NAME
    WWW::Finger - Get useful data from e-mail addresses

VERSION
    0.03

SYNOPSIS
      use WWW::Finger;
      my $finger = WWW::Finger->new("joe@example.com");
      if (defined $finger)
      {
        print $finger->name . "\n";
      }

DESCRIPTION
    This module is *not* an implementation of the finger protocol (RFC
    1288). Use Net::Finger for that. Instead it is a set of implementations
    of *other* methods for getting information from an e-mail address, or
    e-mail-like identifier. This package includes three such
    implementations, and it's pretty easy to create your own additional
    implementations:

    *       WebFinger

    *       Fingerpoint

    *       cpan.org scraper (for user@cpan.org)

    The cpan.org scraper implementation is disabled by default. See
    "IMPLEMENTATIONS" for more details.

  Constructor
    *       "new"

              $finger = WWW::Finger->new($identifier);

            Creates a WWW::Finger object for a particular identifier. Will
            return undef if no implemetation is able to handle the
            identifier

  Object Methods
    Any of these methods can return undef if the appropriate information is
    not available. The "name", "mbox", "homepage", "weblog", "image" and
    "key" methods work in both scalar and list context. Depending on which
    implementation was used by "WWW::Finger::new", the object may also have
    additional methods. Consult the documentation of the various
    implementations for details.

    "name"  The person's name (or handle/nickname).

    "mbox"  The person's e-mail address (including "mailto:").

    "homepage"
            The person's personal homepage.

    "weblog"
            The person's blog. (There may be some overlap with "homepage".)

    "image" An avatar, photo or other image depicting the person.

    "key"   The URL of the person's GPG/PGP public key.

    "webid" A URI uniquely identifying the person. See
            <http://esw.w3.org/topic/WebID>.

    "endpoint"
            A SPARQL Protocol endpoint which may provide additional data
            about the person. (See RDF::Query::Client.)

    "graph" An RDF::Trine::Model object holding data about the person. (See
            RDF::Trine.)

IMPLEMENTATIONS
  Loading Additional Implementations
    When importing this package ("use WWW::Finger") you can pass it a list
    of additional finger implementations to load. For example:

      use WWW::Finger qw(WWW::Finger::CPAN MyCorp::Finger);

    For packages which start with "WWW::Finger::" there is a special
    abbreviation:

      use WWW::Finger qw(+CPAN MyCorp::Finger);

    Assuming the finger implementations are written correctly,
    WWW::Finger->new should just notice they exist and use them when
    appropriate.

    The WebFinger and Fingerpoint implementations are loaded by default.

    To load additional implementations later on (after you've already "used"
    WWW::Finger) you can call the import method:

      WWW::Finger->import(qw(+Foo +Bar MyCorp::Baz));

    There's no official method of removing an already-imported
    implementation, but if you really need to, try playing around with the
    @WWW::Finger::Modules array.

  Calling an Implementation Specifically
    If you need to call a particular implementation specifically, that
    should be fairly simple:

      use WWW::Finger::WebFinger;
      my $finger = WWW::Finger::WebFinger->new("joe@example.com");
      if (defined $finger)
      {
        print $finger->name . "\n";
      }

  Writing Your Own Implementation
    Use this stub:

      package WWW::Finger::Example;
  
      use strict;
      use WWW::Finger;
      use URI;
  
      our @ISA = qw(WWW::Finger);
      our $VERSION = '0.01';
  
      BEGIN { push @WWW::Finger::Modules, __PACKAGE__; }
  
      sub new
      {
        my ($class, $identifier) = @_;
        my $self = {};
    
        # Canonicalise the identifier. You don't have to use
        # "mailto:"; other URI schemes are allowable.
        $identifier = "mailto:$identifier"
          unless $identifier =~ /^[a-z0-9\.\-\+]+:/i;

        # Check whether this package can get useful info
        # from $identifier. If not, then return undef.
        if ('check things here')
        {
          return undef;
        }
    
        $self->{'ident'} = URI->new($identifier);
        bless $self, $class;
      }
  
      # Override WWW::Finger methods like 'name', 'mbox', etc.
      # Feel free to provide additional methods too.
  
      1;

SEE ALSO
    Net::Finger.

    <http://code.google.com/p/webfinger/>.

    <http://buzzword.org.uk/2009/fingerpoint/spec>.

    <http://www.perlrdf.org/>.

AUTHOR
    Toby Inkster, <tobyink@cpan.org>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
    Copyright (C) 2009 by Toby Inkster

    This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
    under the same terms as Perl itself, either Perl version 5.8.1 or, at
    your option, any later version of Perl 5 you may have available.

