LWP::RobotUA - phpMan

NAME
    LWP::RobotUA - a class for well-behaved Web robots

SYNOPSIS
      use LWP::RobotUA;
      my $ua = LWP::RobotUA->new('my-robot/0.1', 'me AT foo.com');
      $ua->delay(10);  # be very nice -- max one hit every ten minutes!
      ...

      # Then just use it just like a normal LWP::UserAgent:
      my $response = $ua->get('http://whatever.int/...');
      ...

DESCRIPTION
    This class implements a user agent that is suitable for robot
    applications. Robots should be nice to the servers they visit. They
    should consult the /robots.txt file to ensure that they are welcomed and
    they should not make requests too frequently.

    But before you consider writing a robot, take a look at
    <http://www.robotstxt.org/>.

    When you use an *LWP::RobotUA* object as your user agent, then you do
    not really have to think about these things yourself; "robots.txt" files
    are automatically consulted and obeyed, the server isn't queried too
    rapidly, and so on. Just send requests as you do when you are using a
    normal *LWP::UserAgent* object (using "$ua->get(...)", "$ua->head(...)",
    "$ua->request(...)", etc.), and this special agent will make sure you
    are nice.

METHODS
    The LWP::RobotUA is a sub-class of LWP::UserAgent and implements the
    same methods. In addition the following methods are provided:

  new
        my $ua = LWP::RobotUA->new( %options )
        my $ua = LWP::RobotUA->new( $agent, $from )
        my $ua = LWP::RobotUA->new( $agent, $from, $rules )

    The LWP::UserAgent options "agent" and "from" are mandatory. The options
    "delay", "use_sleep" and "rules" initialize attributes private to the
    RobotUA. If "rules" are not provided, then WWW::RobotRules is
    instantiated providing an internal database of robots.txt.

    It is also possible to just pass the value of "agent", "from" and
    optionally "rules" as plain positional arguments.

  delay
        my $delay = $ua->delay;
        $ua->delay( $minutes );

    Get/set the minimum delay between requests to the same server, in
    *minutes*. The default is 1 minute. Note that this number doesn't have
    to be an integer; for example, this sets the delay to 10 seconds:

        $ua->delay(10/60);

  use_sleep
        my $bool = $ua->use_sleep;
        $ua->use_sleep( $boolean );

    Get/set a value indicating whether the UA should "sleep" in LWP::RobotUA
    if requests arrive too fast, defined as "$ua->delay" minutes not passed
    since last request to the given server. The default is true. If this
    value is false then an internal "SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE" response will be
    generated. It will have a "Retry-After" header that indicates when it is
    OK to send another request to this server.

  rules
        my $rules = $ua->rules;
        $ua->rules( $rules );

    Set/get which *WWW::RobotRules* object to use.

  no_visits
        my $num = $ua->no_visits( $netloc )

    Returns the number of documents fetched from this server host. Yeah I
    know, this method should probably have been named "num_visits" or
    something like that. :-(

  host_wait
        my $num = $ua->host_wait( $netloc )

    Returns the number of *seconds* (from now) you must wait before you can
    make a new request to this host.

  as_string
        my $string = $ua->as_string;

    Returns a string that describes the state of the UA. Mainly useful for
    debugging.

SEE ALSO
    LWP::UserAgent, WWW::RobotRules

COPYRIGHT
    Copyright 1996-2004 Gisle Aas.

    This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
    under the same terms as Perl itself.