package LWP;

$VERSION = "5.812";
sub Version { $VERSION; }

require 5.005;
require LWP::UserAgent;  # this should load everything you need

1;

__END__

=head1 NAME

LWP - The World-Wide Web library for Perl

=head1 SYNOPSIS

  use LWP;
  print "This is libwww-perl-$LWP::VERSION\n";


=head1 DESCRIPTION

The libwww-perl collection is a set of Perl modules which provides a
simple and consistent application programming interface (API) to the
World-Wide Web.  The main focus of the library is to provide classes
and functions that allow you to write WWW clients. The library also
contain modules that are of more general use and even classes that
help you implement simple HTTP servers.

Most modules in this library provide an object oriented API.  The user
agent, requests sent and responses received from the WWW server are
all represented by objects.  This makes a simple and powerful
interface to these services.  The interface is easy to extend
and customize for your own needs.

The main features of the library are:

=over 3

=item *

Contains various reusable components (modules) that can be
used separately or together.

=item *

Provides an object oriented model of HTTP-style communication.  Within
this framework we currently support access to http, https, gopher, ftp, news,
file, and mailto resources.

=item *

Provides a full object oriented interface or
a very simple procedural interface.

=item *

Supports the basic and digest authorization schemes.

=item *

Supports transparent redirect handling.

=item *

Supports access through proxy servers.

=item *

Provides parser for F<robots.txt> files and a framework for constructing robots.

=item *

Supports parsing of HTML forms.

=item *

Implements HTTP content negotiation algorithm that can
be used both in protocol modules and in server scripts (like CGI
scripts).

=item *

Supports HTTP cookies.

=item *

Some simple command line clients, for instance C<lwp-request> and C<lwp-download>.

=back


=head1 HTTP STYLE COMMUNICATION


The libwww-perl library is based on HTTP style communication. This
section tries to describe what that means.