Re(2): RFC fetcher

Great ideas! Here's my implementation of the first idea:


#!/usr/bin/perl -w
# example usage: rfc 1459     (gets the IRC RFC)

use strict;
use LWP::Simple qw(get);

die("usage: rfc <rfc#>\n") unless defined($ARGV[0]);

my $rfcnum=$ARGV[0];
my $base="http://www.rfc.net/rfc";
my $rfcdir="$ENV{HOME}/rfcs";
my $rfcfile="${rfcdir}/rfc${rfcnum}.txt";
my $rfc;

if(-e $rfcfile) {
    open(RFC,"<$rfcfile") or die("open($rfcfile): $!\n");
    local $/ = undef;
    $rfc=<RFC>;
    close(RFC);
} else {
    $rfc=get($base.$rfcnum.".txt");
    open(RFC,">$rfcfile") or die("open($rfcfile): $!\n");
    print RFC "$rfc";
    close(RFC);
}

print "$rfc";
__END__
[download]

(Update: Just when I thought I had it nailed, better ideas crop up. Now reading docs to retool to merlyn's idea below. (tho rfc.net doesn't appear to return the proper headers that support mirror()))

--
Me spell chucker work grate. Need grandma chicken

Comment on Re(2): RFC fetcher Select or Download Code

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Re: Re(2): RFC fetcher by merlyn (Sage) on Apr 04, 2001 at 21:45 UTC
I'd use LWP::Simple's `mirror($url, $localfile)` in place of the if/else test. That way, if they update it, you'll get the latest version, and if it hasn't changed, it's still minimal traffic. It also automatically avoids creating the local file if the remote fetch failed, so you won't end up with an empty RFC file if something's broken. -- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker	[reply]