NAME
Image::Grab - Perl extension for Grabbing images off the Internet.
SYNOPSIS
use Image::Grab;
$pic = new Image::Grab;
# The simplest case of a grab
$pic->url('http://www.url.com/someimage.jpg')
$pic->grab;
# How to get at the image
open(DISPLAY, "| display -");
print DISPLAY $pic->image;
close(DISPLAY)
# A slightly more complicated case
$pic->url('.*logo.*\.gif');
$pic->refer('http://www.gtk.com');
$pic->grab;
# Get a weather forcast (The regexp finds the image despite the
$pic->url('msy.*\.gif');
$pic->refer('http://www.intellicast.com/weather/msy/content.shtml');
$pic->grab;DESCRIPTION
Image::Grab is a simple way to get images with URLs that change constantly.
Accessor Methods
The following are the accessor methods availible for any Image::Grab object. Accessor methods are used to get or set information for an object. For example,
$img->refer("http://www.yahoo.com");would set the refer field and
$img->refer;would return the information contained in the refer field.
refer
When you do a grab, this url will be given as the referring URL. If the information contained in the 'url' property is not a URL, then the information from the URL in the refer field will be used to find the image. For example, if url="mac.*\.gif" and refer="http://www.yahoo.com", then when a grab is performed, the page at www.yahoo.com is searched to see if any images on the page match the regular expression in url. The first one that matches is grabbed.
url
The url that is ultimatly grabbed. This should be set before any grab is done. It can be a straight url, a regular expression, or an index for the image. For an example of a regular expression, see the section on refer. Indexes begin with a pound sign ("#") and are followed by a number that indicates the image on the page. For instance, "#2" would find the second image on the page pointed to by the refer.
date
The date that the image was last updated. The date is represented in the number of seconds from epoch where epoch is January 1, 1970.
md5
The md5 sum for the image. Usually, you shouldn\'t try to set this field.
type
The type of information. Usually it will be a MIME type such as "image/jpeg".
cookiefile
Where the cookiefile is located. Set this to the file containing the cookies if you wish to use the cookie file for the image.
cookiejar
Usually only used internally. The cookiejar for the image.
image
The actual image. Usually, you should\'t try to set this field.
ua
Usually only used internally. The user agent used to get the image.
Other Methods
realm($user, $password)
Provides a username/password pair for the realm the image is in.
getRealURL
Returns the actual URL of the image. This method is called internally to determine the URL of the image if the information contained in the URL field is not a url.
You can use this method to get the URL for an image if that is all you need.
grab
Grab the image. url must contain an actual URL or information that can produce a URL before this method can be used. If url does not contain a URL, then getRealURL is called before the image is fetched.
grab_new
Not Yet Implemented. Currently, it acts just like grab.
BUGS
It only understands as URLs strings that begin with "http://".
Perhaps URL should not be so overloaded. Perhaps I should have 'regexp' and 'index' accessor methods.
Ummm... I am sure there are others...
AUTHOR
Mark 'Hex' Hershberger <mah@eecs.tulane.edu>
SEE ALSO
perl(1).