path: root/Snoopy.readme

NAME:

	Snoopy - the PHP net client v1.0
	
SYNOPSIS:

	include "Snoopy.class.inc";
	$snoopy = new Snoopy;
	
	$snoopy->fetchtext("http://www.php.net/");
	print $snoopy->results;
	
	$snoopy->fetchlinks("http://www.phpbuilder.com/");
	print $snoopy->results;
	
	$submit_url = "http://lnk.ispi.net/texis/scripts/msearch/netsearch.html";
	
	$submit_vars["q"] = "amiga";
	$submit_vars["submit"] = "Search!";
	$submit_vars["searchhost"] = "Altavista";
		
	$snoopy->submit($submit_url,$submit_vars);
	print $snoopy->results;
	
	$snoopy->maxframes=5;
	$snoopy->fetch("http://www.ispi.net/");
	echo "<PRE>\n";
	echo htmlentities($snoopy->results[0]); 
	echo htmlentities($snoopy->results[1]); 
	echo htmlentities($snoopy->results[2]); 
	echo "</PRE>\n";

	$snoopy->fetchform("http://www.altavista.com");
	print $snoopy->results;

DESCRIPTION:

	What is Snoopy?
	
	Snoopy is a PHP class that simulates a web browser. It automates the
	task of retrieving web page content and posting forms, for example.

	Some of Snoopy's features:
	
	* easily fetch the contents of a web page
	* easily fetch the text from a web page (strip html tags)
	* easily fetch the the links from a web page
	* supports proxy hosts
	* supports basic user/pass authentication
	* supports setting user_agent, referer, cookies and header content
	* supports browser redirects, and controlled depth of redirects
	* expands fetched links to fully qualified URLs (default)
	* easily submit form data and retrieve the results
	* supports following html frames (added v0.92)
	* supports passing cookies on redirects (added v0.92)
	
	
REQUIREMENTS:

	Snoopy requires PHP with PCRE (Perl Compatible Regular Expressions),
	which should be PHP 3.0.9 and up. For read timeout support, it requires
	PHP 4 Beta 4 or later. Snoopy was developed and tested with PHP 3.0.12.

CLASS METHODS:

	fetch($URI)
	-----------
	
	This is the method used for fetching the contents of a web page.
	$URI is the fully qualified URL of the page to fetch.
	The results of the fetch are stored in $this->results.
	If you are fetching frames, then $this->results
	contains each frame fetched in an array.
		
	fetchtext($URI)
	---------------	
	
	This behaves exactly like fetch() except that it only returns
	the text from the page, stripping out html tags and other
	irrelevant data.		

	fetchform($URI)
	---------------	
	
	This behaves exactly like fetch() except that it only returns
	the form elements from the page, stripping out html tags and other
	irrelevant data.		

	fetchlinks($URI)
	----------------

	This behaves exactly like fetch() except that it only returns
	the links from the page. By default, relative links are
	converted to their fully qualified URL form.

	submit($URI,$formvars)
	----------------------
	
	This submits a form to the specified $URI. $formvars is an
	array of the form variables to pass.
		
		
	submittext($URI,$formvars)
	--------------------------

	This behaves exactly like submit() except that it only returns
	the text from the page, stripping out html tags and other
	irrelevant data.		

	submitlinks($URI)
	----------------

	This behaves exactly like submit() except that it only returns
	the links from the page. By default, relative links are
	converted to their fully qualified URL form.


CLASS VARIABLES:	(default value in parenthesis)

	$host			the host to connect to
	$port			the port to connect to
	$proxy_host		the proxy host to use, if any
	$proxy_port		the proxy port to use, if any
	$agent			the user agent to masqerade as (Snoopy v0.1)
	$referer		referer information to pass, if any
	$cookies		cookies pass if any
	$rawheaders		any other header info to pass, if any
	$maxredirs		maximum redirects to allow. 0=none allowed. (5)
	$offsiteok		whether or not to allow redirects off-site. (true)
	$expandlinks	whether or not to expand links to fully qualified URLs (true)
	$user			authentication username, if any
	$pass			authentication password, if any
	$accept			http accept types (image/gif, image/x-xbitmap, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, */*)
	$error			where errors are sent, if any
	$response_code	responde code returned from server
	$headers		headers returned from server
	$maxlength		max return data length
	$read_timeout	timeout on read operations (requires PHP 4 Beta 4+)
					set to 0 to disallow timeouts
	$timed_out		true if a read operation timed out (requires PHP 4 Beta 4+)
	$maxframes		number of frames we will follow
	$status			http status of fetch
	$curl_path		system path to cURL binary, set to false if none
	

EXAMPLES:

	Example: 	fetch a web page and display the return headers and
				the contents of the page (html-escaped):
	
	include "Snoopy.class.inc";
	$snoopy = new Snoopy;
	
	$snoopy->user = "joe";
	$snoopy->pass = "bloe";
	
	if($snoopy->fetch("http://www.slashdot.org/"))
	{
		echo "response code: ".$snoopy->response_code."<br>\n";
		while(list($key,$val) = each($snoopy->headers))
			echo $key.": ".$val."<br>\n";
		echo "<p>\n";
		
		echo "<PRE>".htmlspecialchars($snoopy->results)."</PRE>\n";
	}
	else
		echo "error fetching document: ".$snoopy->error."\n";



	Example:	submit a form and print out the result headers
				and html-escaped page:

	include "Snoopy.class.inc";
	$snoopy = new Snoopy;
	
	$submit_url = "http://lnk.ispi.net/texis/scripts/msearch/netsearch.html";
	
	$submit_vars["q"] = "amiga";
	$submit_vars["submit"] = "Search!";
	$submit_vars["searchhost"] = "Altavista";

		
	if($snoopy->submit($submit_url,$submit_vars))
	{
		while(list($key,$val) = each($snoopy->headers))
			echo $key.": ".$val."<br>\n";
		echo "<p>\n";
		
		echo "<PRE>".htmlspecialchars($snoopy->results)."</PRE>\n";
	}
	else
		echo "error fetching document: ".$snoopy->error."\n";



	Example:	showing functionality of all the variables:
	

	include "Snoopy.class.inc";
	$snoopy = new Snoopy;

	$snoopy->proxy_host = "my.proxy.host";
	$snoopy->proxy_port = "8080";
	
	$snoopy->agent = "(compatible; MSIE 4.01; MSN 2.5; AOL 4.0; Windows 98)";
	$snoopy->referer = "http://www.microsnot.com/";
	
	$snoopy->cookies["SessionID"] = 238472834723489l;
	$snoopy->cookies["favoriteColor"] = "RED";
	
	$snoopy->rawheaders["Pragma"] = "no-cache";
	
	$snoopy->maxredirs = 2;
	$snoopy->offsiteok = false;
	$snoopy->expandlinks = false;
	
	$snoopy->user = "joe";
	$snoopy->pass = "bloe";
	
	if($snoopy->fetchtext("http://www.phpbuilder.com"))
	{
		while(list($key,$val) = each($snoopy->headers))
			echo $key.": ".$val."<br>\n";
		echo "<p>\n";
		
		echo "<PRE>".htmlspecialchars($snoopy->results)."</PRE>\n";
	}
	else
		echo "error fetching document: ".$snoopy->error."\n";


	Example: 	fetched framed content and display the results
	
	include "Snoopy.class.inc";
	$snoopy = new Snoopy;
	
	$snoopy->maxframes = 5;
	
	if($snoopy->fetch("http://www.ispi.net/"))
	{
		echo "<PRE>".htmlspecialchars($snoopy->results[0])."</PRE>\n";
		echo "<PRE>".htmlspecialchars($snoopy->results[1])."</PRE>\n";
		echo "<PRE>".htmlspecialchars($snoopy->results[2])."</PRE>\n";
	}
	else
		echo "error fetching document: ".$snoopy->error."\n";


COPYRIGHT:
	Copyright(c) 1999,2000 ispi. All rights reserved.
	This software is released under the GNU General Public License.
	Please read the disclaimer at the top of the Snoopy.class.inc file.


THANKS:
	Special Thanks to:
	Peter Sorger <sorgo@cool.sk> help fixing a redirect bug
	Andrei Zmievski <andrei@ispi.net> implementing time out functionality
	Patric Sandelin <patric@kajen.com> help with fetchform debugging
	Carmelo <carmelo@meltingsoft.com> misc bug fixes with frames