NAME

       Business::US::USPS::WebTools - Use the US Postal Service Web Tools

SYNOPSIS

               use Business::US::USPS::WebTools;

               # see subclasses for API details

DESCRIPTION

       *** THIS IS ALPHA SOFTWARE ***

       This is the base class for the WebTools web service from the US Postal Service. The USPS offers several
       services, and this module handles the parts common to all of them: making the request, getting the
       response, parsing error reponses, and so on. The interesting stuff happens in one of the subclasses which
       implement a particular service. So far, the only subclass in this distribution is
       "Business::US::USPS::WebTools::AddressVerification".

       new( ANONYMOUS_HASH )
           Make the web service object. Pass is an anonymous hash with these keys:

                   UserID          the user id provided by the USPS
                   Password        the password provided by the USPS
                   Testing         true or false, to select the right server

           If  you  don't  pass  the  UserID  or  Password  entries,  "new"  looks  in the environment variables
           USPS_WEBTOOLS_USERID and USPS_WEBTOOLS_PASSWORD.

           If "new" cannot find both the User ID and the Password, it croaks.

           If you pass a true value with the Testing key, the object will use the testing server host  name  and
           the  testing  URL  path.  If the Testing key is false or not present, the object uses the live server
           details.

       userid
           Returns the User ID for the web service. You need to get this from the US Postal Service.

       password
           Returns the Password for the web service. You need to get this from the US Postal Service.

       url Returns the URL for the request to the web service. So far, all requests are GET request with all  of
           the data in the query string.

       response
           Returns  the  response  from  the web service. This is the slightly modified response. So far it only
           fixes up line endings and normalizes some error output  for  inconsistent  responses  from  different
           physical servers.

       is_error
           Returns true if the response to the last request was an error, and false otherwise.

           If the response was an error, this method sets various fields in the object:

                   $self->{error}{number}
                   $self->{error}{source}
                   $self->{error}{description}
                   $self->{error}{help_file}
                   $self->{error}{help_context}

SEE ALSO

       The WebTools API is documented on the US Postal Service's website:

       http://www.usps.com/webtools/htm/Address-Information.htm

SOURCE AVAILABILITY

       This  source  is part of a SourceForge project which always has the latest sources in CVS, as well as all
       of the previous releases.

               http://sourceforge.net/projects/brian-d-foy/

       If, for some reason, I disappear from the world, one of the other members of  the  project  can  shepherd
       this module appropriately.

AUTHOR

       brian d foy, "<bdfoy@cpan.org>"

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

       Copyright (c) 2006-2007 brian d foy.  All rights reserved.

       This  program  is  free  software;  you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl
       itself.

perl v5.14.2                                       2007-11-03                                      WebTools(3pm)