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lib::LWP::RobotUA

Section: User Contributed Perl Documentation (3)
Updated: libwww-perl-5.48
Index

NAME

LWP::RobotUA - A class for Web Robots

SYNOPSIS

  require LWP::RobotUA;  $ua = new LWP::RobotUA 'my-robot/0.1', 'meAATTfoo.com';  $ua->delay(10);  # be very nice, go slowly  ...  # just use it just like a normal LWP::UserAgent  $res = $ua->request($req);

DESCRIPTION

This class implements a user agent that is suitable for robotapplications. Robots should be nice to the servers they visit. Theyshould consult the /robots.txt file to ensure that they are welcomedand they should not make requests too frequently.

But, before you consider writing a robot take a look at<URL:http://info.webcrawler.com/mak/projects/robots/robots.html>.

When you use a LWP::RobotUA as your user agent, then you do notreally have to think about these things yourself. Just send requestsas you do when you are using a normal LWP::UserAgent and thisspecial agent will make sure you are nice.

METHODS

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

$ua = LWP::RobotUA->new($agent_name, $from, [$rules]): Your robot's name and the mail address of the human responsible forthe robot (i.e. you) are required by the constructor.
Optionally it allows you to specify the WWW::RobotRules object touse.
$ua->delay([$minutes]): Set the minimum delay between requests to the same server. Thedefault is 1 minute.
$ua->use_sleep([$boolean]): Get/set a value indicating whether the UA should sleep() if requestsarrive too fast (before $ua->delay minutes has passed). The default isTRUE. If this value is FALSE then an internal SERVICE_UNAVAILABLEresponse will be generated. It will have an Retry-After header thatindicates when it is OK to send another request to this server.
$ua->rules([$rules]): Set/get which WWW::RobotRules object to use.
$ua->no_visits($netloc): Returns the number of documents fetched from this server host. Yes Iknow, this method should probably have been named num_visits() orsomething like that. :-(
$ua->host_wait($netloc): Returns the number of seconds (from now) you must wait before you canmake a new request to this host.
$ua->as_string: Returns a string that describes the state of the UA.Mainly useful for debugging.

COPYRIGHT

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

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