LWP::RobotUA(3)

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

SYNOPSIS
  use LWP::RobotUA;
  my $ua = LWP::RobotUA->new('my-robot/0.1', 'me@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.