problems with search module backend

dannoura has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi,

I'm trying to use the module WWW::Search (v2.39) with the backend (basically an add-on to enable searching on this site) PubMed.pm. Unfortunately, whenever I try to run the example code:

#! c:\perl\bin
use WWW::Search; 

$query = "lung cancer treatment";
$search = new WWW::Search('PubMed'); 
$search->native_query(WWW::Search::escape_query($query)); 
$search->maximum_to_retrieve(100); 
while (my $result = $search->next_result()) { 
$url = $result->url;
$title = $result->title;
$desc = $result->description; 
print "<a href=$url>$title<br>$desc<p>\n"; 
    }
[download]

I get:

unknown search engine backend PubMed (Can't locate WWW/Search/PubMed.p
+m in @INC (@INC contains: C:\Perl\lib C:\Perl\site\lib .) at (eval 5)
+ line 2.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at (eval 5) line 2.
) at C:\Perl\progs\test2.pl line 6
[download]

At first I thought there was some problem with the installation but ppm says the WWW::Search installation was ok and CPAN says ditto for PubMed.pm. I also tried:

BEGIN {
    push @INC, "c:\perl\site\lib\pubmed.pm";
}
[download]

before and after the use statement, but that didn't help. I thought of looking into the actual .pm files but gave up quickly since I'm still a newbie and don't want to destroy the code.

Does anyone have any idea about how to deal with this?

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Re: problems with search module backend by gellyfish (Monsignor) on Jul 01, 2003 at 10:00 UTC
are you sure you have PubMed.pm in c:\perl\site\lib\www\search which is where the backends are supposed to believe as I understand it. /J\	[reply]
Re: Re: problems with search module backend by dannoura (Pilgrim) on Jul 01, 2003 at 10:26 UTC
OK, that works. Thanks.	[reply]
Re: problems with search module backend by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Jul 01, 2003 at 10:06 UTC
The problem is that you haven't installed PubMed.pm in the correct place. How did you install it? If you move the file from it's current location in `c:\perl\site\lib\` to `c:\perl\site\lib\WWW\Search\` It will probably work, though perhaps a better answer would be to re-install the module using CPAN.pm. Examine what is said, not who speaks. "Efficiency is intelligent laziness." -David Dunham "When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong." -Richard Buckminster Fuller	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: problems with search module backend by broquaint (Abbot) on Jul 01, 2003 at 10:06 UTC
The `PubMed.pm` file needs to be located in `WWW\Search` e.g `c:\perl\site\lib\WWW\Search\PubMed.pm` [download] This is because perl searches for modules like so - splits on the `::` of the given package name, where everything up to the last element is a directory and the last element is the name of the file with a `.pm` automatically appeneded and then this path is search for in the one of the `@INC` directories (left-to-right) until found. In code it might look like this `use File::Spec::Functions; sub use { my($pkg, @args) = @_; my(@dirs, $file) = split '::', $pkg; my $path = catfile @dirs, "$file.pm"; eval q< BEGIN { my($lib) = grep { -f cafile($_, $path) } @INC; my $code = IO::File->new(catfile $lib,$path) or die "ack - $!"; $INC{$path} = catfile $lib, $path; eval $code->getlines; $file->import(@args); } >; }` [download] You can find further details in `perlmod`. HTH `_________ broquaint`	[reply] [d/l] [select]