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From: jblaine@ma.itd.com (Jeff Blaine)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl,alt.sources
Subject: iarchie: An interactive backend to archie, frontend to NcFTP
Date: 16 Jan 1994 07:24:28 GMT
Organization: Space Remote Sensing Center
Lines: 104
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <2haq3c$jnm@gramps.itd.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: ma.itd.com

This is a backend to archie (slash) frontend to NcFTP.
You must have archie and NcFTP to make use of this script (as well as perl).
Let me know what you think.

#!/usr/local/bin/perl
#
# Interactive Archie for terminals.
# Jeff Blaine, 1994, jblaine@ma.itd.com
#
# READ THIS:
# This is NOT an archie implementation.  You must have archie
# installed as well as NcFTP to use this perl code to interactively
# (ahem) search for and retrieve files.
#
# You can get NcFTP from cse.unl.edu:/pub/mgleason/ncftp
# You can get archie from nic.sura.net:/pub/archie/clients
#
# iarchie should be called exactly like your copy of archie (same
# args you always use).  Example usage:
#
# prompt% iarchie -h archie.ans.net filename.tar.Z
#
# Please see the end of this Perl script for more commented information.
#
# INSTALLER: Define NCFTP to point to your copy of NcFTP.  That's all.
$NCFTP = '/usr/code/sun/bin/ncftp';

$VERSION = '1.0';

$ia_tmp = "iarchie.tmp";
$0 = iarchie;
$| = 1;                                        # Flush stdout on all writes.

if ($ARGV[0] eq "") {
	&usage;
	exit (1);
}
print "Connecting to archie server and retrieving information...\n";
print "";
unlink ("$ia_tmp");                             # Remove any old temp file.
system ("archie -l @ARGV > $ia_tmp");           # Call archie.
&parse_archie;                                  # Parse output from archie.
&print15;                                        # Menu and select.
unlink ("$ia_tmp");                             # Remove temp file.

sub usage {
	print "Usage:\n";
	print "   $0 uses all of the same options as the c-archie package.\n";
	print "   Type 'man archie' to see those options.\n";
}

sub parse_archie {
	open (INFILE, "$ia_tmp") || die "Couldn't open $ia_tmp\n";
	while (<INFILE>) {
		if ($_ ne '\n') {
			@curr = split;
			$ncftp_line = $curr[2] . ":" . $curr[3];
			$ncftp_line = "$ncftp_line\n";
			push (@ncftp_lines, $ncftp_line);
		}
	}
	close (INFILE);
	print "\n";
}

sub print15 {
	$num = 0;
	while ($num != 15) {
		print "$num ) ", $ncftp_lines[$num];
		$num++;
	}
	print "\n";
	print "Enter a number or 'q' to quit: ";
	$ch = getc;
	if ($ch eq "q") {
		exit (0);
	} elsif ($ch =~ /[0-15]/) {
		print "FTPing Number $ch : ", $ncftp_lines[$ch];
		print "Please wait.";
		chop ($ncftp_lines[$ch]);
		system ("$NCFTP $ncftp_lines[$ch]");
	} else {
		&print15;
	}
}

# TODO:  Make iarchie check args sent to it to match those valid ones
#        allowed by the archie program.
#
#        Allow for more than 15 shown matches (add a 'n' for next page
#        command)
#
#        Write a man page.
#
# This code is by no means to be depended on.  It seems to work well
# for me, and I feel that others will benefit from it, so I am posting
# it for others to use who have Perl, archie, and NcFTP installed.
#
# If you want to hack the hell out of it, be my guest.  If you release
# a modified version of this iarchie perl script, please be kind and
# mention my name, Jeff Blaine somewhere. 
-- 
        J e f f  B l a i n e               jblaine@ma.itd.com
Perl code: checksummed line-noise with a mission in life.    -- R.L. Schwartz