# $File: //depot/OurNet-BBSAgent/README $ $Author: autrijus $ # $Revision: #4 $ $Change: 1980 $ $DateTime: 2001/10/06 17:34:01 $ This is the README file for OurNet::BBSAgent, a scriptable telnet-based virtual user utility, by Elixir Group and OurInternet Inc. * Installation OurNet::BBSAgent uses the standard perl module install process: perl Makefile.PL make make install * Copyright Copyright 2001 by Autrijus Tang . This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. See . * Introduction Besides static page-based sites, many Internet services needs to interact with users, like BBS, IRC, ICQ and Telnet services. There are no "search engines" or "portals" for these services, simply because it was very difficult to automatically gather their contents, or to post data on them. OurNet::BBSAgent provides an object-oriented interface to those services, by simulating as a "virtual user" with action defined by a script language. The developer could then use the same methods to access different services, to easily implement interactive robots, spiders, or other cross-service agents. The scripting language of OurNet::BBSAgent is easy to learn, powerful, and has both flow-control and event-driven capabilities. The engine also accepts action scripts written in another language. Multiple agents could be dispatched simultaneously with multi-threading support.