All the Perl that's Practical to Extract and Report

"Perl and LWP" Book Available

KM on 2002-06-28T12:30:51

TorgoX writes "I hear that copies of my new book Perl & LWP are now madly in transit to bookstores all over, and should be on the shelves as soon as people can unpack the boxes. You can get a copy for cheap at Amazon US and Amazon UK. Here's the table of contents, so you can get an idea of what's covered."

Perl & LWP

Foreword -- p.ix
Preface -- p.xi

Ch 1. Introduction to Web Automation -- p.1

  • The Web as Data Source -- p.1
  • History of LWP -- p.3
  • Installing LWP -- p.4
  • Words of Caution -- p.9
  • LWP in Action -- p.10
Ch 2. Web Basics -- p.15
  • URLs -- p.15
  • An HTTP Transaction -- p.17
  • LWP::Simple -- p.19
  • Fetching Documents Without LWP::Simple -- p.24
  • Example: Altavista -- p.25
  • HTTP POST -- p.27
  • Example: Babelfish -- p.28
Ch 3. The LWP Class Model -- p.31
  • The Basic Classes -- p.31
  • Programming with LWP Classes -- p.32
  • Inside the do_GET and do_POST Functions -- p.33
  • User Agents -- p.34
  • HTTP::Response Objects -- p.42
  • LWP Classes: Behind the Scenes -- p.47
Ch 4. URLs -- p.48
  • Parsing URLs -- p.48
  • Relative URLs -- p.54
  • Converting Absolute URLs to Relative -- p.55
  • Converting Relative URLs to Absolute -- p.56
Ch 5. Forms -- p.58
  • Elements of an HTML Form -- p.59
  • LWP and GET Requests -- p.59
  • Automating Form Analysis -- p.62
  • Idiosyncrasies of HTML Forms -- p.64
  • POST Example: License Plates -- p.70
  • POST Example: ABEBooks.com -- p.74
  • File Uploads -- p.81
  • Limits on Forms -- p.84
Ch 6. Simple HTML Processing with Regular Expressions -- p.85
  • Automating Data Extraction -- p.85
  • Regular Expression Techniques -- p.87
  • Troubleshooting -- p.91
  • When Regular Expressions Aren't Enough -- p.93
  • Example: Extracting Linksfrom a Bookmark File -- p.93
  • Example: Extracting Linksfrom Arbitrary HTML -- p.96
  • Example: Extracting Temperatures from Weather Underground -- p.98
Ch 7. HTML Processing with Tokens -- p.100
  • HTML as Tokens -- p.100
  • Basic HTML::TokeParser Use -- p.101
  • Individual Tokens -- p.105
  • Token Sequences -- p.107
  • More HTML::TokeParser Methods -- p.112
  • Using Extracted Text -- p.117
Ch 8. Tokenizing Walkthrough -- p.119
  • The Problem -- p.119
  • Getting the Data -- p.120
  • Inspecting the HTML -- p.121
  • First Code -- p.122
  • Narrowing In -- p.123
  • Rewrite for Features -- p.125
  • Alternatives -- p.131
Ch 9. HTML Processing with Trees -- p.132
  • Introduction to Trees -- p.132
  • HTML::TreeBuilder -- p.133
  • Processing -- p.137
  • Example: BBC News -- p.142
  • Example: Fresh Air -- p.145
Ch 10. Modifying HTML with Trees -- p.148
  • Changing Attributes -- p.148
  • Deleting Images -- p.152
  • Detaching and Reattaching -- p.153
  • Attaching in Another Tree -- p.156
  • Creating New Elements -- p.161
Ch 11. Cookies, Authentication, and Advanced Requests -- p.165
  • Cookies -- p.165
  • Adding Extra Request Header Lines -- p.169
  • Authentication -- p.172
  • An HTTP Authentication Example: The Unicode Mailing Archive -- p.175
Ch 12. Spiders -- p.178
  • Types of Web-Querying Programs -- p.178
  • A User Agent for Robots -- p.180
  • Example: A Link-Checking Spider -- p.181
  • Ideas for Further Expansion -- p.197
Appendices:
  • A. LWP Modules -- p.199
  • B. HTTP Status Codes -- p.203
  • C. Common MIME Types -- p.205
  • D. Language Tags -- p.207
  • E. Common Content Encodings -- p.209
  • F. ASCII Table -- p.211
  • G. User's View of Object-Oriented Modules -- p.224
Index -- p.235

For those who just can't wait (like me).

jordan on 2002-06-28T13:13:06

I preordered this awhile back and I'm anxiously awaiting my copy.

Last night, I discovered that Safari is carrying this as a Web Book, and appears to have had it for a few weeks now.

I really like Safari, although I think their policy of only allowing you to unsubscribe to books once a month is annoying. I think it would be more reasonable if you were required to hold on to a book for 30 days, but they give you one chance a month to unsubscribe to books. You can subscribe to books at any time, of course.

All in all, it's a good service. I especially like it for reference books. I definitely need to own Perl & LWP, also, to work through it.

Cheaper in the UK

2shortplanks on 2002-06-28T13:27:56

You can get the books cheaper than from Amazon UK from: Both 19.96ukp (same as amazon) but do free delivery

there seems to be an issue with safari

boo_radley on 2002-06-28T17:29:22

compare the image with the book. :-)

Re:there seems to be an issue with safari

jordan on 2002-06-28T18:12:40

I don't know if you're making a joke or there once was a problem with the Safari reference, but I see the Goat book in Safari.

Why shop Amazon?

$Bob on 2002-06-28T17:56:44

I've had problems with Amazon in the past so I don't go to them for tech-books anymore. Bookpool or the local San Diego Technical Books have always been better resources for me. And comparing the prices, it's about $3 cheaper at Bookpool. Don't forget to shop around guys.

Re:Why shop Amazon?

sth_2 on 2002-06-28T18:25:50

I always use Bookpool as well, best prices, but they don't have Manning Books. If I want a Manning Book, I buy it from Amazon.

I Have it!

mir on 2002-06-28T19:45:25

I just bought it at YAPC!

/Perl and LWP/ preview and sample chapter online

TorgoX on 2002-06-28T22:00:43

I just found out that you can preview bits of Perl & LWP at Safari, and in fact see a sample chapter. I think it's a good chapter too, on HTML::TokeParser!