# NAME **WWW::Hackernews::Parser** - a Perl interface to [Hackernews](http://news.ycombinator.com/) stories and data. # SYNOPSIS use Hackernews::Parser; my $top_hash_ref = hn_parse( 'top', '1' ); # equivalent to: my $other_top_hash_ref = hn_parse(); my $second_newest = hn_parse( 'new', '2' ); # DEPENDENCIES * **perl** - version 5.10 or above * **LWP::Simple** - Debian package: [libwww-perl](http://packages.debian.org/stable/libwww-perl) # DESCRIPTION The only subroutine of `Hackernews::Parser` is `hn_parse`. It takes the following arguments: 1. **target** - This is what page to download the data from; is either `top` or `new`. Defaults to `top`. 2. **number** - This is the rank of the story. `1` is the top story, and so on. Defaults to `1`. 3. **datum** - This is the name of the datum and hash key to be returned (list follows). The default is `all`, which returns the hash ref as a scalar. Note: the arguments are shifted _in the order listed above_. That means if you want to pass a number, you must also pass a target. Likewise, if you want to pass a hash key, you must pass a target **and** a number before it. The subroutine stores data in an anonymous hash that may contain any of the following keys, depending on what the pattern was able to match: * **age\_qty** - the numercal value of the age * **age\_unit** - either hour(s)or minute(s) * **age\_sec** - age in seconds calculated by the above * **comments** - number of comments * **desc** - description * **domain** - the domain on which the link is hosted * **id** - the unique numerical identification number of the link * **points** - the "karma" level of the link * **user** - the name of the user who posted the link # SEE ALSO [perldoc](http://perldoc.perl.org/perldoc.html), LWP::Simple # COPYRIGHT Copyright 2011 Daniel Bolton. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 3.0 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts. # THANKS I would like to give thanks to [telemachus](https://github.com/telemachus), [tornow](https://github.com/tornow), and [initself](http://blogs.perl.org/users/initself/) for helping me with this project. # BUGS If you find a bug, file an issue on the project's Github page. If you have code to contribute, fork the repository and file a pull request. The URI is: