websitiary by Thomas Link
http://rubyforge.org/projects/websitiary/
This is a script for monitoring webpages that reuses other programs to
do the actual work. By default, it works on an ASCII basis, i.e. with
the output of text-based webbrowsers. With the help of some friends, it
can also work with HTML.
== DESCRIPTION:
This is a script for monitoring webpages that reuses other programs
(w3m, diff, webdiff etc.) to do most of the actual work. By default, it
works on an ASCII basis, i.e. with the output of text-based webbrowsers
like w3m (or lynx, links etc.) as the output can easily be
post-processed. With the help of some friends (see the section below on
requirements), it can also work with HTML. E.g., if you have websec
installed, you can also use its webdiff program to show colored diffs.
By default, this script will use w3m to dump HTML pages and then run
diff over the current page and the previous backup. Some pages are
better viewed with lynx or links. Downloaded documents (HTML or ASCII)
can be post-processed (e.g., filtered through some ruby block that
extracts elements via hpricot and the like). Please see the
configuration options below to find out how to change this globally or
for a single source.
=== CAVEAT:
The script also includes experimental support for monitoring whole
websites. Basically, this script supports robots.txt directives (see
requirements) but this is hardly tested and may not work in some cases.
While it is okay for your own websites to ignore robots.txt, it is not
for others. Please make sure that the webpages you run this program on
allow such a use. Some webpages disallow the use of any automatic
downloader or offline reader in their user agreements.
== FEATURES/PROBLEMS:
- Download webpages on defined intervalls
- Compare webpages with previous backups
- Display differences between the current version and the backup
- Provide hooks to post-process the downloaded documents and the diff
- Display a one page report summarizing all news
- Automatically open the report in your favourite web-browser
- Quite customizable
ISSUES, TODO:
- Improved support for robots.txt (test it)
- The use of :website_below and :website is hardly tested (please
report errors).
- download => :body_html tries to rewrite references (a, img) which may
fail on certain kind of urls (please report errors).
- When using :body_html for download, it may happen that some
JavaScript code is stripped, which breaks some JavaScript-generated
links.
== SYNOPSIS:
=== Usage
Example:
Run "profile"
websitiary profile
Edit "~/.websitiary/profile.rb"
websitiary --edit=profile
View the latest report
websitiary --review
Refetch all sources regardless of :days and :hours restrictions
websitiary -signore_age=true
Create html and rss reports for my websites
websitiary -fhtml,rss mysites
For example output see:
=== Configuration
Profiles are plain ruby files (with the '.rb' suffix) stored in
~/.websitiary/.
The profile config.rb is always loaded if available.
==== default 'PROFILE1', 'PROFILE2' ...
Set the default profile(s).
Example:
default 'my_profile'
==== diff 'CMD "%s" "%s"'
Use this shell command to make the diff.
%s %s will be replaced with the old and new filename.
diff is used by default.
==== diffprocess lambda {|text| ...}
Use this ruby snippet to post-process the diff.
==== download 'CMD "%s"'
Use this shell command to download a page.
%s will be replaced with the url.
w3m is used by default.
Example:
download 'lynx -dump "%s"'
==== downloadprocess lambda {|text| ...}
Use this ruby snippet to post-process what was downloaded.
==== edit 'CMD "%s"'
Use this shell command to edit a profile. %s will be replaced with the filename.
vi is used by default.
Example:
edit 'gvim "%s"&'
==== option TYPE, OPTION => VALUE
Set a global option.
TYPE can be one of:
:diff::
Generate a diff
:diffprocess::
Post-process a diff (if necessary)
:format::
Format the diff for output
:download::
Download webpages
:downloadprocess::
Post-process downloaded webpages
:page::
The :format field defines the format of the final report. Here VALUE
is a format string that takes 3 variables as arguments: report title,
toc, contents.
DOWNLOAD is a symbol
VALUE is either a format string or a block of code (of class Proc).
Example:
set :download, :foo => lambda {|url| get_url(url)}
==== output_format FORMAT, output_format [FORMAT1, FORMAT2, ...]
Set the output format.
Format can be one of:
- html
- text, txt (this only works with text based downloaders)
- rss (prove of concept only;
it requires :rss[:url] to be set to the url, where the rss feed will
be published, using the option :rss, :url => URL
configuration command; you either have to use a text-based downloader
or include :rss_format => 'html' to the url options)
==== set OPTION => VALUE; set TYPE, OPTION => VALUE; unset OPTIONS
(Un)Set an option for the following source commands.
Example:
set :download, :foo => lambda {|url| get_url(url)}
set :days => 7, sort => true
unset :days, :sort
==== source URL(S), [OPTIONS]
Options
:cols => FROM..TO::
Use only these colums from the output (used after applying the :lines
option)
:depth => INTEGER::
In conjunction with a :website type of :download option, fetch url up
to this depth.
:diff => "CMD", :diff => SHORTCUT::
Use this command to make the diff for this page. Possible values for
SHORTCUT are: :webdiff (useful in conjunction with :download => :curl,
:wget, or :body_html). :body_html, :website_below, :website and
:openuri are synonyms for :webdiff.
:diffprocess => lambda {|text| ...}::
Use this ruby snippet to post-process this diff
:download => "CMD", :download => SHORTCUT:
Use this command to download this page. For possible values for
SHORTCUT see the section on shortcuts below.
:downloadprocess => lambda {|text| ...}::
Use this ruby snippet to post-process what was downloaded. This is the
place where, e.g., hpricot can be used to extract certain elements
from the HTML code.
Example:
lambda {|text| Hpricot(text).at('div#content').inner_html}
:format => "FORMAT %s STRING", :format => SHORTCUT::
The format string for the diff text. The default (the :diff shortcut)
wraps the output in +pre+ tags. :webdiff, :body_html, :website_below,
:website, and :openuri will simply add a newline character.
:hours => HOURS, :days => DAYS::
Don't download the file unless it's older than that
:ignore_age => true::
Ignore any :days and :hours settings. This is useful in some cases
when set on the command line.
:lines => FROM..TO::
Use only these lines from the output
:match => REGEXP::
When recursively walking a website, follow only links that match this
regexp.
:sort => true, :sort => lambda {|a,b| ...}::
Sort lines in output
:strip => true::
Strip empty lines
:title => "TEXT"::
Display TEXT instead of URL
:use => SYMBOL::
Use SYMBOL for any other option. I.e. :download => :body_html
:diff => :webdiff can be abbreviated as :use =>
:body_html (because for :diff :body_html is a synonym for
:webdiff).
Example configuration file extract:
source 'URL', :days => 7, :download => :lynx
Daily
set :days => 1
source 'http://www.example.com', :use => :body_html,
:downloadprocess => lambda {|text| Hpricot(text).at('div#content').inner_html}
Weekly
set :days => 7
source 'http://www.example.com', :lines => 10..-1, :title => 'My Page'
Bi-weekly
set :days => 14
source <<URLS
http://www.example.com
http://www.example.com/page.html
URLS
Make HTML diffs and highlight occurences of a word
source 'http://www.example.com',
:title => 'Example',
:use => :body_html,
:diffprocess => highlighter(/word/i)
Download the whole website below this path (only pages with
html-suffix)
Download only php and html pages
Follow links 2 levels deep
source 'http://www.example.com/foo/bar.html',
:title => 'Example -- Bar', :use => :website_below,
:match => /.(php|html)\b/, :depth => 2
unset :days
==== view 'CMD "%s"'
Use this shell command to view the output (usually a HTML file).
%s will be replaced with the filename.
w3m is used by default.
Example:
view 'gnome-open "%s"' # Gnome Desktop
view 'kfmclient "%s"' # KDE
view 'cygstart "%s"' # Cygwin
view 'start "%s"' # Windows
view 'firefox "%s"'
=== Shortcuts for use with :use, :download and other options
:w3m::
Use w3m for downloading the source. Use diff for generating diffs.
:lynx::
Use lynx for downloading the source. Use diff for generating diffs.
:links::
Use links for downloading the source. Use diff for generating diffs.
:curl::
Use curl for downloading the source. Use webdiff for generating diffs.
:wget::
Use wget for downloading the source. Use webdiff for generating diffs.
:openuri::
Use open-uri for downloading the source. Use webdiff for generating
diffs.
:body_html::
This requires hpricot to be installed. Use open-uri for downloading
the source, use only the body. Use webdiff for generating diffs. Try
to rewrite references (a, img) so that the point to the webpage. By
default, this will also strip tags like script, form, object ...
:website::
Use :body_html to download the source. Follow all links referring to
the same host with the same file suffix. Use webdiff for generating
diff.
:website_below::
Use :body_html to download the source. Follow all links referring to
the same host and a file below the top directory with the same file
suffix. Use webdiff for generating diff.
:website_txt::
Use :website to download the source but convert the output to plain
text.
:website_txt_below::
Use :website_below to download the source but convert the output to
plain text.
Any shortcuts relying on :body_html will also try to rewrite any
references so that the links point to the webpage.
== REQUIREMENTS:
websitiary is a ruby-based application. You thus need a ruby
interpreter.
It depends on how you use websitiary whether you actually need the
following libraries, applications.
By default this script expects the following applications to be
present:
- diff
- vi (or some other editor)
and one of:
The use of :webdiff as :diff application requires
websec[http://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases/websec/] to be
installed. In conjunction with :body_html, :openuri, or :curl, this
will give you colored HTML diffs.
Why not use +websec+ if I have to install it, you might ask. Well,
+websec+ is written in perl and I didn't quite manage to make it work
the way I want it to. websitiary is made to be better to configure.
For downloading HTML, you need one of these:
The following ruby libraries are needed in conjunction with :body_html
and :website related shortcuts:
I personally would suggest to choose the following setup:
== INSTALL:
=== Use rubygems
Run
gem install websitiary
This will download the package and install it.
=== Use the zip
The zip[http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=4030] contains a file
setup.rb that does the work. Run
ruby setup.rb
=== Copy Manually
Get the single file websitiary[http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=4030]
script and copy it to some directory in $PATH.
=== Initial Configuration
Please check the requirements section above and get the extra libraries
needed:
You might then want to create a profile ~/.websitiary/config.rb that is
loaded on every run. In this profile you could set the default output
viewer and profile editor, as well as a default profile.
Example:
# Load standard.rb if no profile is given on the command line.
default 'standard'
# Use cygwin's cygstart to view the output with the default HTML
# viewer
view '/usr/bin/cygstart "%s"'
# Use Windows gvim from cygwin ruby which is why we convert the path
# first
edit 'gvim $(cygpath -w -- "%s")'
Where these configuration files reside, may differ. If the environment
variable $HOME is defined, the default is $HOME/.websitiary/ unless one
of the following directories exist, which will then be used instead:
- $USERPROFILE/websitiary (on Windows)
- SYSCONFDIR/websitiary (where SYSCONFDIR usually is /etc but you can
run ruby to find out more:
ruby -e "p Config::CONFIG['sysconfdir']")
If neither directory exists and no $HOME variable is defined, the
current directory will be used.
== LICENSE:
websitiary Webpage Monitor
Copyright (C) 2007 Thomas Link
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307
USA
vi: ft=rd:tw=72:ts=4