NAME

HTTP::ProxySelector::Persistent - Locally cache and use a list of proxy servers for high volume, proxied LWP::UserAgent transactions

VERSION

Version 0.02

SYNOPSIS

This module is a fork from HTTP::ProxySelector (written by Eyal Udassin) that is modified to:

• Require less trips to look up proxy lists by caching them locally (bandwidth economy and speed).
• Almost always set your useragent to a valid proxy (reliability).
• Ensure that you never retry a failed proxy in a subsequent proxy selection call (minimum # of timeouts possible).
• Leave the cache of proxy servers in place after execution for the next call to use (persistence).

  use HTTP::ProxySelector; use LWP::UserAgent;

  # Instantiate my $selector = HTTP::ProxySelector::Persistent->new( db_file => "/tmp/proxy_cache.bdb" ); my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new();

  # Assign a proxy to the UserAgent object. $selector->setproxy($ua) or die $selector->error();

      # Just in case you need to know the chosen proxy
      print 'Selected proxy: ',$selector->get_proxy(),"\n";

      # Perform a quick proxied get.  Lets you skip the useragent stuff.
      my $html = $selector->proxied_get( url => "http://www.google.com" ) or die $selector->error();

PREREQUISITES

HTTP::ProxySelector::Persistent requires you to have these perl modules

installed

• BerkeleyDB
• LWP::UserAgent
• Date::Manip

PUBLIC METHODS
new()
new is the constructor for HTTP::ProxySelector::Persistent objects.

Returns a new HTTP::ProxySelector::Persistent object.

Accepts a key-value list of options as arguments. The option keys are:

db_file
The full path and filename for the proxy cache database file. You must have permission to write in this directory. This option is mandatory, it has no default!

Example :

$select = HTTP::ProxySelector::Persistent->new( db_file => "/tmp/proxy_cache.bdb" );

sites
Reference to a list of sites containing the proxy lists.

Example :

$select = HTTP::ProxySelector::Persistent->new( sites => ['http://www.proxylist.com/list.htm'] );

Default

[ 'http://hidemyass.com/free_proxy_lists.php?sort=DESC&country=1&limit=100' ]

update_interval
How often to update the cached list of proxy servers. Must be readable by Date::Manip.

Example

$select = HTTP::ProxySelector::Persistent->new( update_interval => "20 minutes" )

or die "Couldn't create proxyselector!";

Default

"15 minutes"

testsite
Destination site to test the proxy with.

Example :

$select = HTTP::ProxySelector::Persistent->new( testsite => 'http://yahoo.com' );

Default

http://www.google.com

set_proxy()
Chooses a proxy at random from the cache database and sets it as the proxy for a LWP::UserAgent. Automatically tests the proxy. If the proxy fails the test, it removes the proxy from the cache and chooses another one until it finds a working proxy. If necessary, this sub will try every proxy in the cache database.

Arguments: A LWP::Useragent object

Returns: 1 (success) or undef upon failure (sets an error).

Example

$select->set_proxy( $ua ) or die $select->error();

get_proxy()
Arguments: none.

Returns: a scalar string containing the address of the selected proxy.

Example

$proxy_address = $select->get_proxy();

test_proxy()
Tests the proxy by trying to access a site (specified using the "testsite" option when constructing an HTTP::ProxySelector::Persistent object). It temporarily sets the timeout to be 1/2 of the timeout set in the useragent that's passed to it. If the useragent that's passed doesn't have a timeout set, it defaults to 5 seconds.

Arguments: an LWP::UserAgent object.

Returns: 1 for success or undef for failure (sets an error).

Example

( $select->test_proxy( $ua ) ) ? print "Good test\n" : die $select->error();

proxied_get()
Selects a proxy and attempts to download the URL passed to this function as an argument. If the download fails, it will remove the proxy from the cache, select another one, and retry until the download succeeds. When it does succeed, this function returns the content of the response. If all you need to do is download one webpage one time, this should take about half as long as manually setting a useragent and then using that useragent to do a second grab after the automatic proxy test.

If all you're doing is a single HTTP get in your script and that's it, this is a faster way to do it. Setting the useragent proxy involves at least one mandatory test before the module even gives you a proxy to make your real get with. This way uses your actual HTTP get instead of testing first. It just persistently attempts to make your get and doesn't quit until it either runs out of proxies or succeeds in the HTTP get.

Each call to this method chooses a new proxy server from the cache. Using two calls to proxied_get() in the same script will most likely use two completely different proxy servers.

Arguments are options in a single hash with these keys: url - a scalar URL to be downloaded. Mandatory. timeout - a scalar integer number of how many seconds to allow before declaring the attempt a failure and trying a new proxy. Optional, defaults to 2.
ua - An LWP::UserAgent that you'd like to use for the transaction. Optional. This sub constructs a default LWP useragent if you don't provide one.

Returns

The content of the page located at $url upon success, or undef upon failure (sets an error).

Example

my $html = $selector->proxied_get( url => $url, timeout => 5 ) or die $selector->error();

error()
If any portion of the module encounters an error, calling this function will return a string describing the last error. Read-only. No arguments.

Example

my $html = $selector->proxied_get( $url_that_doesnt_exist ) or die $selector->error();

PRIVATE FUNCTIONS
fetchproxies()
Retrieves the proxy lists, extracts the proxy servers and caches them locally in a BerkeleyDB. This sub assumes that the cache database file does not exist. If this function were called before the cache database file were deleted, you would have duplicate entries in the cache and a bunch of old, potentially inoperative proxies stored in the cache. You should never have to call this method yourself. The new() method of the HTTP::ProxySelector::Persistent object uses this sub when the proxy cache database is either expired, malformed, empty or missing.

Arguments: none.

Returns

1 upon success, or undef upon failure.

TODO

• Need to find better proxylists for the test scripts. By and large, the free proxylists I found had a bunch of bad proxy servers in them. This makes my tests look bad because 'garbage in = garbage out.'

AUTHOR

Michael Trowbridge, "<michael.a.trowbridge at gmail.com>"

BUGS

Please report any bugs or feature requests to "bug-http-proxyselector-persistent at rt.cpan.org", or through the web interface at
<http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=HTTP-ProxySelector-Persi stent>. I will be notified, and then you'll automatically be notified of progress on your bug as I make changes.

SUPPORT

You can find documentation for this module with the perldoc command.

perldoc HTTP::ProxySelector::Persistent

You can also look for information at:

• AnnoCPAN: Annotated CPAN documentation <http://annocpan.org/dist/HTTP-ProxySelector-Persistent>
• CPAN Ratings <http://cpanratings.perl.org/d/HTTP-ProxySelector-Persistent>
• RT: CPAN's request tracker <http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=HTTP-ProxySelector-Persist ent>
• Search CPAN <http://search.cpan.org/dist/HTTP-ProxySelector-Persistent>

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This module is a fork from HTTP::ProxySelector v0.02. HTTP::ProxySelector v0.02 is copyright 2003 Eyal Udassin.

Error method was written by Allen Day and borrowed from Geo::Google.

COPYRIGHT & LICENSE

Copyright 2007 Michael Trowbridge, all rights reserved.

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