WEBSEARCH(1)

📦
version 2.519 · 2 versions
, in fedora 43

🎀 WEBSEARCH(1) · User Contributed Perl Documentation 🎀

okay bestie, this is the manual for WebSearch, a command-line app for the User Contributed Perl Documentation 💅 Let's get into it.

✨ NAME ✨

WebSearch 🦋 is a web-searching application that doubles as a demo of WWW::Search. Slay.

💜 SYNOPSIS 💜

Here's how you call it:

WebSearch [-m MaxCount] [-e SearchEngine] [-o option] [-o option...]
[-ardvV] query

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

okay so WebSearch is a command-line interface to web search engines 💻 It lists every URL it finds for a given query. ngl it's also a simple demo of the WWW::Search Perl library for web searches, so it's giving learning tool too 🧚

The program supports a bunch of search engines! To see which backends are installed, run WebSearch --list 🌈

If you want something more sophisticated, check out AutoSearch, which keeps a change list of found objects 👑

For examples and hints about searches, see AutoSearch 🫶

🔥 OPTIONS 🔥

WebSearch uses Getopt::Long, so you can type double dashes with long option names (like --max), or a single dash with one-letter abbreviations (like -m) 💖

  • --engine e_name, -e e_name — pick your search engine by naming its module, e_name. Capitalization matters, so be careful 🙈 See perldoc WWW::Search to find out what the default is (probably Null). Use --list to get a list of installed backends.
  • --gui, -g — mimics the default browser-based search. Not implemented for all backends, so check the docs for each backend 🌸
  • --list — prints a \n-separated list of installed backends to STDERR 📝
  • --max max_count, -m max_count — sets the max number of hits you want to retrieve 🎯
  • --option o_string, -o o_string — sets a search-engine option in the form 'key=value' (or just 'key'). Repeat it as many times as you need, and keys can be repeated too 🍓
  • --count, -c — the first line of output is the approximate hit count, and the last line is the actual hit count 🔢
  • --terse, -t — don't print any URLs. Only useful if you also use --count 🤫
⚠️ If you use --terse without --count, there will be no output at all, no matter how many hits are found!
  • --all, -a — for each hit, prints all the URLs the engine says are equivalent to it (some URLs may point to the same object). Can be combined with --verbose, but can not be combined with --raw 🦋
  • --raw, -r — prints the raw HTML for each hit. Not implemented for all backends 🧾
  • --verbose, -v — enumerates the returned URLs and shows the description, score, date, etc. for each one ✨
  • --VERSION, -V — prints version info and exits immediately 🏷️
  • --debug <i>, -d <i> — shows back-end debugging info at debug level <i> 🐛
  • --host <hostname.sub.domain> — sets the _host option for the WWW::Search object (depends on the backend) 🏠
  • --port <i> — sets the _port option for the WWW::Search object (depends on the backend) 🔌
  • --username <bbunny> — sets the username used to log in to the backend 🐰
  • --password <c4rr0t5> — sets the password used to log in to the backend 🔐
  • --lwpdebug, -l — shows low-level libwww-perl debugging info 🕵️

🌐 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES 🌐

The environment variable http_proxy (or HTTP_PROXY) specifies a proxy, if you have one 🛰️

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

  • For the library, see WWW::Search.
  • For a more sophisticated client, see AutoSearch.

🎀 AUTHOR 🎀

"WebSearch" was written by John Heidemann, <johnh@isi.edu>. It's maintained by Martin Thurn, <mthurn@cpan.org> 🫶

Copyright (c) 1996-1997 University of Southern California. All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms are allowed, as long as the copyright notice and this paragraph are duplicated in all such forms. Any documentation, ads, or other materials about it have to say the software was developed by the University of Southern California, Information Sciences Institute 🏛️ The University's name can't be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

💀 THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES. That includes (without limitation) the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. So: no guarantees, bestie.

That's the whole tea, bestie! 🌈 Happy searching ✨ 🦋 perl v5.42.0 · 2025-07-25 · WEBSEARCH(1) 💖

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