Is there a particular reason you query against the Newest Nodes page, rather than the available XML tickers' Newest Nodes XML ticker, which would likely be easier to parse and digest for the information you want (such as looking for entries with a nodetype that is not a "user", "note", or "poll")? Just curious....

C.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
###########################################
# pm2irc - Scrape perlmonks.com and post
#          new questions to #pmnewestnodes
###########################################
use strict;
use Bot::BasicBot;
use HTML::TreeBuilder;
use URI::URL;
use CGI qw(a);
use Cache::FileCache;
use HTTP::Request::Common;
use Log::Log4perl qw(:easy);
use POE;
use POE::Component::Client::HTTP;
use XML::Simple;

our $CHANNEL        = "#pm2irc";
our $USER           = "pm2irc";
our $FETCH_INTERVAL = 600;
our $BASE_URL       = "http://perlmonks.com/?node_id=";
                        # RSS feed
our $FETCH_URL      = "${BASE_URL}30175";

Log::Log4perl->easy_init($INFO);

our $cache = new Cache::FileCache({
    namespace  => "pm2irc",
});

my $Bot = Bot::BasicBot->new(
    server   => 'irc.freenode.net',
    channels => [$CHANNEL],
    nick     => $USER,
);

DEBUG "Setting up pm2irc POE components";

POE::Component::Client::HTTP->spawn(
    Alias     => "ua",
    Timeout   => 60,
);

POE::Session->create(
  inline_states => {
    _start     => sub {
         # Wait 20 secs before the first post
      $poe_kernel->delay('http_start', 20);
    },
    http_start => sub {
      DEBUG "Fetching url $FETCH_URL";
      $poe_kernel->post("ua", "request",
          "http_ready", GET $FETCH_URL);
      $poe_kernel->delay('http_start',
                        $FETCH_INTERVAL);
    },
    http_ready => sub {
      DEBUG "http_ready $FETCH_URL";
      my $resp= $_[ARG1]->[0];
      if($resp->is_success()) {
        pm_update($resp->content());
      } else {
        ERROR "Can't fetch $FETCH_URL: ", $resp->message();
      }
    },
  }
);

DEBUG "The dance begins ...";
$Bot->run();

###########################################
sub pm_update {
###########################################
  my($html_text) = @_;

  if(my @nws = latest_news($html_text)) {
      for(@nws) {
          INFO "Sending '$_' to channel";
          $Bot->say(channel => $CHANNEL,
                    body    => "$_",
                   );
      }
  }
}

###########################################
sub latest_news {
###########################################
  my($xml_string) = @_;

  my $max_node;

  my $saved = $cache->get("max-node");
  $saved = 0 unless defined $saved;

  my @aimtext = ();

  my $data = XMLin($xml_string);

  for my $node (@{ $data->{NODE} }) {
      next unless $node->{nodetype};
      next unless $node->{nodetype} =~
          /perlquestion|monkdiscussion/;

      $node->{content} =~ s/\n//g;

      if($node->{node_id} > $saved) {
          INFO "New node $node->{content} ($node->{node_id})";
          unshift @aimtext, "$node->{content} " .
                            "${BASE_URL}$node->{node_id}";
      }

      $max_node = $node->{node_id} if !defined $max_node or
         $max_node < $node->{node_id};
  }

  $cache->set("max-node", $max_node)
      if $saved < $max_node;

  return @aimtext;
}
[download]

Please do have a look at:

What XML generators are currently available on PerlMonks?
PerlMonks::Mechanized (beta)

I believe the information and code there will help you achieve your goal more easily and without bandwidth-hogging scraping. :-)

HTH,

A couple of notes.

In the new XML version, you no longer need to "use HTML::TreeBuilder" - I know this because I had a devil of a time installing that from CPAN, in fact I gave up! (actually, I tried again just now and it installed seemlessly. *shrug*)

Second, I was inspired to lift most of your code and adjust it to my needs. I tried Net::YahooMessenger and had issues - I don't think they've kept up with YIM's protocol and/or server updates. So I resorted to Mac::AppleScript to create an applescript and send myself an IM that way, and decided to post the resulting code here :)

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use Mac::AppleScript qw(RunAppleScript);
use POE;
use POE::Component::Client::HTTP;
use URI::URL;
use CGI qw(a);
use Cache::FileCache;
use HTTP::Request::Common;
use Log::Log4perl qw(:easy);
use XML::Simple;

our $BASE_URL  = "http://perlmonks.org/?node_id=";
our $FETCH_URL = "${BASE_URL}30175";

$FROM_ACCOUNT = "m0nkb0t";
$TO_ACCOUNT   = "m0nk22";

Log::Log4perl->easy_init({level=>$DEBUG,file=>">>apl.log"});

our $cache = new Cache::FileCache({
    namespace => "pm2yim",
    });

DEBUG "setting up pm2yim POE components";

POE::Component::Client::HTTP->spawn(
    Alias   => "ua",
    Timeout => 60,
);

POE::Session->create(
  inline_states => {
    _start     => sub {
      # Wait 20 secs before the first post
      $poe_kernel->delay('http_start', 20);
    },
    http_start => sub {
      DEBUG "Fetching url $FETCH_URL";
      $poe_kernel->post("ua", "request", "http_ready", GET $FETCH_URL)
+;
      $poe_kernel->delay('http_start', $FETCH_INTERVAL);
    },
    http_ready => sub {
      DEBUG "http_ready $FETCH_URL";
      my $resp= $_[ARG1]->[0];
      if($resp->is_success()) {
        pm_update($resp->content());
      } else {
        ERROR "Can't fetch $FETCH_URL: ", $resp->message();
      }
    },
  }
);

DEBUG "The dance begins ...";
$poe_kernel->run();

sub pm_update {
  my($html_text) = @_;

  if(my @nws = latest_news($html_text)) {
      for(@nws) {
          INFO "Sending '$_' to IM";
          im_update( $_ );
      }
  }
}

sub im_update {
  my $scr;
  my $msg = shift;
  DEBUG "Attempting to update via IM";
  ($scr = <<"  EOS") =~ s/^\s+//gm;
    set fromAcct to "$FROM_ACCOUNT"
    set toAcct to "$TO_ACCOUNT"
    tell application "Adium"
      repeat with acc in accounts
        if display name of acc is fromAcct then
          connect acc
          repeat with ctc in contacts of acc
            if display name of ctc is toAcct then
              send ctc message "$msg" on account acc
            end if
          end repeat
          disconnect acc
        end if
      end repeat
    end tell
  EOS
  RunAppleScript($scr) or DEBUG "couldn't run applescript";
}

sub latest_news {
  my($xml_string) = @_;

  my $max_node;

  my $saved = $cache->get("max-node");
  $saved = 0 unless defined $saved;

  my @aimtext = ();

  my $data = XMLin($xml_string);

  for my $node (@{ $data->{NODE} }) {
      next unless $node->{nodetype};
      next unless $node->{nodetype} =~
          /perlquestion|monkdiscussion/;

      $node->{content} =~ s/\n//g;

      if($node->{node_id} > $saved) {
          INFO "New node $node->{content} ($node->{node_id})";
          unshift @aimtext, "$node->{content} " .
                            "${BASE_URL}$node->{node_id}";
      }

      $max_node = $node->{node_id} if !defined $max_node or
         $max_node < $node->{node_id};
  }

  $cache->set("max-node", $max_node)
      if $saved < $max_node;

  return @aimtext;
}
[download]

Granted, the target audience for these particular changes is EXTREMELY small, but in case anyone is interested in watching Newest Nodes and having an IM sent to their yahoo account via an Adium applescript, well, there it is :)

$/  =  q#(\w)#  ;  sub  sig { print scalar reverse  join  ' ',  @_  } 
+ sig
map { s$\$/\$/$\$2\$1$g && $_ } split( ' ', ",erckha rlPe erthnoa stJu
+" );
[download]