NAME

       WWW::Search::AltaVista::AdvancedWeb - class for advanced Alta Vista web searching

SYNOPSIS

         use WWW::Search;
         my $search = new WWW::Search('AltaVista::AdvancedWeb');
         $search->native_query(WWW::Search::escape_query('(bmw AND mercedes) AND NOT (used OR Ferrari)'));
         $search->maximum_to_retrieve('100');
         while (my $result = $search->next_result())
           {
           print $result->url, "\n";
           }

DESCRIPTION

       Class hack for Advance AltaVista web search mode originally written by John Heidemann
       http://www.altavista.com.

       This hack now allows for AltaVista AdvanceWeb search results to be sorted and relevant results returned
       first. Initially, this class had skiped the 'r' option which is used by AltaVista to sort search results
       for relevancy. Sending advance query using the 'q' option resulted in random returned search results
       which made it impossible to view best scored results first.

       This class exports no public interface; all interaction should be done through WWW::Search objects.

HELP

       Use AND to join two terms that must both be present for a document to count as a match.

       Use OR to join two terms if either one counts.

       Use AND NOT to join two terms if the first must be present and the second must NOT.

       Use NEAR to join two terms if they both must appear and be within 10 words of each other.

       Try this example:

       cars AND bmw AND mercedes

       You don't have to capitalize the "operators" AND, OR, AND NOT, or NEAR. But many people do to make it
       clear what is a query term and what is an instruction to the search engine.

       One other wrinkle that's very handy: you can group steps together with parentheses to tell the system
       what order you want it to perform operations in.

       (bmw AND mercedes) NEAR cars AND NOT (used OR Ferrari)

       Keep in mind that grouping should be used as much as possible because if you attempt to enter a long
       query using AND to join the words you may not receive any results because the entire query would be like
       one long phrase. For best reuslts follow the example herein.

AUTHOR

       "WWW::Search" hack by Jim Smyser, <jsmyser@bigfoot.com>.

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright (c) 1996 University of Southern California.  All rights reserved.

       Redistribution and use in source and binary forms are permitted provided that the above copyright notice
       and this paragraph are duplicated in all such forms and that any documentation, advertising materials,
       and other materials related to such distribution and use acknowledge that the software was developed by
       the University of Southern California, Information Sciences Institute.  The name of the University may
       not be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written
       permission.

       THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT
       LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

VERSION HISTORY

       2.07 - unescape URLs, and bugfix for undefined $hit

       2.06 - do not use URI::URL

       2.02 - Added HELP POD. Misc. Clean-up for latest changes.

       2.01 - Additional query modifiers added for even better results.

       2.0 - Minor change to set lowercase Boolean operators to uppercase.

       1.9 - First hack version release.

   native_setup_search
       This private method does the heavy lifting after native_query() is called.