NAME

WWW::Dilbert - Dilbert of the day comic strip archive and retieval module

SYNOPSYS

use WWW::Dilbert;
my $dilbert = new WWW::Dilbert;
my $strip = $dilbert->get_todays_strip_from_website();

use WWW::Dilbert;
my $dilbert = new WWW::Dilbert(
                        dbi_dsn => 'DBI:mysql:nicolaw:localhost',
                        dbi_user => 'username',
                        dbi_pass => 'password'
                );
chdir '/home/albert/my_dilbert_archive_directory';
if (opendir(DH,'.')) {
        for (grep(/dilbert[0-9]{10,14}\.gif$/, readdir(DH))) {
                my $strip = $dilbert->get_strip_from_filename($_);
                $strip->insert_into_database();
        }
}

DESCRIPTION

This module will download the latest Dilbert of the Day cartoon strip from the Dilbert website and return an object which can be either stored in a database or output to a browser, disk or whatever. It allows importing of Dilbert strips from disk or alternate URLs, and has a random strip interface to return strips from the database.

METHODS

WWW::Dilbert Object Methods

Strip retrieval object.

new()

Create a new WWW::Dilbert strip retrieval object. Accepts the following key-value pairs:

dbi_dns => 'DBI:mysql:database:hostname',
dbi_user => 'username',
dbi_pass => 'password'

get_todays_strip_from_website()

Returns a strip object containing todays Dilbert of the Day cartoon strip.

get_strip_from_website($strip_id)

Returns a strip object containing a specific Dilbert cartoon strip as downloaded from the Dilbert website.

get_strip_from_filename($filename)

Returns a strip object containing a specific Dilbert cartoon strip from a Dilbert comic stip file on disk.

get_strip_from_database($strip_id)

get_todays_strip_url()

get_random_strip_from_database()

WWW::Dilbert::Strip Object Methods

Strip object returned by WWW::Dilbert get methods.

insert_into_database()

Inserts the strip in to a database via the DBI database defined by the parent WWW::Dilbert object.

width()

Returns the width of the comic strip image.

height()

Returns the height of the comic strip image.

file_ext

Returns the file extension for the comic strip image format.

file_media_type

Returns the MIME type for the comic strip image format.

bytes()

Returns the total number of bytes of the comic strip image.

strip_blob()

Returns the binary image data of the comic strip image.

strip_id()

Returns the comic strip id.

SQL SCHEMA

CREATE TABLE dilbert_character (
	id int unsigned not null primary key auto_increment,
	name char(100) not null,
	regular_character bool default null,
	notes text,
	photo_blob blob
);

CREATE TABLE dilbert_strip (
	id bigint(14) unsigned not null primary key,
	strip_blob mediumblob not null,
	bytes int unsigned not null,
	width int(4) unsigned not null,
	height int(4) unsigned not null,
	colour bool default null,
	cells enum('3','6','-1') default "3" not null,
	text text
);

CREATE TABLE dilbert_character2dilbert_strip (
	dilbert_character_id int unsigned not null,
	dilbert_strip_id bigint(14) unsigned not null,
	primary key (dilbert_character_id, dilbert_strip_id)
);

TODO

Remove the database functionality since it's pretty pointless.

Add retrieval of strips from the last 30 day online archive.

VERSION

$Id: Dilbert.pm,v 1.9 2005/12/08 15:48:09 nicolaw Exp $

AUTHOR

Nicola Worthington <nicolaw@cpan.org>

http://perlgirl.org.uk

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks go to David Dick <david_dick@iprimus.com.au> for the write_file() patch which he submitted on 22nd September 2004.

COPYRIGHT

(c) Nicola Worthington 2004, 2005. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the GNU GPL.

See the file COPYING in this distribution, or http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt