NAME

WWW::Hackernews::Parser - a Perl interface to Hackernews stories and data.

SYNOPSIS

use WWW::Hackernews::Parser;

my $top_hash_ref = hn_parse( 'top', '1' );
# equivalent to:
my $other_top_hash_ref = hn_parse();

my $second_newest = hn_parse( 'new', '2' );

DEPENDENCIES

perl - version 5.10 or above
LWP::Simple - Debian package: libwww-perl

DESCRIPTION

The only subroutine of WWW::Hackernews::Parser is hn_parse. It takes the following arguments:

target - This is what page to download the data from; is either top or new. Defaults to top.
number - This is the rank of the story. 1 is the top story, and so on. Defaults to 1.
datum - This is the name of the datum and hash key to be returned (list follows). The default is all, which returns the hash ref as a scalar.

Note: the arguments are shifted in the order listed above. That means if you want to pass a number, you must also pass a target. Likewise, if you want to pass a hash key, you must pass a target and a number before it.

The subroutine stores data in an anonymous hash that may contain any of the following keys, depending on what the pattern was able to match:

age_qty - the numercal value of the age
age_unit - either hour(s)or minute(s)
age_sec - age in seconds calculated by the above
comments - number of comments
desc - description
domain - the domain on which the link is hosted
id - the unique numerical identification number of the link
points - the "karma" level of the link
user - the name of the user who posted the link

COPYRIGHT

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 3.0 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts.

THANKS

I would like to give thanks to telemachus, tornow, and initself for helping me with this project.

BUGS

If you find a bug, file an issue on the project's Github page. If you have code to contribute, fork the repository and file a pull request. The URI is:

https://github.com/dbb/WWW-Hackernews/

dbb/WWW-Hackernews