WebFetch

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WebFetch
Original author(s)Ian Kluft[1]
Initial release1998; 26 years ago (1998)
Stable release
0.13 / September 20, 2009; 14 years ago (2009-09-20)
Written inPerl 5
Operating systemUnix, Linux
LicenseGNU General Public License
Websitewww.webfetch.org[dead link] Archived December 10, 2013, at the Wayback Machine

WebFetch is a set of Perl 5 modules written by Ian Kluft from 1998 through 2009 that provides a framework for retrieving information feeds from the Web, or posting a feed on a web site. It is intended to be run on a Unix or Linux server automatically, such as from cron. The current version 0.13 was released September 20, 2009. It is Open Source software, licensed under the GNU General Public License.[1]

WebFetch can collect various types of inputs via plugin modules and send or store them to various outputs also via plugin modules. Inputs include RSS, Atom, local news feed files, and perl data structures. Outputs include perl data structures, the Template Toolkit and pages in TWiki systems.[1]

History

Before there were RSS and Atom aggregation, WebFetch started with modules to retrieve news in ad hoc feed formats of various web sites, including Slashdot.[2]

WebFetch is available from the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network.[1] The following Perl modules are included with it.

  • WebFetch::Input::Atom - Atom feed reader
  • WebFetch::Input::PerlStruct - Perl structure input
  • WebFetch::Input::RSS - RSS feed reader
  • WebFetch::Input::SiteNews - local "site news" file reader
  • WebFetch::Output::Dump - perl structure dump output
  • WebFetch::Output::TT - Template Toolkit output
  • WebFetch::Output::TWiki - TWiki page output

The following Perl modules were based on ad hoc news formats from before RSS, and in some cases web scraping. They used to be provided with WebFetch in the past, but were deprecated and removed.[3]

  • WebFetch::CNETnews
  • WebFetch::CNNsearch
  • WebFetch::COLA
  • WebFetch::DebianNews
  • WebFetch::Freshmeat
  • WebFetch::LinuxDevNet
  • WebFetch::LinuxTelephony
  • WebFetch::LinuxToday
  • WebFetch::ListSubs
  • WebFetch::Slashdot
  • WebFetch::32BitsOnline
  • WebFetch::YahooBiz

References

  1. ^ a b c d "WebFetch 0.13". Comprehensive Perl Archive Network. 2009-09-20. Retrieved 2009-09-29.
  2. ^ "About SLASH: The Slashdot Code". Archived from the original on June 29, 2009. Retrieved 2009-09-29.
  3. ^ "The WebFetch Project". Archived from the original on 2013-12-10. Retrieved 2009-09-30. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2013-12-10. Retrieved 2007-12-23.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)

External links