This document is part of
The Web at Nexor.
Technical Info of ArchiePlex
It is assumed you have read the General Info.
The Components
The different interfaces are implemented in different files:
These interfaces all call the same backend:
which (unless it's running under Plexus) in turn uses
I will look at each of the components in turn.
ArchiePlexEngine
This is meat of the ArchiePlex gateway.
It takes the search description and passes it onto
the command line interface to Archie.
ArchiePlex has been tested with two versions:
- Client version 1.4.1 based upon Prospero version
Beta.4.2E with debugging.)
-
An older version, widely available via Anonymous FTP.
Will not work with the latest Archie Servers (such as
archie.switch.ch
).
-
Prospero client - Version Beta.5.1
-
The client in the latest
Prospero Distribution.
Doesn't work with older Archie Servers (like
archie.nz
and archie.unl.edu
).
Sigh... you can't win.
It then parses the results, and turns them into
HTML on the fly.
Plexus Support
This file contains some support functions to generate
headers and errors which are normally provided by Plexus.
With this module ArchiePlex can run as a CGI script under
any server.
ArchiePlexSimple
This gateway operates very simply:
If there are search arguments it passes them onto the engine.
If there aren't it displays a virtual document prompting
for search words.
ArchiePlex
This gateway is more complex, as it has to encode its
state into the URL, and show different virtual documents
depending on its state.
For example,
http://web.nexor.co.uk/archieplex/server=archie.rutgers.edu/type=substring/order=host
. It
is easy to see the encoding used.
ArchiePlexform
This gateway hasn't got its own virtual document, but
relies on an external document for its interface. This
means this document can be stored in people's home
directories, thus reducing the load on the server. Here
is an example of such a
file.
The gateway again uses the URL to indicate the state. For
example
http://web.nexor.co.uk/archieplexform?query=test&type=Case+Insensitive+Substring+Match&order=host&&server=United+Kingdom
. The
encoding is similar to ArchiePlex, but note the server is
not a FQDN, but a string. The gateway has an associative
array mapping to friendly names to actual hostnames.
Installation of ArchiePlex
All files required for using running ArchiePlex on your own
server have now been combined into a single
distribution.
This includes a README which explains how to set it up.
Martijn koster