        ______  _     _  ______   _______  ______   _______  _  _  _
       / _____)(_)   (_)(_____ \ (_______)(_____ \ (_______)(_)(_)(_)
      ( (____   _     _  _____) ) _____    _____) ) _______  _  _  _
       \____ \ | |   | ||  __  / |  ___)  |  __  / |  ___  || || || |
       _____) )| |___| || |  \ \ | |      | |  \ \ | |   | || || || |
      (______/  \_____/ |_|   |_||_|      |_|   |_||_|   |_| \_____/
                                                               
      Surfraw - Shell Users' Revolutionary Front Rage Against the Web
		     http://surfraw.sourceforge.net/

				 Oh Baybe
				I need some
			       Deep Linking
				 Let us go
			    Surfin' in the raw!

  Surfraw provides a fast unix command line interface to a variety of
  popular WWW search engines and other artifacts of power. It reclaims
  google, altavista, babelfish, dejanews, freshmeat, research index,
  slashdot and many others from the false-prophet, pox-infested heathen
  lands of html-forms, placing these wonders where they belong, deep in
  unix heartland, as god loving extensions to the shell.

  Surfraw abstracts the browser away from input. Doing so lets it get on
  with what it's good at. Browsing. Interpretation of linguistic forms
  is handed back to the shell, which is what it, and human beings are
  good at. Combined with netscape-remote or incremental text browsers,
  such as links (http://artax.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~mikulas/links/), w3m
  (http://www.w3m.org/), and screen(1) a Surfraw liberateur is capable
  of navigating speeds that leave GUI tainted idolaters agape with fear
  and wonder.

  For example: 

         $ ask why is jeeves gay?
	 $ google -results=100 RMS, GNU, which is sinner, which is sin?
	 $ austlii -method=phrase dog like
	 $ rhyme -method=perfect Julian

  Global options are common to all Surfraw elvi (clients). You can
  get a list of the currently installed elvi by just typing `surfraw'.
  For example:

  $ surfraw
W               -- Activate Surfraw defined web-browser
altavista       -- Search the web using Altavista (http://www.altavista.com)
appwatch        -- Search entries on Appwatch (http://www.appwatch.com)
ask             -- Question the web using Ask Jeeves (http://www.ask.com)
austlii         -- Search Australian Law docs using Austlii (http://www.austlii.edu.au)
cite            -- Search the web using Cite Seer (http://www.researchindex.com)
cnn             -- Search on CNN (http://cnn.com)
currency        -- Abuse the Universal Currency Converter (http://www.xe.net/ucc)
deja            -- Search usenet using Deja News (http://www.dejanews.com)
excite          -- Search on Excite (http://www.excite.com)
fast            -- Search the web using FAST Search (http://www.ussc.alltheweb.com/)
freshmeat       -- Search Freshmeat (http://www.freshmeat.net)
ftpsearch       -- Search files on ftpsearch (http://ftpsearch.lycos.com)
google          -- Search the web using Google (http://www.google.com)
ircsearch       -- Search irc channels Liszt (http://www.liszt.com)
jake            -- Search journal/databases in jake (http://jake.med.yale.edu)
linuxdoc        -- Search entries in LDP (http://www.linuxdoc.org)
netbsd          -- Search NetBSD related information (http://www.netbsd.org)
newscientist    -- Search New Scientist magazine (http://www.newscientist.com)
pubmed          -- Search medical/molbio databases (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
raging          -- Search the web using Raging (http://www.raging.com)
rhyme           -- Search for rhymes et al using Lycos Rhyme (http://rhyme.lycos.com)
slashdot        -- Search stories on Slashdot (http://www.slashdot.org)
stockquote      -- Get a single stock quote (multiple providers)
sundocs         -- Search docs on Sun.com (http://docs.sun.com)
sunsolve        -- Search public docs on Sunsolve (http://sunsolve.sun.com)
thesaurus       -- Look up word in Merriam-Webster's Thesaurus (http://www.m-w.com)
translate       -- Translate human languages (various providers)
webster         -- Look up word in Merriam-Webster's Dictionary (http://www.m-w.com)
wetandwild      -- Real time weather information (many sources)
xxx             -- Superior XXX, hot and ready to press (http://arXiv.org)
yahoo           -- Search Yahoo categories (http://www.yahoo.com)

  All elvi have highly useful low calorie help, for example:

         $ rhyme -help
Usage: rhyme [options] [search words]...
Description:
  Surfraw search for rhymes and other word correlations using
  Lycos Rhyme (http://rhyme.lycos.com/)
Example:
  $ rhyme Julian
  $ rhyme -method=rel surfer
Results:
  Hurclean St. Julien.
  surfboarder, bather, natator, swimmer
Local options:
  -method=                      Type of word correlation to search for
          prefect       |       Perfect rhyme
          syn           |       Synonyms
          hom           |       Homophones
          cons          |       Consonsant rhymes only
          rel           |       Semantically related words
          sub           |       Phrases
          spell         |       Similar spellings
          pic           |       Pictures
          shake         |       Match with Shakespeare archives
          def                   Find wordnet definition
                                Default: perfect
                                Environment: SURFRAW_rhyme_method
Global options:
  -browser=EXECUTABLE           Set browser
                                Default: links
                                Environment: SURFRAW_browser
  -elvi                         Display a list of other Surfraw mechanims for
                                conquering evil
  -escape-url-args=yes|no       Apply url escaping to arguments
                                Default: yes
                                Environment: SURFRAW_escape_url_args
  -p0rn=yes|no                  Yes, yes, harder, deeper, faster, oh baybe
                                Default: yes
                                Environment: SURFRAW_p0rn
  -help                         What you're reading now, dude
  -quiet=yes|no                 I can't enjoy it with you talking all the time
                                Default: no
                                Environment: SURFRAW_quiet
  -q|quote                      Bracket arguments with " characters
                                Default: no
                                Environment: SURFRAW_quote_args
  -version                      Display Surfraw version (0.5.5)
Copyright:
  Copyright (c) 2000 Julian Assange <proff@iq.org>
  Copyright (c) 2000 Melbourne Institute for Advanced Study
  ---

  The system wide configuration file can be found in:

	SURFRAW_global_conf	@sysconfdir@/surfraw.conf

  Where @sysconfdir@ is something like /etc, or /usr/local/etc

  Each user can also specify their own overrides in:

 	 SURFRAW_conf		$HOME/.surfraw.conf

  Read HACKING. Surfrawize the soul of your favourite internet wonder.
  Join the Shell Users' Revolutionary Front Against the WWW by
  submitting code. Reclaim heathen lands. Bear witness to the
  truth. Its love will set you free.

  Copyright (c) 2000 Julian Assange <proff@iq.org>
  Copyright (c) 2000 Melbourne Institute of Advanced Study

  Surfraw is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
  it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
  the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
  (at your option) any later version.

  This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
  but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
  MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
  GNU General Public License for more details.

  You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
  along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
  Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA

Comments are welcome.

	- Julian Assange <proff@iq.org>

  $Id: README,v 1.8 2000/09/26 19:49:25 proff Exp $
