BOSSMan – Gem for interaction with the Yahoo BOSS web service

Description

BOSSMan can be used to perform image, web and news searches against Yahoo’s index. For more information about BOSS (Build your Own Search Service) please refer to developer.yahoo.com/search/boss/.

Bugs, Features, Feedback

Feedback would be really appreciated. You can send it to me at [email protected] – tickets can be submitted by using Lighthouse: pignata.lighthouseapp.com/projects/15761-bossman

Example Usage

Web

require ‘rubygems’ require ‘bossman’ include BOSSMan

BOSSMan.application_id = <Your Application ID>

boss = BOSSMan::Search.web(“prospect park”, { :count => 5, :filter => “-hate” })

puts “Number of results: #bossboss.totalhits” puts

boss.results.each do |result| puts “#resultresult.title” puts “-” * 80 puts “#resultresult.abstract” puts end

News

require ‘rubygems’ require ‘bossman’ include BOSSMan

BOSSMan.application_id = <Your Application ID>

boss = BOSSMan::Search.news(“brooklyn new york”, { :age => “7d” })

boss.results.each do |result| puts “#resultresult.title [from #resultresult.source]” puts “-” * 80 puts “#resultresult.abstract” puts

Images

require ‘rubygems’ require ‘bossman’ include BOSSMan

BOSSMan.application_id = <Your Application ID>

boss = BOSSMan::Search.images(“brooklyn dumbo”, { :dimensions => “large” })

boss.results.each do |result| puts “#resultresult.url: #resultresult.abstract” end

Spelling

require ‘rubygems’ require ‘bossman’ include BOSSMan BOSSMan.application_id = <Your Application ID> boss = BOSSMan::Search.spelling(“Diabretes”) puts boss.suggestion

Output Objects

Assuming an object bossed called search:

search = BOSSMan::Search.web(“staten island”, 0, 20)

Common

search.responsecode : HTTP response code search.nextpage : REST URL to next page of search results search.count : Number of search results contained in response search.start : Search result from which output starts search.totalhits : De-duplicated total number of results search yielded search.deephits : Total number of results search yielded search.results[].clickurl : Tracking URL of result; must be used in user-facing anchor tags by BOSS TOU search.results[].url : URL of result

Web

search.results[].abstract : Description of result with keywords emboldened search.results[].title : Document title with keywords emboldened search.results[].dispurl : Display URL of result search.results[].size : Size of result in bytes search.results[].date : Date result was indexed

News

search.results[].abstract : Description of news story search.results[].title : Title of news story search.results[].language : Language of news story search.results[].date : Last publication date of news story search.results[].time : Last publication time of news story search.results[].source : Source of news story search.results[].sourceurl : URL of source publication

Images

search.results[].abstract : Description of image search.results[].filename : Filename of image search.results[].size : Size of image search.results[].format : Format of image search.results[].height : Height of full-size image search.results[].date : Last modification date of image (YYYY/MM/DD) search.results[].mimetype : MIME type of image search.results[].refererclickurl : Link to page where image was found search.results[].refererurl : Link to page where image was found search.results[].title : Title of image (usually the filename) search.results[].width : Width of full-size image search.results[].thumbnailurl : URL of thumbnail image search.results[].thumbnail_height : Height of thumbnail image search.results[].thumbnail_width : Width of thumbnail image

Spelling

search.suggestion : Returns spelling suggestion from BOSS

Raw dump formats

Resultsets are returnable in JSON, XML and YAML by use of to_json, to_xml (or to_s), to_yaml respectively.

search : dumps XML of entire resultset search.to_json : dumps JSON of entire resultset search.to_yaml : dumps YAML of entire resultset search.results : dumps XML of one search result search.results.to_json : dumps JSON of one search result search.results.to_yaml : dumps YAML of one search result

Installation

jp@populuxe:~/code/ruby$ gem sources -a http://gems.github.com
jp@populuxe:~/code/ruby$ gem install jpignata-bossman

Requirements

  • Active Support >= 2.1

LICENSE:

(The MIT License)

Copyright © 2008 Jay Pignata

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the ‘Software’), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ‘AS IS’, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.