development.)
Eventually I ran out of time to maintain WWW::Search, so Martin Thurn has taken over maintanence and development WWW::Search. (Thanks!) There is no longer a web page, but recent versions are available through CPAN.
WWW::Search::AltaVista
I continue to maintain the AltaVista WWW::Search module. This web page provides development versions of WWW::Search::AltaVista. Ideally you should use what Martin provides; this page is for in case the AltaVista module breaks between releases.
I appreciate feedback about the AltaVista module, but I maintain WWW::Search::AltaVista in my spare time. If it doesn’t do something you want, let me know, but you should also consider contributing code to fix it.
New versions are posted to the info-www-search mailing list. See the WWW::Search documentation for information about how to subscribe.
My releases are numbered independently from Martin’s releases. In general, I assume Martin will pick up my most recent release.
2.0, 27-Oct-99: On Oct. 25, AltaVista changed their format. The the 2.0 AltaVista backend should work with the new format.
2.4, 5-Nov-99: Version number and URL added. 2.4 AltaVista backend
2.5, 5-Nov-99: Bug fix in handling single page hits. 2.5 AltaVista backend
News has changed (there’s now news, discussions [what used to be news, i.e., Usenet], and shopping). I don’t plan to support all those variants, but I’ll accept patches to support them. (Deja handles news at least as well as AV, and automating the others doesn’t seem very useful.)
1-Aug-00: AV stopped getting more than the first page for me. This patch fixes the problem, or get the 2.8 AltaVista backend
3-Aug-00: Improved title detection (thanks to Jim Smyser for the fix). 2.9 AltaVista backend.