Re^3: Web::Magic 0.005

**thread bump**

App::scrape is more limited - it just uses CSS selectors to build up a Perl data structure from an HTML page.

It uses css and xpath, but yes, it is slightly simpler

Can App::scrape handle YAML seamlessly?

No, but I'm sure it could , in about five lines :) Tree::XPathEngine, its on CPAN :)

Or for that matter JSON, RDF, arbitrary XML, etc?

It does support RDF.

And how about POST requests?

Sure, its right there in the SYNOPSIS use LWP::Simple qw(get);, you an just as easily write use LWP::Simple qw( $ua ); and use $ua->POST(...)

I recognize that it does a lot more, and a large number of the prereqs are your modules -- that is a lot of work -- but why?

Web::Magic won't help me "fake" a proper ua_string like WWW::Mechanize , and it has all those exceptions, but no cookie jar?

Magic? Dwimmery? Awesomness? -- yes, I like kung-fu panda too :)

HTML::Query, Web::Query, Web::Scraper, Web::Magic ... a lot of the same kind of work, which horse to choose?

Sell me a horse?

I'm sure you have philosophy, reasons for doing things your way, a big and little picture.... I'd love to know what it is :) I just don't have a grasp of the thing.

Maybe its because i'm not a "24" fan ? What can I say, Kiefer Sutherland grates me worse than David Caruso :)

Can you enlighten me?

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Re^4: Web::Magic 0.005 by tobyink (Canon) on Jan 13, 2012 at 13:43 UTC
[App::scrape] does support RDF. No, it does not. Accepting XML does not count as supporting RDF. In general, RDF cannot be effectively processed with XML tools. Web::Magic won't help me "fake" a proper ua_string like WWW::Mechanize , and it has all those exceptions, but no cookie jar? Web::Magic lets you specify any user agent string you like. The POD for the "set_request_header" method shows two examples of how to do precisely that: `$magic->set_request_header('User-Agent', 'MyBot/0.1'); $magic->User_Agent('MyBot/0.1'); # same as above` [download] And if you have a cookie jar you'd like to use: `$magic->user_agent->cookie_jar($cookies);` [download] HTML::Query, Web::Query, Web::Scraper, Web::Magic ... a lot of the same kind of work, which horse to choose? Sell me a horse? Selecting stuff via CSS selectors is only a very small part of what Web::Magic does. (I almost regret using that feature in my first example.) Web::Magic aims to be the swiss army knife of HTTP-addressable resources. Whether it's a classic web page, a RESTful API, an Atom feed, or a WebDAV fileshare, Web::Magic can probably make dealing with it easier. Let's suppose you have a RESTful API which supports up XML and JSON, depending on the request's HTTP Accept header. Web::Magic notices how you're trying to access the data, and does what you mean... `Web::Magic->new('http://example.com/new-document') ->POST($xmldom) ->{entry}{id};` [download] It's smart enough to figure out the HTTP headers you want: POST /new-document HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com Content-Type: application/xml Accept: application/json, text/x-yaml <xmldoc>...</xmldoc> But if you'd called it like this: `my @entries = Web::Magic->new('http://example.com/new-document') ->POST({ title => "Hello", foo => 1 }) ->entries; print $entries[0]->id;` [download] Then the request would be more like: POST /new-document HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded Accept: application/atom+xml, application/rss+xml title=Hello&foo=1	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^5: Web::Magic 0.005 by Anonymous Monk on Jan 14, 2012 at 06:46 UTC
Web::Magic lets you specify any user agent string you like. Um, yes, that is the problem, it doesn't help me concoct the correct string like Mechanize , its bare bones/vanilla LWP::UserAgent. With mechanize I use `$ua->agent_alias('Mac Mozilla');` or "Windows Mozilla", I don't have to go digging for the full string. Hat for your horse sir WWW::UserAgent::Random?	[reply] [d/l]