{ "mode": "man", "parameter": "AutoSearch", "section": "1p", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/AutoSearch/1p/json", "generated": "2026-10-23T20:29:49Z", "synopsis": "AutoSearch [--stats] [--verbose] -n \"Query Name\" -s \"query string\" --engine engine [--mail\nyou@where.com] [--options \"opt=val\"]... [--filter \"filter\"] [--host host] [--port port]\n[--userid bbunny --password c4rr0t5] [--ignorechannels KABC,KCBS,KNBC] qid\nAutoSearch --VERSION AutoSearch --help AutoSearch --man", "sections": { "NAME": { "content": "AutoSearch -- a web-search tracking application\n", "subsections": [] }, "SYNOPSIS": { "content": "AutoSearch [--stats] [--verbose] -n \"Query Name\" -s \"query string\" --engine engine [--mail\nyou@where.com] [--options \"opt=val\"]... [--filter \"filter\"] [--host host] [--port port]\n[--userid bbunny --password c4rr0t5] [--ignorechannels KABC,KCBS,KNBC] qid\n\nAutoSearch --VERSION AutoSearch --help AutoSearch --man\n", "subsections": [] }, "DESCRIPTION": { "content": "AutoSearch submits a query to a search engine, produces HTML pages that reflect the set of\n'hits' (filtered search results) returned by the search engine, and tracks these results over\ntime. The URL and title are displayed in the qid/index.html, the URL, the title, and\ndescription are displayed in the 'weekly' files.\n\nTo organize these results, each search result is placed in a query information directory\n(qid). The directory becomes the search results 'handle', an easy way to track a set of\nresults. Thus a qid of \"/usr/local/htdocs/lsam/autosearch/loadbalancing\" might locate the\nresults on your web server at \"http://www.isi.edu/lsam/autosearch/loadbalancing\".\n\nInside the qid directory you will find files relating to this query. The primary file is\nindex.html, which reflects the latest search results. Every not-filtered hit for every\nsearch is stored in index.html. When a hit is no longer found by the search engine it a\nremoved from index.html. As new results for a search are returned from the search engine\nthey are placed in index.html.\n\nAt the bottom of index.html, there is a heading \"Weekly Search Results\", which is updated\neach time the search is submitted (see \"AUTOMATED SEARCHING\"). The list of search runs is\nstored in reverse chronological order. Runs which provide no new information are identified\nwith\n\nNo Unique Results found for search on \n\nRuns which contain changes are identified by\n\nWeb search results for search on \n\nwhich will be linked a page detailing the changes from that run.\n\nDetailed search results are noted in weekly files. These files are named YYYYMMDD.html and\nare stored in the qid directory. The weekly files include THE URL, title, and a the\ndescription (if available). The title is a link to the original web page.\n", "subsections": [] }, "OPTIONS": { "content": "\"qid\"\nThe query identifer specifies the directory in which all the files that relate to this\nquery and search results will live. It can be an absolute path, or a relative path from\ncwd. If the directory does not exist, it will be created and a new search started.\n\n\"--stats\"\nShow search statistics: the query string, number of hits, number of filtered hits, filter\nstring, number of suspended (deleted) hits, previous set size, current set size, etc.\n\n\"-v\" or \"--verbose\"\nVerbose: output additional messages and warnings.\n\n\"-n\" or \"--qn\" or \"--queryname\"\nSpecify the query name. The query name is used as a heading in the web pages, therefore\nit should be a 'nice' looking version of the query string.\n\n\"-s\" or \"--qs\" or \"--querystring\"\nSpecify the query string. The query string is the character string which will be\nsubmitted to the search engine. You may include special characters to group or to\nqualify the search.\n\n\"-e\" or \"--engine\"\nSpecify the search engine. The query string will be submitted to the user specified\nsearch engine.\n\nIn many cases there are specialized versions of search engines. For example,\nAltaVista::AdvancedWeb and AltaVista::News allow more powerful and Usenet searches. See\nAltaVista or the man page for your search engine for details about specialized\nvariations.\n\n\"--listnewurls\"\nIn addition to all the normal file maintenance, print all new URLs to STDOUT, one per\nline.\n\n\"-o\" or \"--options\"\nSpecify the query options. The query options will be submitted to the user search engine\nwith the query string. This feature permits modification of the query string for a\nspecific search engine or option. More than one query option may be specified.\n\nExample: \"-o what=news\" causes AltaVista to search Usenet. Although this works, the\npreferred mechanism in this case would be \"-e AltaVista::News\" or \"-e\nAltaVista::AdvancedNews\". Options are intended for internal or expert use.\n\n\"-f\" or \"--uf\" or \"--urlfilter\"\nThis option specifies a regular expression which will be compared against the URLs of any\nresults; if they match the case-insensitive regular expression, they will be removed from\nthe hit set.\n\nExample: \"-f '.*\\.isi\\.edu'\" avoids all of ISI's web pages.\n\n\"--cleanup i\"\nDelete all traces of query results from more than i days ago. If --cleanup is given, all\nother options other than the qid will be ignored.\n\n\"--cmdline\"\nReconstruct the complete command line (AutoSearch and all its arguments) that was used to\ncreate the query results. Command line will be shown on STDERR. If --cmdline is given,\nall other options other than the qid will be ignored.\n\n\"--mail user@address\" or \"-m user@address\"\nAfter search is complete, send email to that user, listing the NEW results. Email is\nHTML format. Requires the Email::Send and related modules. If you send email through an\nSMTP server, you must set environment variable SMTPSERVER to your server name or IP\naddress. If your SMTP server requires password, you must set environment variables\nSMTPUSERNAME and SMTPPASSWORD. If you send email via sendmail, you should set\nenvironment variable SENDMAIL if the sendmail executable is not in the path.\n\n\"--emailfrom user@address\"\nIf your outgoing mail server rejects email from certain users, you can use this argument\nto set the From: header.\n\n\"--userid bbunny\"\nIf the search engine requires a login/password (e.g. Ebay::Completed), use this.\n\n\"--password Carr0t5\"\nIf the search engine requires a login/password (e.g. Ebay::Mature), use this.\n", "subsections": [] }, "AUTOMATED SEARCHING": { "content": "On UNIX-like systems, cron(1) may be used to establish periodic searches and the web pages\nwill be maintained by AutoSearch. To establish the first search, use the first example under\nSYNOPSIS. You must specify the qid, query name and query string. If any of the items are\nmissing, you will be interactively prompted for the missing item(s).\n\nOnce the first search is complete you can re-run the search with the second form under\nSYNOPSIS.\n\nA cron entry like:\n\n0 3 * * 1 /nfs/u1/wls/AutoSearch.pl /www/div7/lsam/autosearch/caching\n\nmight be used to run the search each Monday at 3:00 AM. The query name and query string may\nbe repeated; but they will not be used. This means that with a cron line like:\n\n0 3 * * 1 /nfs/u1/wls/AutoSearch.pl /www/div7/lsam/autosearch/caching -n caching -s caching\n\na whole new search series can be originated by\n\nrm -r /www/div7/lsam/autosearch/caching\n\nHowever, the only reason to start a new search series would be to throw away the old weekly\nfiles.\n\nWe don't recommend running searches more than once per day, but if so the per-run files will\nbe updated in-place. Any changes are added to the page with a comment that \"Recently\nAdded:\"; and deletions are indicated with \"Recently Suspended:.\"\n", "subsections": [] }, "CHANGING THE LOOK OF THE PAGES": { "content": "The basic format of these two pages is simple and customizable. One requirement is that the\nbasic structure remain unchanged. HTML comments are used to identify sections of the\ndocument. Almost everything can be changed except for the strings which identify the section\nstarts and ends.\n\nNoteworthy tags and their meaning:\n\n.*\nThe text contained within this tag is placed at the top of the output page.\nIf the text contains AutoSearch WEB Searching, then the query name will\nreplace it. If the text does not contain this magic string and it is the\nfirst ever search, the user will be asked for a query name.\n\n\nThe text contained between the braces is the query string. This is how\nAutoSearch maintains the query string. You may edit this string to change\nthe query string; but only in qid/index.html. The text ask user is special\nand will force AutoSearch to request the search string from the user.\n\n\nThe text contained between the braces is the search engine. Other engines\nsupported are HotBot and Lycos. You may edit this string to change the\nengine used; but only in qid/index.html. The text ask user is special and\nwill force AutoSearch to to request the search string from the user.\n\n\nThe text contained between the braces specifies a query options. Multiple\noccurrences of this command are allowed to specify multiple options.\n\n\nThe text contained between the braces is the URL filter. This is how\nAutoSearch maintains the filter. Again you may edit this string to change\nthe query string; but only in qid/index.html. The text ask user is special\nand will force AutoSearch to ask the user (STDIN) for the query string. When\nsetting up the first search, you must edit firstindex.html, not\nqid/index.html. The URL filter is a standard perl5 regular expression. URLs\nwhich do not match will be kept.\n\n.*\nThe text contained within this tag is placed at the bottom of the output\npage. This is a good place to put navigation, page owner information, etc.\n\nThe remainder of the tags fall into a triplet of ~Heading, ~Template, and ~, where ~ is\nSummary, Weekly, Appended, and Suspended. The sub-sections appear in the order given. To\nproduce a section AutoSearch outputs the heading, the template, the section, n copies of the\nformatted data, and an /section. The tags and their function are:\n\n~Heading The heading tag identifies the heading for a section of the output file. The\nSummaryHeading is for the summary portion, etc. The section may be empty\n(e.g., Suspended) and thus no heading is output.\n\n~Template The template tag identifies how each item is to be formatted. Simple text\nreplacement is used to change the template into the actual output text. The\ntext to be replaced is noted in ALLCAPS.\n\n~ This tag is used to locate the section (Summary, Weekly, etc.). This section\nrepresents the actual n-items of data.\n\nYou can edit these values in the qid/index.html page of an existing search. The file\nfirstindex.html (in the directory above qid) will be used as a default template for new\nqueries.\n\nExamples of these files can be seen in the pages under\n\"http://www.isi.edu/lsam/tools/autosearch/\", or in the output generated by a new AutoSearch.\n", "subsections": [] }, "FILES": { "content": "firstindex.html optional file to determine the default format of the index.html file of a\nnew query.\n\nfirstdate.html optional file to determine the default format of the YYYYMMDD.html file\nfor a new query.\n\nqid/index.html (automatically created) latest search results, and reverse chronological\nlist of periodic searches.\n\nqid/date.html file used as a template for the YYYYMMDD.html files.\n\nqid/YYYYMMDD.html (automatically created) summary of changes for a particular date (AKA\n'Weekly' file).\n\nOptional files firstindex.html and firstdate.html are used for the initial search as a\ntemplate for qid/index.html and date.html, respectively. If either of these files does not\nexist; a default-default template is stored within the AutoSearch source. The intention of\nthese two files is to permit a user to establish a framework for a group of search sets which\nhave a common format. By leaving the default query name and query string alone, they will be\noverridden by command line inputs.\n", "subsections": [] }, "SEE ALSO": { "content": "For the library, see WWW::Search, for the perl regular expressions, see perlre.\n", "subsections": [] }, "AUTHORS": { "content": "Wm. L. Scheding\n\nAutoSearch is a re-implementation of an earlier version written by Kedar Jog.\n", "subsections": [] }, "COPYRIGHT": { "content": "Copyright (C) 1996-1997 University of Southern California. All rights reserved.\n\nRedistribution and use in source and binary forms are permitted provided that the above\ncopyright notice and this paragraph are duplicated in all such forms and that any\ndocumentation, advertising materials, and other materials related to such distribution and\nuse acknowledge that the software was developed by the University of Southern California,\nInformation Sciences Institute. The name of the University may not be used to endorse or\npromote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.\n\nTHIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED \"AS IS\" AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING,\nWITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR\nPURPOSE.\n", "subsections": [] }, "DESIRED FEATURES": { "content": "These are good ideas that people have suggested.\n\nURL validation.\nValidate the status of each URL (with HTTP HEAD requests) and indicate this status in the\noutput.\n\nMulti-search.\nIt should be possible to merge the results of searches from two search-engines. If this\nmerger were done as a new search engine, this operation would be transparent to\nAutoSearch.\n", "subsections": [] }, "BUGS": { "content": "None known at this time; please inform the maintainer mthurn@cpan.org if any crop up.\n\nperl v5.30.3 2020-09-10 AUTOSEARCH(1p)", "subsections": [] } }, "summary": "AutoSearch -- a web-search tracking application", "flags": [], "examples": [], "see_also": [], "tldr": { "source": "not_found", "examples": [] } }