WebCopy v0.96b 95/01/31

Copyright 1994, 1995 by Víctor Parada (vparada@inf.utfsm.cl).

Copy files (recursively) via HTTP protocol.

Description:

WebCopy is a perl program that retrieves the URL specified in the unix command line. It can also retrieve recursively any file that an HTML file references, i.e. inlined images and/or anchors, if specified with an option.

It can be used as a "mirror" program to retrieve a tree of documents from a remote site, and put them on-line immediately through the local server.

By default, only the document pointed by the URL in the command line is retrieved. Many switches can be specified in the command line and each option enables one type reference to follow.

To avoid endless recursion, only files at one site can be retrieved with one command. WebCopy never follows links to files not in the same host, port number and protocol (only HTTP supported) of the first document retrieved. A list of discarded URLs are logged for future references.

Syntax:

webcopy [options] http://host:port/path/file

Options (can be combined):

-o

output through stdout

-v

operates in verbose mode

-q

query each URL to transfer

-s

do not log in 'W.log'

-wpath

set working directory to 'path'

-xfile

set default index.html to 'file'

-r

recurse HTML documents (same as -il)

-i

include inlined images

-l

follow hypertext links

-m

allow imagemaps (not available yet)

-c

allow links to CGI scripts (require -paf)

-a

allow absolute references to the same host

-f

allow full URL references to the same host

-p

allow paths other than current (-d recommended)

-d

keep directory path in URL for local file

-u

use local copy of file if exists

-h

help (ignores other options specified)

License Agreement and Lack of Warranty:

• The author of this program is Victor Parada <vparada@inf.utfsm.cl>.
• This program is "Freeware", not "Public Domain".
• This program must be distributed for free, and cannot be included in commercial packages without prior written permisson from the autor.
• This program cannot be distributed if modified in any way.
• This program can be used by anyone if the copyright and this notice remains intact in every file.
• If you modify this program, please e-mail patches to the the author.
• This is a Beta version of the program. You have been warned!
• This program is provided ``AS IS'', without any warranty.
• This program can cause huge file transfers and all the related effects.
• This program can fill data disks without notice.
• Bug reports, comments, questions and suggestions are welcome! But please check first that you have the latest version!

If you (want to) use this program, please send e-mail to the author. He will try to notify you of any updates made to it.

System Requirements:

• perl interpreter (either 4.036 or 5.000 or later).
• TCP/IP connection and Sockets.
• Space on disk.
• A machine with all the above available.

Down-loading and Setting-Up:

1. Make sure you have the System Requirements above.
2. Get the latest version of WebCopy from its home FTP server: ftp://ftp.inf.utfsm.cl/pub/utfsm/perl/webcopy.tgz
   This is a gzip'ed tar archive.
3. Untar the file with the command: "tar -xzvf webcopy.tgz" (GNU version of tar).
4. Make sure you got the following files in a subdir called webcopy:
   • webcopy
   • webcopy.html
5. Use an HTML browser to read the info about License Agreement and Lack of Warranty in webcopy.html.
6. Edit the first line of webcopy if your perl interpreter is not located at /usr/local/bin/perl.
7. Move webcopy to a situable directory.
8. Use it at your own risk!

If you cannot do gunzip or tar, please send e-mail to the author. He will try to send you a shar'ed copy of it :-)