LWP::RobotUA(3) User Contributed Perl Documentation LWP::RobotUA(3)
NAME
LWP::RobotUA - A class for Web Robots
SYNOPSIS
require LWP::RobotUA;
$ua = new LWP::RobotUA 'my-robot/0.1', 'me@foo.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 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 <URL:http://info.webcrawler.com/mak/projects/robots/robots.html>.
When you use a LWP::RobotUA as your user agent, then you do not really have to think about these things yourself. Just send requests as
you do when you are using a normal LWP::UserAgent 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:
$ua = LWP::RobotUA->new($agent_name, $from, [$rules])
Your robot's name and the mail address of the human responsible for the robot (i.e. you) are required by the constructor.
Optionally it allows you to specify the WWW::RobotRules object to use.
$ua->delay([$minutes])
Set the minimum delay between requests to the same server. The default is 1 minute.
$ua->use_sleep([$boolean])
Get/set a value indicating whether the UA should sleep() if requests arrive too fast (before $ua->delay minutes has passed). The
default is TRUE. If this value is FALSE then an internal SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE response will be generated. It will have an Retry-After
header that indicates 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 I know, this method should probably have been named num_visits() or
something like that. :-(
$ua->host_wait($netloc)
Returns the number of seconds (from now) you must wait before you can make a new request to this host.
$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 1996-2000 Gisle Aas.
This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.
libwww-perl-5.65 2001-04-27 LWP::RobotUA(3)