ASPseek: s.cgi.1 Manual Page

Updated: 2002/12/25
Index

NAME

s.cgi - aspseek search CGI front-end

SYNOPSIS

http://your.host.com/cgi-bin/s.cgi[?parameter=value[&parameter=value...]]

DESCRIPTION

s.cgi is a search front-end of aspseek. It is a CGI program, so usually it is run by web server. s.cgi parses its options, reads its configuration and template from s.htm(5) file residing in /usr/local/aspseek/etc directory, makes a query to searchd(1), formats the results according to template, and outputs HTML page containing results found, or error, or empty search form in case no query was specified.

Functionality of s.cgi related to template and meta symbols is described in s.htm(5).

OPTIONS

q=query

Query string. Input line in search form, used for query entering, should be named "q".

ul=sql_pattern [sql_pattern ...]

ul=site [site ...]

URL mask. Several masks can be used, delimited by exactly 1 space. This parameter can also be used multiple times, values are concatenated. sql_pattern specifies subdirectory of site, and record in subsets table containing value of sql_pattern in the field mask must exist. site specifies the whole site, it should be in the form http://www.sitename.com/. Note that sql_patterns and sites can not be mixed together. Examples:

ul=http://www.aspstreet.com/
ul=http://www.aspstreet.com/directory/%

r=query

Previous query string. Used for searching in results, when in parameters is equal to on.

s=rate | date

Result sorting type. rate means sorting by rate (relevance), and date means sorting by last modification date. Sorting order is descending, so results with greater rate or latter modification date will be first ones.

in=on

Used for "search within results" feature. If value of this parameter is on, then actual query is composed from parameters q and r combined by AND. Any other value is ignored. Checkbox "Search within results" in query form, that is displayed in search results, should be named in. Also, the following string should be put in query form:

<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="r" VALUE="$q">

t=query

Used for "Take me there" feature. If this parameter is present, then s.cgi finds first results matching query and generates output for redirection to that URL.

ch=url

"Cached" URL. This parameter is used for displaying "cached" copy of web page. Can be combined with q, cs and tmpl parameters. If q and cs parameters are present, then appropriate query terms will appear highlighted in "cached" page.

np=number

Result page number. Default value is 0.

ps=number

Number of results per page. Overrides value set by "preferences" cookie.

gr=off

Grouping results by site. If value of this parameter is off, then results are not grouped by site. Any other value is ignored.

st=number

Site ID. Value of this parameter is used to restrict search by specified site. Generated in search results, as result of $SH meta symbol, which is used in moreurls template.

tmpl=file

Template file name. file is relative to /usr/local/aspseek/etc directory. Default is constructed from the part of s.cgi name before point with .htm added, so s.cgi will look for s.htm, and if you rename it to another.cgi, it will look for another.htm.

spN=on

Space ID. N is one or more digits value. If value of this parameter is on, then search is restricted by web space with ID equal to N. Any other value is ignored. This parameter can be used multiple times, all spaces are being ORed.
To assign particular site to web space, insert record with appropriate values or site ID and space ID into table spaces.

cs=charset

Source charset. Tells s.cgi which charset is used in input query. This is required parameter if non-ascii characters are used in query. Results of query will also be presented in that charset.

fm=on | off | lang[,lang,..]

Word forms. Can be comma-separated list of languages or just on or off. In case it is not set to off, s.cgi will search for all forms of specified words, and results with exact word forms will be displayed first.
Example: if word 'create' is specified, then documents containing either 'create' or 'creates' or 'created' will be found.

ad=on

Account distance. If value is on, then s.cgi ranks documents with search terms closer to the beginning higher. Any other value is ignored. Overrides AccountDistance parameter in searchd.conf(5).

ln=url

Link to page. Tells to s.cgi to find pages which have link to the specified url. If protocol in url is omitted, then http:// is implied. If url is not found and last symbol is not '/', than s.cgi tries to find URL with '/' at the end.

Limiting search scope to certain parts of HTML pages

Parameters bd, ds, kw and tl can be used together.

bd=on: Search in body. If value of this parameter is on, then advanced search will be performed only within HTML <BODY>...</BODY>. Any other value is ignored.
ds=on: Search in description. If value of this parameter is on, then advanced search will be performed only within HTML <META NAME="DESCRIPTION"...>. Any other value is ignored.
kw=on: Search in keywords. If value of this parameter is on, then advanced search will be performed only within HTML <META NAME="KEYWORDS"...>. Any other value is ignored.
tl=on: Search in title. If value of this parameter is on, then advanced search will be performed only within HTML <TITLE>...</TITLE>. Any other value is ignored.

Limiting search scope to certain period of dates

dt=back | er | range

Type of time limit. See below.

dp=date

If 'dt' is 'back', that means you want to limit result to recent pages, so you specify that "recentness" in date value, that is specified in the form xxxA[yyyB...], there xxx, yyy are numbers (which can also be negative), and A, B can be one of the following (the letters below are the same as in strptime(3) and strftime(3) functions):

Character Meaning

s second

M minute

h hour

d day

m month

y year

Examples of values for dp parameter:

String Meaning Value, s

4h30m 2 hours and 30 minutes 16200

1Y6m-15d 1 year and six month minus 15 days 45792000

1h-60M+1s 1 hour minus 60 minutes plus 1 second 1

Note that ASPseek do not use minutes and seconds of document's last modification date, so specifying something more precise than hour is useless (but still allowed).

dx=1 | -1

If dt is er (which is short for newer/older), that means the search will be limited to pages newer or older than date given. Parameter dx is newer/older flag, value 1 means "newer" or "after", and value -1 means "older" or "before". The actual date is separated into dd, dm, dy fields as follows.

dd=number

Day of month (1...31)

dm=number

Month (0 - January, 1 - February, .., 11 - December)

dy=number

Year (four digits, for example 2001)

db=dd/mm/yyyy

de=dd/mm/yyyy

If dt is range, that means search within given range of dates. Parameters db and de are used in this case and stands for beginning and ending date, respectively. Each date is in the form dd/mm/yyyy, there dd is day of month number (1...31), mm is month number (1...12), and yyyy is four-digits year.

fr=value

to=value

These parameters are passed to s.cgi in subsequent search pages; they contains date and time in internal format used by s.cgi.

Advanced search

iq=words: Include words. Used in advanced search. If this parameter is not empty, then parameter q is not used.
xq=words: Exclude words. Used in advanced search. All words found in value of this parameter will be added to query with - sign before them.
im=p: Include mode. If value of this parameter is equal to p, then value of parameter iq is double-quoted, which means pages containing phrase must be found.
xm=p: Exclude mode. If value of this parameter is equal to p, then value of parameter xq is double-quoted, which means pages containing phrase must be excluded.
is=site_pattern [site_pattern ...]: Include sites. This parameter is used to restrict search by sites those names contains site_pattern. If several patterns delimited by space are used, then they are ORed. Examples: is=www.google, is=.com.
xs=site_pattern [site_pattern ...]: Exclude sites. This parameter is used to to exclude sites those names contains site_pattern from results. If several patterns delimited by space are used, then they are ORed.
o=number: Use "number+1"th template sections if possible. See "Defining different output formats" subsection in s.htm(5).

ENVIRONMENT

QUERY_STRING: This variable is usually set by web server and contains all the parameters for s.cgi described in OPTIONS above.
ASPSEEK_TEMPLATE
UDMSEARCH_TEMPLATE: Template file to use. Overridden by tmpl parameter. If both variables are used, ASPSEEK_TEMPLATE is preferable.
HTTP_COOKIE: Cookies can be sent by client browser together with request. Web server forms HTTP_COOKIE environment variable from it. s.cgi parses it and uses value of PS section as the number of results per page. This is overridden by ps parameter.
HTTP_HOST: Value is set by web server and is used together with self name to form HREF references to other result pages.
SCRIPT_NAME: Value is set by web server and is used to determine the self name of the script and the name of template file to load (see description of tmpl parameter).
REDIRECT_STATUS
REDIRECT_URL
PATH_TRANSLATED: These variables can possibly be set by web server (for example, by Apache using its "AddHandler" and "Action" directives). If REDIRECT_STATUS is set, s.cgi will get the self name from REDIRECT_URL, and template file name from PATH_TRANSLATED.

FILES

/usr/local/aspseek/etc/s.htm

BUGS

It appears that tmpl parameter is broken since version 1.2.8. Use either ASPSEEK_TEMPLATE environment variable, or rename s.cgi.

NOTES

When parameters are passed in URL, they should be encoded according to RFC 1738. If values are coming from form input fields, they are encoded by browser (so, for example, space character becomes either '+' or '%20'). s.cgi does all appropriate decoding of parameter values and encoding of links to the other pages it generates whenever needed. In this page values are shown in non-encoded form.

AUTHORS

Index

Limiting search scope to certain parts of HTML pages
Limiting search scope to certain period of dates
Advanced search

This document was created by man2html using the manual pages.
Time: 13:43:46 GMT, December 25, 2002

String	Meaning	Value, s
4h30m	2 hours and 30 minutes	16200
1Y6m-15d	1 year and six month minus 15 days	45792000
1h-60M+1s	1 hour minus 60 minutes plus 1 second	1