NAME

       Net::Finger - a Perl implementation of a finger client.

SYNOPSIS

         use Net::Finger;

         # You can put the response in a scalar...
         $response = finger('corbeau@execpc.com');
         unless ($response) {
             warn "Finger problem: $Net::Finger::error";
         }

         # ...or an array.
         @lines = finger('corbeau@execpc.com', 1);

DESCRIPTION

       Net::Finger is a simple, straightforward implementation of a finger client in Perl -- so simple, in fact,
       that writing this documentation is almost unnecessary.

       This  module  has  one  automatically  exported function, appropriately entitled "finger()". It takes two
       arguments:

       •   A username or email address to finger. (Yes, it does support the vaguely deprecated  "user@host@host"
           syntax.)  If  you need to use a port other than the default finger port (79), you can specify it like
           so: "username@hostname:port".

       •   (Optional) A boolean value for verbosity. True == verbose output. If you don't give it  a  value,  it
           defaults  to  false. Actually, whether this output will differ from the non-verbose version at all is
           up to the finger server.

       "finger()" is context-sensitive. If it's used in a scalar context, it will return the  server's  response
       in  one  large  string.  If it's used in an array context, it will return the response as a list, line by
       line. If an error of some sort occurs, it returns undef and puts a string describing the error  into  the
       package  global  variable  $Net::Finger::error.  If  you'd  like  to  see some excessively verbose output
       describing every step "finger()" takes while talking to the  other  server,  put  a  true  value  in  the
       variable $Net::Finger::debug.

       Here's a sample program that implements a very tiny, stripped-down finger(1):

           #!/usr/bin/perl -w

           use Net::Finger;
           use Getopt::Std;
           use vars qw($opt_l);

           getopts('l');
           $x = finger($ARGV[0], $opt_l);

           if ($x) {
               print $x;
           } else {
               warn "$0: error: $Net::Finger::error\n";
           }

BUGS

       •   Doesn't yet do non-blocking requests. (FITNR. Really.)

       •   Doesn't do local requests unless there's a finger server running on localhost.

       •   Contrary to the name's implications, this module involves no teledildonics.

AUTHOR

       Dennis Taylor, <corbeau@execpc.com>

SEE ALSO

       perl(1), finger(1), RFC 1288.

perl v5.8.7                                        2001-11-01                                        Finger(3pm)